Originally Posted by
Bekologist
for all the wide ranging social benefits attendant with bicycling, its' not a mistaken belief in the superior value to be gained from normalizing bicycling as transportation for more of the american public.
Benefits that are as far reaching as senior mobility, environmental quality and mental health benefits to the public in addition to the more obvious benefits from encouraging and normalizing bicycling as a viable mode of personal transportation by planning for and encouraging bicyclists use of the public roads.
well considered regional transportation plans that include bicycle specific preferred class lanes along select transportation corridors will lead to greater ridership on ALL roads in a region.
more bikes on all roads in communities somehow creates "a force to take away our rights to ride in the street?" please.
Cycling, either for recreation or for transportation, when chosen freely, and when done lawfully and competently, is clearly a beneficial activity. However, such is rare and is not that which is being promoted by society and by government, although Bek falls into the mistake of thinking so.
Bek maintains (by making rhetorical question) that a greater proportion of bicycle traffic will not reduce cyclists' right to ride in the street or, he fails to suggest, reduce cyclists' right to operate safely and effectively. There is no evidence of that claim, and several opposing examples. Take the Netherlands and Denmark, where cyclists are forbidden to ride on many streets and forbidden to make normal left turns, precisely because of the high proportion of bicycle traffic. And, much closer to home, is the American case. As long as cycling was seen as dying, American motorists didn't bother about it, but as soon as an increase in adult cycling materialized, in the later 1960s, American motorists created the bikeway system, with its restrictive facilities and laws, to keep the roads clear for motorists.
And that bikeway system, designed to keep the roads clear for motorists, is precisely what Bek advocates. It is Bek's belief that the presence of bikeways will persuade many American motorists to switch a transportationally significant number of motor trips to bicycle trips. That's his belief, which he is free to state as a hope, but for which there is no evidence whatsoever.