Vancouver Observer just published my post, “Why aren’t more people using Vancouver’s bike lanes?” I wrote it as a response to that question, as I hear it from many of my friends. Unfortunately, it has already attracted the usual contingent of ranting cyclophobes. Ironic, seeing as I wrote it to show that such people are merely following the age-old human tendency to resolutely (and often mindlessly) resist change. Anyway, check it out if you have a moment, and if you feel so inclined, please do make a comment that shows that not everyone is anti-bike!
Read about Great Bike Rides in and Around Vancouver Here – Vancouver Cycling
A good one, Joe. As I commented on the Observer site, the lanes may indeed be a boondoggle when oil gets expensive enough to force tens- if not 100s-of -thousands of cars off the road. Then, they will be wholly inadequate to accomodate the number of cyclists on the road.
IfJeff Rubin’s predictions
hold true, the bike lanes may work well for the few mini cars left 🙂
Crude is hovering around $98 today.
Thanks Raymond. I must say I feel relieved to have my bike in place and running right now … I would hate to held over a barrel by the oild price if the price rockets!
I think the boneheaded anti-bicycle comments on your Observer article may be coming from at least one of the bonehead regulars who has been sending anti-cycling letters to the editor and posting anti-cycling comments on the internet as long as I can remember. At one point he was using his real name.
By the way, I love your article and I love your responses to the comments. Stupid illogical, motorists make me depressed too. I sometimes wonder whether the stupidity of motorists finally put Tooker Gomberg over the edge (Tooker was an Edmonton City Councilor and cycling advocate who jumped off the Angus MacDonald Bridge in Halifax in 2004. Edmonton motorists are still mad at him for wearing sweaters instead of a suit at Council meetings and they frequently say so on the internet, which says a lot about motorists, especially considering the fact that he has been dead for years).
Thanks Randobarf! 🙂 I am really interested in what you have to say about Tooker Gomberg. I have not previously heard of him, but I am eager to research him.
Talking of saying a lot about motorists – I read about the terrible events at a recent Critical Mass in Brazil, where a motorist ploughed into the cyclists (who comprised all kinds of people, including seniors and children) and injured many of them. Some of the comments went beyond depressing. The worst were from motorists who believe the cyclists DESERVE to be run down as they were obstructing traffic. Given that some of the victims were severely injured and might die: this is equivalent to saying:
1. I support capital punishment and
2. Capital punishment is an appropriate sentence for briefly delaying traffic.
WOW!!! Words fail me … Just one short step from that to machine-gunning seniors who take too long to cross the street, thereby slowing the traffic … and how about parents with small children and strollers? Boy, they really slow down traffic, dawdling across the road – time to teach THEM a lesson by mowing them down too!
Randobarf, regarding your points about the “bonehead regulars” – since I have been blogging I have taken some notice of those who regularly post angry, offensive comments, often containing random personal attacks. There are some individuals who can be found all over the net, launching venomous attacks on entirely unrelated topics – with the only common feature being an ugly mean spirit, and a failure to contribute anything of value to the debate (and it goes without saying that they don’t actually WRITE anything – they just attack what others write). I have come to the conclusion that these must just be sad, lonely, unloving and unloved people who choose to spew vomit at a world they perceive as ugly. I just feel sorry for them, and try my best to turn the other cheek – even though sometimes they make me angry for a moment, and sometimes they even momentarily upset me – until I remember to take it from whence it came …
I had met Tooker on a few occasions and I was very impressed by him but he did not impress me as someone who would commit suicide. In my own mind I have elevated Tooker to mythological status and I imagine that overexposure to motorist madness caused him to leap off the bridge. His body was never found but his bike was found on the bridge.
When Tooker left Edmonton he ran for mayor of Toronto. He was even endorsed by Jane Jacobs. He came in second but as usual, he had a profound effect on the local political mentality. It is astonishing to think that the latest mayor of Toronto is a backward slobby motoring buffoon named after a car who hates cyclists and has sworn to remove bike lanes.
Re: Brazil and the usual comments from motorists when other motorists use their cars as weapons against cyclists. Well, what can we say? That’s what I expect from motorists. It’s depressing alright. It’s the stupid, illogical heart of darkness of the motoring public and it makes me want to move to an island without motorists, or preferably, a planet without motorists (but with decent brewpubs and moorage for my sea kayak, unlike Vancouver).
Randobarf wrote:
>It is astonishing to think that the latest mayor of Toronto is a backward slobby >motoring buffoon named after a car who hates cyclists and has sworn to remove bike >lanes.
T.O. Mayor Ford got elected on a platform that was very pro-car, as in “get everybody out of the way of cars”. But now that he’s in office bike lanes are still being planned for Toronto. Even he isn’t able to stop the progression and it was part of his platform.
I suspect that here in Vancouver if Mayor Robertson doesn’t get re-elected and someone else wins using a campaign of “rip the bike lanes out!” that when he/she is in office that they will see that there is too much support for bike lanes and multi-modal streets and they will stay and more will be built. They just make too much sense and any city that doesn’t get with what the people are now doing will only have to do it later on.
A comparison is the past Conservative/Reform Party platform. I remember back in the ’90s hearing people who were voting for the Reform Party specifically because they were going to get rid of bilingualism and Gay rights. Now that they’re in office federally (as the Conservative party) we still have gay rights and bilingualism and there’s no talk of doing anything about them.
The common complaints against the bike lanes have no substance and are based on things that are false so when someone gets in power and sees the larger picture they can’t possibly come to the conclusion that we could have a car-only city. Even Los Angeles (which was designed around the car) is putting in 2700 kilometres of bike lanes. Los Angeles! Can you imagine?
It’s not the 1950s anymore, Toto.
Just in case there is someone reading this conversation who has not heard of Toronto mayor Rob Ford, here he is on YouTube at a Toronto City Council session telling everyone what he thinks of cyclists:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nySs1cEq5rs
Mayor Ford has a few other starring roles on YouTube, including his acclaimed feature film Cyclists are a Pain in the Ass and his Mayorial crowning where his motoring pal Don Cherry makes his famous Pinko Cyclists presentation speech.
Clark, I totally agree with you – there are some Cassandra’s around who direly prophesize that the bike lanes will be ripped out the moment Mayor Gregor Robertson leaves the building … but I think people who actually manage to get elected are generally smarter than that (Toronto’s Mayor Rob Ford notwithstanding). Despite certain people frothing at the mouth, one would have to be pretty darn stupid to realize that we owe it to our future generations not to turn Vancouver into a parking lot – which is what it will become if car traffic increases at the same rate as population. It’s just a non-brainer that we need to diversify transport and create a system that favours transit, walking and cycling, as these modes do not occupy as much space per person as solitary car travel.
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Sad to see the ignorant vitriol as quoted posted anywhere-it’s the cyber equivalent of the violence committed in Brasil.
There’s an interesting quote in this article from the guy in Portland, Oregon.
The congressman remembers how controversial getting bike infrastructure built used to be — even in Portland. The first path he advocated for, a trail that went around a golf course, made people mad. “You would have thought that we were kidnapping children and small pets,” Blumenauer told me. “The public hearing was not very nice. But in the course of two years, public opinion changed 100 percent.”
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-11-opposing-bike-lanes-is-bad-politics-and-bad-policy-says-congres
That’s really encouraging, Clark. I am optimistic that people will come around – after all, not so long ago recycling was seen as the province of the lunatic fringe, and now anyone who DOESN’T recycle is considered strange.