ProBicycle: Bicycle Advocacy BY Bicyclists
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Toy Bicycle
Grouped with pedestrians as a Pedestrian-On-Wheels.
Separate, limited, dangerous, slow, substandard restricted system of lanes and paths.
Special classification of access, rights and rules.
Dangerous shared pedestrian paths.
Go somewhere to ride
Vehicular Cycling
Same rights and legal standing as every other vehicle operator.
Enforce safe sharable road design policies. Accommodation on every road. Sharable-width lanes, bikeable shoulders.
Same Roads – Same Rights – Same Rules
The safest form of recreational and utility cycling- by far.
Ride to go somewhere
The Shameful State of American Advocacy.
Who claims to speak for You? Are you sure they do?
“Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.”
Do you feel that 93% of federal funding for bicycle transportation should be used for shared pedestrian/bicycle paths and trails with less than 2% going for such things as education, sharable-width lanes and bikeable shoulders? Does your bicycle advocacy organization measure success in terms of ribbon-cutting ceremonies? If so, congratulations- you are a modern American “bicycle” advocate and you are well represented. Transportation planners, state and federal departments of transportation, government funded bicycle-pedestrian groups, bike manufacturers associations and trade groups, powerful path and trail building organizations, environmental and outdoor recreation organizations, the motoring majority, and tragically many well-meaning cyclists and essentially every cycling club, organization and alliance all have your interests in mind.
“If American bicycle advocacy leaders had championed the civil rights movement, the “Dream” would have been reserved seating in the back of the bus.”
– Jack R. Taylor
How did this happen, and how does it continue?
The Toy-Bicycle Syndrome began in the 1950’s and is based upon the concept of bicycling as children’s’ play activity, which in fact it largely was in the America of 1950. In the 1970’s a fitness-crazed adult American public discovered the modern lightweight 10-speed bicycle and the “bike boom” began. Millions of cyclists took to the roads and panic set in with motorists and transportation planners that had long held the belief that bicycles belonged on sidewalks. Thirty years later, those same concepts prevail and control the American bicycling environment.
Worse than ignorance alone, the American public and transportation establishment base their beliefs and actions on a false foundation. Motorists and the vast majority of bicycle owners have no understanding of the concepts and safety of proper cycling and how easy it is for motorists and cyclists to coexist. Rather than working for the little that is needed to make vehicular cycling safe, easy and practical on every road, American bicycle advocacy, decisions and goals are invariably based on the toy-bicycle syndrome.
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Probicycle Quotable
My wife thinks cycling is a great way to spend time as a family while burning a few calories. For her, the family ride is quality time. Then again, she does not have the trailer with 50 or so stuffed animals and the 2-year-old singing “Old McDonald” attached to her bike.
– John Kibodeaux
Since the bicycle makes little demand on material or energy resources, contributes little to pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little death or injury, it can be regarded as the most benevolent of machines.
– S. S. Wilson
Once folks are grown up, it seems, we are supposed to propel ourselves by burning petroleum.
– Murray Carpenter
Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.
accept facilities that prevent the roadway from being improved for cycling.
In every case that one can think of, cycling on a properly-designed roadway
with adequate width for the traffic it carries, is better for cyclists than
any other system.
The idea that a significant amount of transportation will be done by politically correct people who have been enticed by false promises of safety to ride on slow and dangerous bike paths deserves all the jeering it receives. Basing the national cycling program on such a pathetic hypothesis is a scientific disgrace.
– John Forester , Author “Effective Cycling”
More at johnforester.com
NOTE: 2010: “Bicycle Transportation” is scheduled for reprint. You can wait and not pay $100’s for a hard to find copy.
From the Rome News-Tribune:
A 6-year-old child was transported to Floyd Medical Center for treatment of a leg injury today after his bicycle rode into traffic and struck a passing car.
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Wonderfully brilliant satire, but I wonder how many people will actually know this is a satire, as it drips of proper bureaucratic-speak, which is all many “bicycle advocates” want to hear or know how to listen to.
– Wade Smith
Devil’s Bicycle Advocate
Devil’s Bicycle Advocate
by Jack Taylor
Think, question and maybe change – maybe not. But above all else, think.
Reprints permitted with credit and probicycle.com address.
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“Now that we have hit upon the Blue Biker idea, it seems pretty obvious that the concept that drove the Blue Bike Lane program was only the beginning. It seems there may be no limit to what paint can do.”Question? Comment? Suggestion?
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