Originally Posted by
John Forester
"A glaring deficiency in the VC agenda"? Your bikeway program has been up and running for thirty years now, and you are still complaining like hell about motorist behavior. Looks just like your program has accomplished either nothing, or, indeed, made things worse, about motorist behavior. If this isn't a glaring actual deficiency in the bikeway program, then it cannot, equally, be a glaring potential deficiency in the VC agenda.
The term "glaring deficiency" conveys the meaning of something lacking that is of great importance. I presume that when you state this in specific terms of "motorist education" you mean exactly that. Education imparts knowledge; what, precisely, is the additional knowledge that you would impart to motorists? And, of course, you need to justify this additional knowledge as producing some greatly required change in behavior. I think that you should specify what knowledge is lacking and why it is of great importance.
As I have written frequently, I see little probable result from the provision of additional knowledge to motorists, and hence see that the potential effort to do so should be directed in far more useful directions, as in training cyclists, police, and the judicial system.
You have not specified what knowledge you desire to impart, and what results you expect from that additional knowledge. But, if you actually know these things, why is it that the bikeway advocates, who have been in charge of America's bicycle transportation program for thirty years, haven't solved the problem?
IMO, motorist education is essential regardless of whether you go with the VC
or the facilities model, John. So actually, I'm pointing out a glaring deficiency in
both approaches.
Most motorists in the US are under the false impression that cyclists don't belong on the roads because they don't pay for the roads, and it has nothing to do with the arguments between cyclists over a stripe of paint, the semantics of that argument will fall on deaf ears as far as motorists are concerned. So what motorists need to be taught is that the public roads are for the use of the public, regardless of their means of conveyance.
Neither painting stripes nor taking the lane convey anything useful to motorists in the way of education if they don't think cyclists have a legal right to be on the road in either case.