Originally Posted by alanbikehouston

For some reason, ten or fifteen members of "Bike Forums" invest endless amounts of energy into either defended what they think (correctly or incorrectly) are Mr. Forester's ideas, or attacking what they think are his ideas.

Mr. Forester has spent his time more productively over the past five decades. He has been a consistent advocate for the role of the bicycle in daily transportation. And, to be of value in daily transportation, it ought to be practical and safe to ride a bicycle from any "Point A" to any "Point B" in a given community. A worthy goal.

It is sad that American does not have five or ten John Forester's in every community. Because America has only one John Forester, the bicycle is becoming relegated to a Sunday afternoon recreation, not a daily means of regular transportation.

I'm currently spending much of my time in San Antonio, Texas. In San Antonio, all of the new development is on the north side of town. A typical development has a stone wall around it, and residents must enter through a gate. That gate leads to a four, five, or six lane road where the lanes are not as wide as the vehicles that use them. The curbs are black with the rubber from tires that have rubbed up against the curbs. Traffic reaches peak speeds of 40 mph to 50 mph on these roads.

This bizarre urban design means that you may be able to see a friend's home in the next development, perhaps fifty yards beyond the stone wall. To visit your friend by bike requires riding a mile to the gate of your development, riding another mile down that 4 lane highway among bumper-to-bumper traffic going 40 mph, getting admitted at the gate, and then riding a mile to the friend's home. By the way, such neighborhoods have no sidewalks. Walking from one development to the next is difficult or impossible.

So, how do people in such neighborhoods ride bikes? They have racks on the roof of their vehices, and they drive their bikes out into the country, or down into the central part of San Antonio, where they can ride on traditional "checkerboard" layout streets with traffic moving at only 20 mph or 25 mph.

John Forester fought a long and lonely fight on behalf of the bicycle as transportation. In many or most American cities, that battle has been lost. But that defeat is not the fault of John Forester. It is the fault of the hundreds of thousands of daily cyclists who have remained silent while city planners have made cites a "motor vehicle only" type of community.