The Bicycling Apocalypse: A Manifesto of Liberation Over Segregation

“We can only liberate our rivers and our seeds and our food, and our educational systems, and redefine and deepen our democracy, by first liberating our minds and decolonizing our minds.”  — Vandana Shiva

— apocalypse: a disclosure of something hidden from the majority in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception; the lifting of the veil.

— control mythology:  the web of stories, symbols and ideas which define the dominant culture’s sense of normal (including limiting our imagination of social change) and make people think the system is unchangeable.

Bicycling in the United States suffers from a failure of imagination.

Failures of imagination usually grow out of a sense that the current situation is unchangeable.  Cultures often create such a sense of inevitability inadvertently, but in some cases it’s due to an intentional effort by some to maintain the status quo.  Usually there is a control mythology maintaining that sense of certainty.

The Bicyclist Control Mythology can be described thusly:

A significant number of motorists either will not tolerate sharing roadways, or are so incompetent as to be unable to see and avoid hitting bicyclists who are plainly in front of them in the lane.  This control mythology is promoted not to keep bicyclists safe, but to support the belief that bicyclists sharing roadways cause significant delay to motorists.  Underpinning that conviction is the belief that bicyclists are second-class road users.  This control mythology presumes that motorists need to be changed in order for bicyclists to be safe, but cannot be changed.  Since the motorist cannot be changed, bicyclists must be moved out of the way for their own safety.

The Conch Republic Battles the Tyranny of Speed

“Don’t we have a deal with the pigeons?”

“Of course we have a deal. They get out of the way of our cars, we look the other way on the statue defecation.”

– George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld

The tyranny of speed rules over nearly every road in this great nation.  Florida is perhaps the tyrant’s most resolute stronghold.  It’s as if gravity or latitude or the warm climate (or perhaps the convergence of the three) have funneled that power into our peninsula from all across the land.  Hemmed in by the Everglades, the tyrant’s power concentrates even more as one moves into Broward and Miami-Dade counties.  It then squirts out along US 1, the Overseas Highway that runs from Key Largo to Key West.  The Highway is now mostly overwhelmed by the tyrant; its miles of ugly strip commercial development making it look like nearly any other four-lane highway.  If it weren’t for the palms and tropically-themed signs you might think you were outside Atlanta along some stretches.

N. Roosevelt: sidepath on the left side; destinations on the right.

One-hundred and two miles down the highway you enter the Conch Republic, aka Key West.  It’s the end of the road.  The tyranny of speed has pushed its invading wedge westward into the island along US 1, and its commercial minions — fast-food purveyors, big box retailers… — have come in behind to claim territory.  At its ironic intersection with Eisenhower Drive, it loses nearly all its power as it changes names from N. Roosevelt Boulevard to Truman Avenue and becomes a narrow, two-lane street.

Doubt Can Unite Us

Last night PBS aired the two-hour NOVA special “Darwin’s Darkest Hour,” about Charles Darwin’s struggle to finally decide to complete and publish On the Origin of Species. Part of his struggle was trying avoid running afoul of his wife Emma’s faith in God. In an early letter to Darwin, Emma wrote, “My reason tells me that honest & conscientious doubts cannot be a sin.”

My wife, who was believer when we met, expressed a similar sentiment about my agnosticism.

Respect for honest doubt would go a long way towards mending the huge rifts among the two main bicycling “camps.”

Bikeway proponents must respect the doubts of vehicular cycling proponents about the benefits of facilities, because there is significant objective evidence to support that doubt.  Since decisions about bikeways are done by governments, objectivity is essential.

Vehicular cycling proponents must respect the doubt of others about the effectiveness of vehicular cycling.   While vehicular cycling can also be measured objectively, it is experienced subjectively.   There is significant subjective evidence to support that doubt; those many personal experiences in traffic which reinforce our culture’s taboo about cycling.   Since cycling itself is done by individuals, many of whom are not trained, comfortable with, or prone towards objectivity, we vehicular cycling proponents must take a softer, subjective approach.

Respect and caring are the foundation.

“Certainty divides us; doubt unites us.”
— Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Laughing Jesus

A Few Pertinent Facts About European Cycling

This chart is from the Netherlands Interface for Cycling Expertise.

I have estimated the percentages from the chart and converted it to numbers showing percentage increase from the historic low to 1995.

For those who believe The Netherlands’ and Denmark’s high cycling numbers are due to facilities, you might consider that many of these places never dropped below 20% cycling mode share.  Cycling has always been a prominent component to their traffic environment.

