Is anti vc anti motoring?

[The Human Car]

Also with respect to the governmental bikeway system and its encouragement of incompetent cycling, there has never been a direct test demonstrating that bikeways make cycling safer and more convenient, either with the present cycling population and, naturally, never against cycling in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. All such demonstrations have been mixed with confounding factors, or have considered nothing more than motorists overtaking cyclists. In short, the bikeway system got started by motorists to suit their own desires and has never been tested for what it does.

Re: there has never been a direct test... with the [then] present cycling population
Generification! Get these damn yuppies off my road! I learned to ride when there was 50% less traffic, so I don't get what the problem is with todays kids.

Re: In short, the bikeway system got started by motorists
Let's pull out the old historic creation myth, because evil was present during the incarnation it can never be removed even by powerful good witches like The Charmed Ones.

All you are telling us is once upon a time you failed to make a convincing argument and over the years in trying to improve that argument, it still fails to convince. You write like you majored in English and are trying to tell a fictional story and nothing more. As much as you try to set the rules and make biased terms to force the conclusion you want, that just isn't how debating works.

Incompetent cycling bikeways that don't operate according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, OMG, the sky is falling and only disaster can result. Only that the sky has not fallen and no disaster has been reported but it's up to "us" to counter your false premises otherwise the sky has indeed fallen, right.

[John Forester]

Wow. Such anger over nationally accepted standards of planning for roadway bicycle traffic.

to the crowd, as JF is incorrigible - can road diets be misconstrued as 'anti-motoring'? they improve roadway safety and do not negatively impact ADT of roads. they smooth traffic flow, provide a host of safety measures for all road users and are commonly associated with increases in road safety for peds and bicyclists and increases in roadway bicycling. been done for over 40 years in cities that are progressively planning for bicycle traffic and overall roadway safety.



vimeo- moving beyond the automobile - road diets



Incessantly smearing promotions of roadway safety and bicycling as 'anti-motoring' perhaps showcases a furtive allegiance contrary to bicycling.

Dear Bek, please learn what is relevant to the discussion and what is not. A dieted road is not a bikeway. The bikeways that I oppose are bike lanes, side paths, and cycle tracks.

[John Forester]

Re: there has never been a direct test... with the [then] present cycling population
Generification! Get these damn yuppies off my road! I learned to ride when there was 50% less traffic, so I don't get what the problem is with todays kids.

Re: In short, the bikeway system got started by motorists
Let's pull out the old historic creation myth, because evil was present during the incarnation it can never be removed even by powerful good witches like The Charmed Ones.

All you are telling us is once upon a time you failed to make a convincing argument and over the years in trying to improve that argument, it still fails to convince. You write like you majored in English and are trying to tell a fictional story and nothing more. As much as you try to set the rules and make biased terms to force the conclusion you want, that just isn't how debating works.

Incompetent cycling bikeways that don't operate according to the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, OMG, the sky is falling and only disaster can result. Only that the sky has not fallen and no disaster has been reported but it's up to "us" to counter your false premises otherwise the sky has indeed fallen, right.

When I state that the bikeway designs have never been tested to determine whether they live up to the promises made for them, reducing car-bike collisions and reducing the level of skill required for safe cycling, HC produces a weird reply that has nothing to do with the issue being discussed, and appears to carry no meaning at all.

HC maintains that the bikeway system, with designs largely unaltered and the same repressive laws, now causes traffic to act differently than it did before. He should not make such a claim unless there is evidence to support his claim, and I know of no such evidence.

HC argues that I have misused the rules of debate by "try[ing] to set the rules and make biased terms to force a conclusion [I] want." I don't agree. As for setting the rules, I have been trying to keep discussion within the rules, in the face of people who keep going outside the rules of debate because they don't like the result of staying within the rules. If the discussion is largely in opposition to my views, then it has to be about my views, not about what somebody else might think are my views, and other irrelevancies.

