Comments on: kneel to the commuting gods!

By: Paul Dorn

Paul Dorn — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 00:35:08 +0000

Bicycle advocates are effective because they are motivated. Cyclists in the Bay Area, like those across the U.S., have been deprived of adequate resources for our commute mode. The effectiveness you’re witnessing is the result of pent-up demand for equitable treatment in our transportation system. I’d like to see pedestrians equally angry: “I’m mad as hell and I ain’t gonna take it anymore!”

And lots of motorists are also supportive, because they hunger for an alternative to life-sucking, money-wasting automobile dependancy.

By: Jim Stallman

Jim Stallman — Fri, 19 May 2006 23:08:58 +0000

The Golden Gate bridge is a pretty fine example of doing it right. Providing for bikes and peds is, after all, just doing it right. People might want to contemplate what things are going to be like when gas becomes scarce.

I was never a fan of Bike To Work Day but it does have the effect of getting many people to discover that getting around on a bike is something that can be added to one’s mobility options.

One or two generations in America have succumbed to motorized wheelchairs as an almost exclusive way to get around for short trips. I presented information at a High School Earth Day Fair in my neighborhood and did an informal survey while students were checking out Peak Oil (and snacking on chocolate which I brought to snag some of the foot traffic). 19 of the students out of 35 did not own a bike. Only 1 ever rode a bike to school. Talk about dependency on oil!

By: Helmut Wong

Helmut Wong — Fri, 19 May 2006 16:42:15 +0000

Bicycle commuters leave more parking for the rest of us.

Bicycle commuters lower the demand on gasoline, which lowers the prices for the rest of us.

Bicycle commuters stay off the freeways, which means less congestion for the rest of us.

Yay for bicycle commuters! Try not to run them off the roads.

By: Michael Cunningham

Michael Cunningham — Wed, 17 May 2006 18:14:36 +0000

I’d argue that the success of bike advocates is due less to the fact that bicycling is “worshipped” as an ideal transportation mode and more due to the impressive organizational and lobbying work that bike advocates have done. If drivers or BART riders were as well organized and as hard working in their advocacy, you’d see the results there as well. It’s just too bad that the most visible result of all of that effort is the Bay Bridge bike path, a monstrously expensive project that will never function as more than a recreational route (albeit a very nice one).