genec

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz3zMzVdlX8

Can you tell the difference between the above, and this:

https://www.americandreamcoalition.or...omobility.html

joejack951

That's bicycle advocacy at it's best (or worst, depending on how you look at it). How about some cyclist advocacy?

Brian Ratliff

^^^
Only if you can tell me the difference.

And why it matters. I am curious.

joejack951

Cycling advocacy: encouraging people to ride bikes

Cyclist advocacy: Encouraging those who ride (or want to ride) bikes to do so in a safe and cooperative manner

[Note: these aren't exhaustive definitions by any means, just a few words off the top of my head to distinguish the activity of cycling from the people who are cyclists.]

Why it matters [to me]: Traffic cycling in the US currently has a bad enough reputation as a dangerous activity and adding fuel to that fire by encouraging uneducated people to just jump on a bike and ride in traffic isn't going to help that image.

Now, if you combined the two messages, I'd have much less of an issue with it (depending on how it's presented of course).

genec

Well no amount of "cyclist advocacy" is going to get folks out of their cars... And every cycling advocate I have heard from says that motorists are only going to "get used to cyclists" when more cyclists are on the road.

So as far as I am concerned, "bicycling advocacy" (that which encourages people to ride) is cycling advocacy.

You want to teach the how to ride, try to get government to bring cycling education back to public schools.

What we have now is a downward trend... bikes are bought, bikes aren't ridden, bikes are stored in garages, people get fat, cars get fat, roads become crowded, few people ride bikes.

Find a way to reduce that trend. Telling people "how to ride a bike" isn't going to do it, and hasn't done it.

John Forester

Cycling advocacy? You people call yourselves bicycle advocates, and this video portrays your bicycle advocacy views exactly. Nothing about cycling, all about anti-motoring. And inaccurate as always.

genec

John if more people are cycling, to run errands, as identified in the video... then naturally they will be motoring less. Yet you feel this is "anti-motoring." I think your allegiance has been well identified.

And BTW even the president has stated "we are addicted to oil," perhaps a bit of "anti-motoring" is what this obese country needs. Personally I don't think it is anti-motoring any more than a book on hiking is anti-motoring.

But like I've said, your allegiance is obvious.

John Forester

You state: "[I]f more people are cyclingcycling, to run errands, as identified in the video ... then naturally they will be motoring less.". Joseph Goebbels, great liar that he was, would have been utterly ashamed of the technical absurdity of this effort that you all appear to praise so much. The whole object of the video is to oppose motoring, with cycling mentioned as a minor sideline. Your words here indicate that not only are you bicycle advocates unable to understand the meaning of the words that you read, as mentioned before, you also cannot understand even a simple video. You make cycling into a dreary duty to be performed as part of the anti-motoring war, and regardless of the danger to those whom you affect.

Bekologist

that is rich, john.

It's readily apparant you are pro-motorist and anti-bicyclist. maybe you've slipped so far you cannot see it yourself.


Do you mind telling us when banning bicyclists from 'freeways' for the conveinence of motorists isn't going to be enough for your buddies over at the ADC?

Can you share the timetable for when unveil your master plan to ban bicyclists from all high-speed roads for the conveinence of motorists?

filtersweep

You really have a chip on your shoulder about this. I am pro-motorist and pro-bicycle--- and I even WALK places (as transportation). Can those concepts coexist exist? I certainly do not believe cars will be outlawed from the road anytime soon. I bike to work--- all year long-- no matter what the weather. I bike because I like to. There is no dogmatic reason behind it other than it keeps me in shape. I have a massive carbon footprint because I fly so much. In my perfect world we would only have planes and bikes--- but that will never happen.

How is it that you make the leap in your argument "against" John about bikes on freeways? You are likely digging up an irrelevant reference from another post.

Do you really believe that two miles is some magic distance that will change people's behaviors? When I lived in the US, I commuted 20 miles each way-- by bike. Even that took marginally more time than driving in heavy rush hour traffic.

The real issues regarding cycling advocacy really have nothing to do with building a supporting infrastructure in the US. The issues center on how car-centric attitudes are. I could write a lengthy rant at the absurdities in the US in this area-- ranging from extremely lax drinking and driving laws, extreme ease in obtaining drivers licenses, how little actual training is associated with licensing, the fact that a basic license entitles someone to drive up to a 13 ton vehicle, low gas and vehicle taxes, no vehicle safety inspections, the epidemic of speeding, the proliferation of road rage, lack of disincentives to drive fuel efficient vehicles, lack of public transportation, and on and on and on.

Bekologist

that isn't a leap in argument, it's an aside.

but thanks for pointing our other flaws in America's autocentrism, filtersweep.

john's firmly wedded to an advocacy group whose work is pro-motoring, and some of us feel is correspondingly anti-bicycling.

genec

Yes. Two miles is a grand start. Just think about people now that drive just a few blocks to a local store for bread or milk, or a 6 pack. That short convenient distance is very easy to bike to, if not walk, but for some reason in many places in America, that distance is driven. It could be quite easily cycled and the reduction in traffic on the local roads would make them feel less crowded for the longer trips that one has to take, such as your commute to work.

