Your cycling fallacy is…
“Converting road space into cycleways slows down motor traffic which makes air pollution worse”
The response
The idea behind this fallacy is that taking road space away from motor vehicles will increase congestion, resulting in more motor traffic jams, thus increasing amount of pollution they generate.
But where roads are already busy, pollution levels will already be high, and in the examples of cycling infrastructure taking road space from cars there has been minimal difference in the levels of congestion and pollution.
The argument follows reasonable ‘common sense’ principles, but it naïvely presumes that removing road space has no effect on peoples’ choice of transport mode – adding more space for motoring has been shown to induce demand (i.e. encourage more people to drive) while creating safe environment for cycling has been shown to enable people to switch to cycling for journeys which otherwise would be driven.
Related fallacies
Further reading
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Can air pollution negate the health benefits of cycling and walking? — ScienceDirect
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Each car in London costs NHS and society £8,000 due to air pollution, report finds — The Independent
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Pollution warning over car tyre and brake dust — BBC
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Is urban cycling worth the risk? — Financial Times
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Study finds London's most congested roads AREN'T on cycle routes — Road.cc
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Do bike lanes cause air pollution? Nope. In fact, they can fight climate change. — Tree Hugger
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Ignore the toxic myth about bike lanes and pollution — The Guardian
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Polluted thinking — As Easy as Riding a Bike
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Why are politicians getting away with bike lane claims based on hearsay? — The Guardian
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Andrew Gilligan blog: superhighways congestion and selective statistics — Andrew Gilligan's blog
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Air pollution stats in London before / after superhighway opens — Twitter
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East-West Cycle Superhighway appears not to be causing pollution — ExplorerSquare
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