public works projects are interesting. while the citizens of a municipality should have a say, in this situation business owners perceive an advantage to this change and are willing to more aggressively lobby for it than those citizens. this does not exactly even mean it will truly advantage them, perhaps the bike traffic does help their business more than the parking (this is the case where we live). or perhaps they are right. regardless, the typical bicyclist will have much less motivation to voice their opinion(s), as they can be encouraged to just take another route or contend with the traffic, as annoying and dangerous as it is. advocating for this stuff often requires going to meeting halls and so forth, which takes time, social effort, and the courage to disagree with very motivated business people!

still, if you want stuff to change where you live, do go to your city/county/other local meetings relating to the problems you want to provide your perspective on. it's definitely some effort, frequently a lot of it! but its often not a case of "someone will voice this opinion in the meeting, so i don't gotta go", and you attending really can make a difference. different municipalities of course have their own attitudes. maybe they won't listen to you at all, or maybe the meeting has been widely advertised and many are attending it!

regarding this proposition in particular, what we will say is that where we live, the expenses this project would result in could equate in value to the funds that our city's fareless and very awesome bus transit system uses to maintain their fleet over the course of years! of course it's not as simple as that, but 1.2 million dollars is still a lot of dollars.

p.s.: we bicycle everywhere if we aren't walking or taking the bus. where we live there is one of these three lane downtown roads. it sucks. the other downtown areas are a lot better but three lanes is very uncomfortable to bike through. please support your local bicycle infrastructure!