HC claims that I make biased terms. I suspect that he means the distinction between competent and incompetent cyclist traffic behavior. Well, with respect to roadway operation, our society has established that the lowest acceptable level of competence is obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. Persons who drive on the roadway without obeying those rules are, at least, behaving incompetently, and possibly criminally. I did not make, or invent, this distinction; I simply used the accepted existing standard.

Finally, HC gets around to what might be a serious issue, although he cannot treat it seriously. That is, should cyclists obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles? HC's argument, or at least his string of words, appears to say that he thinks it is irrelevant whether cyclists obey those rules or not. HC has a point, for he is presenting the majority branch of American policy regarding bicycle traffic that has existed for at least seventy years. However, there is strong evidence that obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles is best for cyclists in terms of the standard criteria of safety and convenience. That is what they should do, according to the minority branch of American policy regarding bicycle traffic.

I have known both branches since 1940. And no effort to improve the behavior of American cyclists has succeeded. Rather, the anti-vehicular cycling view has prevailed with the strong insistence of government. Frankly, after all these years, I, personally, don't care to bother myself about improving this public policy; let those who like to operate incompetently disobey the rules and get smashed. Unpleasant to think about, but there's nothing that vehicular cyclists can do about that policy. It used to be that those cyclists who obeyed the rules were not bothered for doing so; nowadays, with the advent of bikeways that suggest disobeying those rules and the strengthening of repressive laws that require cyclists to disobey those rules, the right of lawful, competent cyclists to operate by those rules is jeopardized. If America wants to have more incompetent cyclists on the roads, then America has all the more reason to give cyclists the freedom to operate in accordance with the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, just like all the other drivers do. That means, at the least, repealing any traffic law for cyclists that contradicts those rules.

[Bekologist]

Dear Bek, please learn what is relevant to the discussion and what is not. A dieted road is not a bikeway. The bikeways that I oppose are bike lanes, side paths, and cycle tracks.

is that an attempt at being glib?


road diets are commonly associated with bikeways, john forester. the road diets in the video all included bike facilities.

Aspersions that these types of bikeway'd road designs seen in the video on road diets somehow inculcate incompetent bicycling as well as being 'anti-motoring' underscores an agenda that furtively opposes the popularization of roadway bicycling.


It's interesting, john certainly thinks its acceptable for a cyclist to operate on an ample shoulder suitable for bicycling- just not if its part of a bikeway or under provisions of any mandatory use laws. Mandatory use laws happen to be extant in only three states. 47 states have no discriminatory law about shoulder riding. However, if that shoulder is improved for bicycle traffic and is part of a bikeway network bicyclists riding there, even experienced LAB trained high mileage riders, become incompetent.

that position on bicycling is absurd.



(it sounds like john thinks everyone using the public roads are incompetent. Speeding, failing to come to a complete stop, are all undertaken by most every motorist.Since americans are largely ALL incompetent road users, this may explain some of the harangue. )

I think some arguments are just plain anti. i wonder how the 'anti-motoring' cry resounds over at the American Dreamers Coalition? Gots to keep up the anti bicycling 'bicyclists are anti-motorists' screed, to stay in their good graces, i'd suspect....

[John Forester]

is that an attempt at being glib?


road diets are commonly associated with bikeways, john forester. the road diets in the video all included bike facilities.

Aspersions that these types of bikeway'd road designs seen in the video on road diets somehow inculcate incompetent bicycling as well as being 'anti-motoring' underscores an agenda that furtively opposes the popularization of roadway bicycling.


It's interesting, john certainly thinks its acceptable for a cyclist to operate on an ample shoulder suitable for bicycling- just not if its part of a bikeway or under provisions of any mandatory use laws. Mandatory use laws happen to be extant in only three states. 47 states have no discriminatory law about shoulder riding. However, if that shoulder is improved for bicycle traffic and is part of a bikeway network bicyclists riding there, even experienced LAB trained high mileage riders, become incompetent.

that position on bicycling is absurd.