2 miles is a minor step, a first step if you will. Likely the bikes exist... now how to get folks just doing this minor step?

Agreed... which is why this first small step has to be taken by motorists... to get beyond the absurdities of using an auto for such small trips. Once that little first step is taken, people may venture further.

Imagine if just 10% of all trips were shifted from auto to bike... the reduction in auto traffic alone would be fantastic.

genec

Exactly... in fact if John considers our pro-cycling attitude "anti-motoring," then obviously his pro-motoring attitude is just anti-cycling. So I guess "effective cycling" to John Forester is "driving."

filtersweep

There are other ways of decentralizing the auto without even mentioning biks. Around here, it is impossible to live further than walking distance of a grocery store--- or post office. Most city centers are pedestrian only. There are all sorts of green buffer zones, and agriculturally zoned land that can't be developed for 100 years. These are packaged as quality of life issues, and have nothing to do with cycling, anti-vehicularism, or anything else. The fundamental cultural value from the 1950s remains to this day: a car is a LUXURY --not a necessity or a right.

Banzai

It is my opinion that people who trot out Nazis to try to make their points (particularly about things like riding a bike...hmmm...genocide or bike riding...genocide or bike riding...gosh, it seems so similar to me) are intellectual lightweights grasping at straws and rhetorical "shock" to compensate for their lack of validity.

The instant people start using Nazis in their rhetoric, I quit listening. Said person has just demonstrated how utterly ridiculous they are.

genec

I have seen this mentality exemplified in Finland... and it is quite amazing and frankly I think somewhat difficult for those that have not seen something like this to imagine. It is a very different paradigm. I don't know about Norway, but in Oulu Finland, people were given priority over cars and it is quite evident.

cooker

I think the reason cycling advocates are always so angry with Forester is they think he is an advocate for cycling, and then are disappointed to discover he isn't. Advocates for cycling think cycling is a social good that should be encouraged and accomodated by society. Forester doesn't hold those views. He's an advocate for very limited aspects of cycling. He doesn't care why people ride, he doesn't care who rides, or how many people ride. He doesn't care about whether cycling has wider social implications. He only cares about where they ride (on normal roads) and how they ride ("vehicularily").

rando

+ a billion.

John Forester

Don't be so silly. I mentioned Joseph Goebels because he was a master propagandist, in a discussion about propaganda. As I said, by his standards, your bike advocacy propaganda in the subject video was utterly incompetent. But, for that matter, I could have mentioned Edward Bernays in the same way. However, Goebels is on record for his opinion, and I have read that record.

Banzai

I don't believe I am being silly.

I do believe I am sick of listening to people invoke Nazis to make points. Maybe I have Nazi overload thanks to this White House and Faux News.

But using Nazis as metaphors and rhetorical devices is cheap, fallacious, and intellectually dishonest. You use the example not just for the record...but also to caricaturize and even lampoon the opposition...in this case genec and the video. Nazis as a rhetorical device is an effort to invalidate the opposing argument (or validate your own) by simple virtue of a terrible and arbitrary/fictitious attribution.

You could indeed have mentioned Edward Bernays...or you could have simply made your point about the propagandistic (in your view) elements of the video, and sought to prove that point. However, you chose Goebels for the attribution. It's "dirty pool" to use an old saying. It also makes me disregard you and your arguments because you resort to such rhetoric. And by the way, I'm not one of those who are inherently against your arguments (until possibly now) because I don't/didn't know enough about them. However, now my motivation to learn more is dead...why should I care about the opinions of someone who tries to make a point through bad rhetoric? Now I also wonder how many straw men and appeals to authority you use on a daily basis.

Cheap, dishonest, and intellectually weak.

John Forester

You have got your logic all backwards. Had I stated that Joseph Goebels, whose name arouses angry emotions in you, would have given professional approval to the propaganda video being discussed, I could understand your anger at the thought that somebody as notorious as Goebels would have approved of the video. However, I stated the exact opposite, that the video did not meet Goebels's standard of effectiveness. Since I stated that Goebels, whose name arouses anger in you, would have thought the video ineffective, I find it much less reasonable for you to complain. After all, he of whom you dislike even the mention, and presumably disapprove of (as do I), would dislike that of which you approve. I don't find it worth complaining when my enemy dislikes those things of which I approve; I expect that to be the normal situation.

pj7

I'm sorry, but can you please be so kind as to tell me who "you people" are and then point me to where "those people" actually claimed to be bicycle advocates?
BTW, what was so wrong with the Nazis that you guys keep bringing them up?

CommuterRun

So, to paraphrase the two sites; the only advantage motoring has over cycling is the amount of time saved in covering a specific distance, but under certain conditions we all know this is not true; cycling has numerous other advantages over motoring, but sometimes the amount of time required is unrealistic.

Banzai

Dance dance dance...and I shan't even bother to illustrate conundrum you came close to tap dancing your way into...close but not quite, though it would have been a funny thing indeed to find you defending genec without meaning to as you tried to explain yourself away...

Bekologist

interesting that john, a fella that appears to never bicycle anymore, would consider the clif bar campaign to encourage bicycling one of his 'enemies'