Bike Lanes Aren’t Communist: Why Multimodal Streets Spark Insults and Culture Wars

I found a multimodal capacity graphic last week and thought it would be nice to post it to my X account. I didn’t realize what a firestorm it would create. It was like tossing a vegan burger into a barbecue pit.

It started off fine, with a few people responding, “Wow, car lanes really are an inefficient way to move people.”, and then gradually degenerated into accusations of fascism, communism, veganism, paganism and even environmentalism (the horror). Many responses equated automobile-only streets with freedom and stated that there would be “total civil war” if “communist-planners” tried to “firebomb” their neighborhoods with bike lanes or buses. I was then accused of being part of a MAGA takeover of America! That’s when I closed my laptop.

Apparently, the multimodal allocation of street right-of-way is now a central front in the culture wars, which is unfortunate. Something that most other countries have built on a mass scale and in a (mostly) apolitical way is now subject to the same politics that have infected almost every other aspect of our culture.

Accusations and hyperbole are the lowest form of discourse. I’m someone who sees streets as public spaces that should serve everyone, not just one mode of transport. Other countries like the Netherlands or Japan have figured this out, blending cars, bikes, and buses without descending into chaos or “civil war.” Their streets are safer, their cities more livable. Why can’t we have the same thing? The backlash I faced on X wasn’t fundamentally about bike lanes or buses. It was about fear of change, amplified by a polarized culture that turns every idea into a tribal litmus test.

Another big part of the pushback is how America’s mono-modal infrastructure created a culture where people can see no other alternative. If you drive your entire life, see highways expanding to the horizon everywhere you go, and have no other transportation options other than your SUV, an entire culture is created that looks at the graphic I posted as something weird, foreign, and invasive.

I didn’t realize Lenin mandated bike lanes in Russia.

Some of the responses I got were somewhat reasonable. Someone from a small town said he will never ride transit because it’s too inconvenient. That’s obvious and true. There are places where transit will never work. But there are also many other places where it can. One size doesn’t fit all, and many responses assumed city planners wanted to make these changes to every street.

But other responses were crazy. So here are some of the arguments I heard in my X replies and brief rebuttals to all of them. Enjoy.

• "Multimodal streets take away freedom from drivers."

  • Rebuttal: Multimodal streets expand freedom by giving people choices. Drive, bike, walk, or take transit. Freedom isn’t just for drivers; it’s for everyone to move safely and efficiently. Car-centric streets limit options for non-drivers, which isn’t liberty. It’s exclusion.

• "This is a communist plot to control people."

  • Rebuttal: Multimodal streets are about efficiency, not control. Data shows bikes and buses move more people per square foot than cars (e.g., a bus lane can carry 10x more people per hour than a car lane). Communism? More like common sense-ism. Capitalist countries like the Netherlands and Japan use multimodal systems successfully, and they are hardly communist strongholds. Giving people affordable transportation options isn’t control. It’s good public policy.

• "Bike and bus lanes are anti-car and anti-American."

  • Rebuttal: Multimodal streets don’t ban cars; they balance them with other modes. American cities like New York and Minneapolis have added bike lanes while keeping robust car infrastructure. This isn’t anti-car. It’s pro-choice and pro-practicality, aligning with American values of innovation and fairness. In fact, most American cities started out with large streetcar networks that were torn up for highways. Our cities were designed around transit in the late 19th/early 20th century. If anything, transit is more pro-American that cars.

    

    Our cities started out walkable and filled with streetcars

• "These changes are part of a globalist agenda to force people out of cars."

  • Rebuttal: Nobody is forcing people out of their cars. Multimodal streets provide options, not mandates. Cities like Copenhagen design streets for people, not ideology, and their economies thrive. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s urban planning based on evidence, not politics.

• "Communist planners want to destroy suburbs with bike lanes."

  • Rebuttal: Multimodal streets are tailored to context. Suburbs can have bike paths or better bus service without “destroying” anything. The goal is access, not upheaval. Suburbs in Germany and Canada have multimodal options, and they’re still suburban, not socialist dystopias where people live in “pods”.

• “Nobody is going to take my car from me.”

  • Relax. We don’t want your rusty pickup. Keep it.

• "Public transit and bike lanes are for people who can’t afford cars."

  • Rebuttal: Multimodal options benefit everyone, including drivers, by reducing congestion (e.g., one bus can replace 50 cars in traffic). Wealthy cities like Zurich invest heavily in transit and cycling, proving it’s about quality of life, not poverty or ideology.

• "This is government overreach forcing lifestyle changes."

  • Rebuttal: Streets are public spaces, and governments already decide their design (e.g., stoplights, speed limits). Multimodal planning isn’t overreach. It’s the government doing its job to serve all citizens, not just drivers, using data-driven solutions. If anything, USDOT and HUD forced a lifestyle change on everyone in the mid-20th century when they subsidized endless auto-centric sprawl and highways. The Auto-Centric American Suburban Lifestyle is a result of central, nationalized planning efforts and funding at the top levels of government. Multimodal streets are a result of localized, democratic planning efforts which depend on context and community input. Two very different things.

• "Bike lanes and buses will lead to civil unrest or war."

  • Rebuttal: Really? Remember when civil war broke out when Bogota installed their BRT system? Neither do I. Hyperbole doesn’t match reality. Cities worldwide have added bike and bus lanes without sparking unrest. These changes often increase safety and community satisfaction, as seen in studies (e.g., 70% approval for protected bike lanes in NYC surveys).

• “Taking space away from cars will lead to gridlock”

  • Case studies of lane repurposing projects around the country show that allocating space to alternate modes can actually improve traffic flow by providing transportation options and re-balancing automobile volumes to other streets. While induced demand increases traffic when new traffic lanes are built, the inverse is also true. Many lane repurposing projects actually show a decrease in automobile traffic once the street changes are built.

    

    ADT (Average Daily Traffic) can actually decrease once multimodal improvements are made to a street. Source: University of Portland

• Finally, “Multimodal streets are communist”

  • One of the definitions of communism is a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production. If we consider the automobile lobby and an entire profession dedicated to moving cars as a single, authoritarian party, and if we consider our transportation network as a means of production, it could be argued that building a mono-modal street network exclusively for cars is the true communism.

There you have it. Hopefully this dispelled the myth that bike lanes are a communist takeover of America. What are your thoughts? Are bike lanes communist? Leave your thoughts in the comments. I’m ready for round two.