(it sounds like john thinks everyone using the public roads are incompetent. Speeding, failing to come to a complete stop, are all undertaken by most every motorist.Since americans are largely ALL incompetent road users, this may explain some of the harangue. )

I think some arguments are just plain anti. i wonder how the 'anti-motoring' cry resounds over at the American Dreamers Coalition? Gots to keep up the anti bicycling 'bicyclists are anti-motorists' screed, to stay in their good graces, i'd suspect....

So what if road diets are associated with bikeways? I say that the improvement in safety and convenience is produced by the other changes, not by the bike-lane stripe or the sharrow. Stick to the subject, Bek, which is discussion of the safety and convenience of bike-lane stripes, side-paths, cycle-tracks.

Again, Bek, I have never stated that roadway improvements are anti-motoring (though I have heard of some specific instances of such). The anti-motoring advocacy is the motivation of bicycle advocates such as yourself and associates.

Again, Bek, the use of a bike lane does not make a person's cycling incompetent. It is only when the behavior contradicts the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles that the behavior becomes incompetent. The harm done by bike-lane stripes, cycle-tracks, and side-paths is that they are advocated as making cycling safe for those who do not obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, thus removing the need to obey those rules. And if you obey those rules, you don't need such facilities.

So Bek finally gets around to the standard bicycle advocates' complaint that motorists disobey the rules of the road, giving the typical complaining examples of speeding and failing to stop completely at stop signs. As has been explained over and over and over again, speed limits are too often set by local politics than by proper study. As has been explained over and over and over again, any driver facing a stop sign has to roll out to be able to see the traffic to which he must yield. Again, far too many American stop signs have been placed by local political pressure instead of by study, and America would do better, as does much of the rest of the world, by using mostly yield signs instead of stop signs.

Really, Bek, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments, and these are no better than those you tried before. When a line of thought becomes so rigid that it cannot be presented by reasonable arguments, it is no more than a foolish ideology.

Now, if you want to argue that obeying the rules of the road is only an ideology, then you will have to come up with very credible arguments against obeying those rules, which I have never seen presented.

[Bekologist]

The harm done by bike-lane stripes, cycle-tracks, and side-paths is that they are advocated as making cycling safe for those who do not obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, thus removing the need to obey those rules.

how preposterous.

More of john's endless loop of his bikeways breeding incompetency mythology.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments on why roads should be more smartly designed for greater safety and cycling ease?

Really, Bek, you are scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments, and these are no better than those you tried before. When a line of thought becomes so rigid that it cannot be presented by reasonable arguments, it is no more than a foolish ideology.

are you even serious? Considering the omnibus of traffic engineering guidance of the Federal Highway Administration, the Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the Institute of Traffic Engineers and scads of state and local roadway design guidance and the rest of the standards of accommodating roadway bike traffic concur with my position and not yours, I am not the one presenting the foolish ideology.

That, good sir, is your position.

[John Forester]

how preposterous.

More of john's endless loop of his bikeways breeding incompetency mythology.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel for arguments on why roads should be more smartly designed for greater safety and cycling ease?



are you even serious? Considering the omnibus of traffic engineering guidance of the Federal Highway Administration, the Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the National Association of City Transportation Officials, the Institute of Traffic Engineers and scads of state and local roadway design guidance and the rest of the standards of accommodating roadway bike traffic concur with my position and not yours, I am not the one presenting the foolish ideology.

That, good sir, is your position.

The difference is quite obvious. I advocate that cyclists should obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. American governmental policy regarding bicycle traffic is that cyclists should obey the additional restrictive and discriminatory laws enacted to control only cyclists, particularly when enforced by special bicycle facilities. There has never been any investigation that has shown that these laws and facilities either reduce the rate of car-bike collisions or reduce the level of skill required for safe cycling. In short, governmental policy regarding bicycle traffic has largely been that designed by motorists without consideration of the safety and convenience of lawful, competent cyclists.

Go ahead, Bek, if you want to prove your case, find the evidence to disprove my argument, which has plenty of factual support.

[Bekologist]

what are you droning on about, mandatory use laws of only a handful of states, and needing proof of the merits of the FHWA strategic highway safety plans' considerations for bicycle traffic?

