TLDR: Suburban Republican legislators got unreasonably angry over an urban bike lane being installed, they demanded an expensive study to prove bike lanes are bad for cars. Study found bike lanes cause no harm to car traffic, but the construction company should have helped businesses and emergency services more during the construction phase. Suburban Republicans still mad they weren’t consulted first, still plan on vetoing any future traffic calming in a city they don’t live in despite screaming “local control” about other issues.
I think there are a lot of people who base their personal worth to a large part on how expensive and huge their car is. When they are sitting in their ludicrous status symbol and get overtaken by some common pauper on a form of transport that is effectively free, it must hurt their ego. Hence the hatred of bike lanes in general.
That’s my theory anyway.
I agree with your sentiment. I think it’s also intertwined with people feeling personally attacked when faced with being wrong about something.
The inability to admit being mistaken is a sad mindset to have.
Similarly, I think part of the issue is that people want to believe that life is simple and that the explanations they learned when they were younger are concrete and inviolate. It’s why conservatives are so resentful of “book learning” and novel and counter-intuitive interpretations of phenomena because it challenges their simplistic view of the world which reveals that they have less control and understanding than they thought. Conservatives don’t like that feeling so they lash out.