Take a look at what they themselves say about the effectiveness of bikeways to increase cycling:

“Since 1990, the total length of cycle paths has increased to almost 19,000 km, doubling the length in 1980.”
“Results: In 1994, the total distance cycled was 12.9 billion km, compared with 12.8 billion in 1990. The number of km traveled by car was 125 billion in 1990 and 129 billion in 1994.”
“Expansion and improvement of the infrastructure does not necessarily increase the use of bicycles.”

From “The Autumn of the Bicycle Master Plan”
1994, Dutch Ministry of Transport

And

From “The Economic Significance of Cycling”
The Netherlands Interface for Cycling Expertise
“Experiences in Amsterdam show that the increase in bicycle use in the city centre in the last 10 years is mainly due to increased parking rates.”
“The policy of reducing car traffic in city centres therefore often consists of reducing parking facilities, and this method is used to cut car use.”
“Many cities have started to reclaim space from the car in the last 10 to 20 years. … A good example of this is Copenhagen where, between 1962 and 1996, the number of parking spaces was reduced from 3,100 to 2,000…”

The existence of an extensive rail transit system is also a very important factor:

“In 1991, 44% of [transit users] went to the local train station by bicycle.”
From “The Autumn of the Bicycle Master Plan”

If you start with different ingredients for two recipes, then add the same new ingredient to both recipes, do you end up with the same results?

1937 Copenhagen

The common belief about European cities is that they have so many bicyclists because they have extensive (and “safe”) bikeway systems.  This travelogue from 1937* shows Copenhagen streets filled with cyclists.

Granted, auto ownership in 1937 Copenhagen was rather tiny compared to present-day American cities (or for that matter present day Copenhagen).  But watch how the motorists and cyclists interact.  To us it looks like chaos.  Traffic control appears minimal at best, yet the cyclists all seem blithley unconcerned.

It is certainly true that bike used plummeted in Denmark after World War II, and one can argue that the increase in auto use made it “necessary” to build segregated bikeways in order to increase bicycle use.  My point is: look at how they all behave.  Integration inspires cooperation — especially when the bicyclists are dressed just like everybody else.

Thanks to Copenhagenize for the find.

* YouTube shows this as from 1953, but info from IMBD and auto styles in the film indicate it’s 1937.

Wait for it…wait for it…merge… NOW!

Sometimes I just have to shake my head.  And take a picture.

This bike lane on US 17/92 in Seminole County, just north of the Orange County line, is correctly placed between the right-most through lane and the long merge lane.

(This Google Map shot was taken before the road was rebuilt, so you won’t see the bike lane there, but shows the wider context; it runs from the Maitland Blvd. interchange to the Spartan Drive intersection; about 900 feet).

But the traffic engineers seem to think motorists should only merge during this very short dashed line section.

Not to worry.  The motorists seem to be smarter than that and pass/merge where it makes sense for them.

When Professionals Disappoint: Part II

A full-sized van or SUV with its door open would take up at least another foot of this Baldwin Park bike lane.

On April 16 and 17 Metroplan Orlando hosted a Bicycle Facilities Design Course.  Thirty planners and engineers from local governments and consulting firms attended.  (Kudos to instructors Michael Moule and Craig Williams.)

On the 17th I led an on-bike facilities tour from downtown Orlando to Baldwin Park and back to showcase and discuss examples of good and bad facilities and designs.

I’m sure the attendees learned a lot, but…

During both the classroom design session and in the field, door zone bike lanes were discussed and explained; how it’s impossible for a cyclist to react effectively if a car door is opened too close ahead of the cyclist.

A short while after illustrating the problem in the field, we rode down one of Baldwin Park’s streets with door zone bike lanes.  The combined width of the parking and bike lanes is 12 feet; one foot less than the Florida Green Book standard.   If your wheel is in the bike lane there, the right end of your handlebar is in the door zone and you are at risk.  With 13 feet you can at least keep out of the door zone by staying all the way to the left side of the bike lane.

Nearly every single person drove in the bike lane.  I called out to everyone within earshot, reminding them that they were traveling in the door zone.

They all stayed in the bike lane.

This was a group of professional planners and engineers.

As Keri Caffrey has pointed out, this problem goes beyond education.  These folks all knew better.  It’s about social conditioning.  Bicyclists need to not only learn what is actually safe and unsafe, but shed the belief that the “authorities” always know or do what’s best for them, and also shed the belief that standing up for one’s own interests as a roadway user is not merely acceptable, but preferred.