You need studies pointing to the efficacy of the best practices of road design, (for example road diets with bikeways!) supporting ridership and increased roadway and cyclist safety?

This is something the thread has already seen repeated references to for support, including a 2010 compilation of over 75 studies reaching back four decades on cycling safety.


You continue to try and reason away the best practices of road design with nothing more than bluster about the ideological sanctimoniousness of mode neutral traffic sorting, and groundlessly malign bike advocates as 'anti-motorists', in a thread about maligning planning for roadway bike traffic and bicycling advocacy as anti-motoring.

[John Forester]

what are you droning on about, mandatory use laws of only a handful of states, and needing proof of the merits of the FHWA strategic highway safety plans' considerations for bicycle traffic?

You need studies pointing to the efficacy of the best practices of road design, (for example road diets with bikeways!) supporting ridership and increased roadway and cyclist safety?

This is something the thread has already seen repeated references to for support, including a 2010 compilation of over 75 studies reaching back four decades on cycling safety.


You continue to try and reason away the best practices of road design with nothing more than bluster about the ideological sanctimoniousness of mode neutral traffic sorting, and groundlessly malign bike advocates as 'anti-motorists', in a thread about maligning planning for roadway bike traffic and bicycling advocacy as anti-motoring.

Nearly all states have a far right law, and that is sufficient to deny the right to operate as a driver of a vehicle.

You ask whether proof is necessary for the efficacy of the "FHWA strategic highway safety plan". Before implementing such a plan, its parts should have been investigated for their benefit to lawful, competent cyclists in the form of reduced car-bike collisions or greater convenience, the standard criteria for transportation. No such studies were done. Furthermore, this "FHWA strategic highway safety plan" is not a safety plan as such are understood in other fields. That is, no attention is made to types and frequencies of car-bike collision and the means of reducing these in some order of priority. The government is wrong in so mistitling a bicycle transportation document, but then the government has been wrong about bicycle transportation for seventy years, trying to ensure that cyclists do not operate as drivers of vehicles.

I say nothing about "mode neutral traffic sorting", whatever that might mean.

Bek, if you really are opposed to cyclists obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles, then you should produce clear evidence that disobeying those rules reduces car-bike collisions and makes bicycle transportation more convenient.

[Bekologist]

Mischaracterizing as 'discriminatory' laws that grant cyclists explicit rights to take the lane doesn't make FRAP laws un-vehicular. There are FRAP laws applicable to all vehicles.

-How insufferable to continue to take on the collective roadway safety guidance of the FHWA, AASHTO, the NCUTCD, NACTO and the ITE with an original intent mythology that is wholly unsubstantiated.


Unsubstantiated bluffery about no attention being paid by the FHWA's strategic highway safety plan to crash reduction strategies is so blatantly misstating traffic safety strategies, its a wonder john even believes himself.

I have no need to present scenarios of bicyclists disobeying the rules, I have every expectation of lawful, competent roadway operation by bicyclists, as all states expect this of people operating bikes on public roadways.

What does all this rancor over planning for roadway bike traffic have to do with planning for bike traffic being mischaracterized as 'anti-motoring'?

Claims road safety enhancement strategies for all road users, like the road diets in the street films, are somehow "anti-motoring" is the misleading screed of those upset the roads of america are changing to enhance public safety for all users.

Those calling out smarter street designs as anti-motoring are the true anti-bicyclists, anti-safety and just plain anti-progress, eager to keep streets as dystopic speedways, hazardous to pedestrians and bicyclists, dangerous for motorists and deleterious to neighborhoods and commerce.

[John Forester]

Mischaracterizing as 'discriminatory' laws that grant cyclists explicit rights to take the lane doesn't make FRAP laws un-vehicular. There are FRAP laws applicable to all vehicles.

-How insufferable to continue to take on the collective roadway safety guidance of the FHWA, AASHTO, the NCUTCD, NACTO and the ITE with an original intent mythology that is wholly unsubstantiated.


Unsubstantiated bluffery about no attention being paid by the FHWA's strategic highway safety plan to crash reduction strategies is so blatantly misstating traffic safety strategies, its a wonder john even believes himself.

