Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
'fraid that don't wash, LittleBigMan. Forester is not defending cyclists in this forum, he's defending his previous work by shooting the same blanks (of faulty and misleading risk analysis, sophistic arguments and psycho babble), he's been firing for the last 30 years. Smokescreens of obfuscation, straw men/ad hominem arguments, stereotypes, exaggerated enemies, etc won't make those blanks anymore effective at shooting down righteous criticism.
You're entitled to your opinion.
I can only go by personal experience on this. Everyone else will too, I'm sure.
When I started riding my bike to work years ago, only one strategy made it practical: those put forth as part of vehicular cycling. Bike facilities were either non-existant or totally impractical for my needs--there is one path/route that goes from Stone Mountain to Atlanta, but it's almost 20 miles long, very slow, and has many tricky or blind intersections.
Principles put forth by John Forester (the curmudgeon) were almost solely responsible for enabling me to discover the great joys of bike commuting at a time when all the "advocates" were still saying I couldn't do that in Atlanta because we still needed more bike facilities. In fact, 10 years later, the "advocates" are still saying that.
With all the negative publicity he's gotten on these forums, I'd like to say publicly, thanks John.