Originally Posted by John Forester

There is an organization named Association of Bicycle and Pedestrian Professionals, which is the trade organization (it has none of the characteristics of a technical society) for bike planners. I was a member for about two months a year or so ago, until they threw me out for inquiring for the scientific support (merely inquiring, nothing else) for their claims. Other competent people I know have reported the same events. I once took a seminar given by one of their leading lights, Mia Birk, and noticed the same lack of scientific knowledge. And one of their leading professorial advocates, Prof. John Pucher (planning, Rutgers), when speaking in San Diego had to answer my questioning with the statement that he paid no attention to engineering, he did just what was popular. The probability that any bicycle coordinator has any technically sound training is very low indeed.