I have no need to present scenarios of bicyclists disobeying the rules, I have every expectation of lawful, competent roadway operation by bicyclists, as all states expect this of people operating bikes on public roadways.

What does all this rancor over planning for roadway bike traffic have to do with planning for bike traffic being mischaracterized as 'anti-motoring'?

Claims road safety enhancement strategies for all road users, like the road diets in the street films, are somehow "anti-motoring" is the misleading screed of those upset the roads of america are changing to enhance public safety for all users.

Those calling out smarter street designs as anti-motoring are the true anti-bicyclists, anti-safety and just plain anti-progress, eager to keep streets as dystopic speedways, hazardous to pedestrians and bicyclists, dangerous for motorists and deleterious to neighborhoods and commerce.

The first part of Beck's argument is that whatever government does about bicycle traffic is right, proper, and good. Considering that American governments act in accordance with the motorists' view of bicycle traffic, that is a very odd claim.

Another part of Beck's argument claims that Project500 P18 is a plan for reducing crashes to cyclists, when that document contains neither crash studies nor means of reducing studied crashes.

Beck's claim that all states expect lawful operation by cyclists can be true, provided that this includes obedience to the cyclist discriminatory laws. However, cyclists far best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles, which means obeying the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles instead of the discriminatory laws.

Beck next argues that most bicycle planning is not driven by anti-motoring motivations. Consider the those who advocate such planning nearly all also advocate reduction of motoring, and that the only American source for greater cycling volume has to come from motorists, thus reducing motoring volume. Of course, the other part of bicycle planning is that driven by motorists who see bike planning as a means of making motoring more convenient. How much is each? Can't tell, nohow. But we should all notice that Bek now argues the motorists' position that the laws presumptively require cyclists to clear the way for motorists, lest, so Beck argues, motorists get upset at bicycle traffic.

Beck last claims that vehicular cyclists desire dangerous streets, which is false: they don't. They want streets that are safe for cyclists who obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles. They dislike the street designs that cater to those afraid of traffic instead of making traffic safer. That's what upsets Beck.

[Bekologist]

upset? Hardly. disappointed? absolutely. And I'm not even that concerned, John. progress towards better planning for roadway bike traffic continues, unabated. kids are still getting taught how to ride -even more so now that there's no EC at the LAB anymore - roads are getting better to ride on, motorists are getting better educated towards bicyclist rights, all thru the efforts of bona fide bicycling advocates and advocacy organizations.

fraudulent dogma based on claims bikes need not share laned roads and that cyclists have to break the law in all 50 states to ride as vehicular cyclists has no resonance in 21st century transportation planning.

Sorry, that team lost.

[John Forester]

upset? Hardly. disappointed? absolutely. And I'm not even that concerned, John. progress towards better planning for roadway bike traffic continues, unabated. kids are still getting taught how to ride -even more so now that there's no EC at the LAB anymore - roads are getting better to ride on, motorists are getting better educated towards bicyclist rights, all thru the efforts of bona fide bicycling advocates and advocacy organizations.

fraudulent dogma based on claims bikes need not share laned roads and that cyclists have to break the law in all 50 states to ride as vehicular cyclists has no resonance in 21st century transportation planning.

Sorry, that team lost.

It is correct that vehicular cyclists have not succeeded in overturning the seventy-year plus American tradition of treating cyclists as roadway nuisances, inferior to the real drivers of vehicles. However, as demonstrated by the logical and factual defects in Bek's own arguments, and all the subsidiary ones made by other cyclist-inferiority ideologues, it is clear that this motorist-created view of bicycle traffic conflicts with standard traffic-engineering knowledge and is supported by nothing more than the desires of motorists and its own popular superstition. That the long detailed controversy has resulted in revealing such scientific and engineering defects in the American program for bicycle transportation won't stop it, because that's what the people want. However, that evidence is sufficient to provide the legal basis for allowing cyclists to choose to escape the cyclist-inferiority discrimination and instead obey the rules of the road for drivers of vehicles.