Originally Posted by John Forester

Indeed, the controversy is divisive and its tone is harsh, and it is not difficult to sort out the reason. The vehicular cycling advocates hold that cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles. They support their view with an impressive array of facts and reasoning, such as known crash types and frequencies, known car-bike collision types and frequencies, standard traffic-engineering principles, standard human-factors principles, which all fit together to support the vehicular-cycling view. Vehicular-cycling advocates also advocate that society should do better in accommodating vehicular cyclists, both physically, in better roads, and intellectually. The bicycle advocates (as they call themselves) have placed their hopes on bikeway systems, principally bike lane systems because there are so few locations suitable for bike paths. Not only is there no scientific evidence that such systems make cycling safer, or lower the level of skill that is required for safe cycling, but, in fact. the weight of the evidence is against them. In confirmation of that conclusion, the bikeway advocates have never provided any evidence on these points, and deny the known fact that the bikeway program was created by motorists for their own convenience. Instead, bikeway advocates advance scientifically irrelevant evidence of the popularity and low casualty rates of bicycle transportation in nations with entirely different urban patterns, transportation histories, and social and commercial arrangements. In short, bicycle advocates believe that the popularity of bicycle transportation in obsolete pre-automotive cities (OPACs) would be developed in American cities if bikeway systems were built.

One side bases its position on knowledge and the current and likely future conditions. The other side bases its position on the hope that bikeways will transform American cities and urban life by means of a mechanism which they have not been able to identify. Complicating the controversy is the undoubted fact that those in power in highway affairs, motorists and their organizations, understand that bikeways generally make motoring more convenient by keeping bicycles in their supposed place.

It is no wonder that the controversy is divisive and its tone is harsh. When realists and ideologues collide, anger develops.