They Don't Get It

We see the Government - Provincial,  Municipal - even (occasionally) Federal - making announcements of great aid to cycling. There are, they assure us, initiatives to make all sorts of people want to ride bikes. Yet, all too often, little seems to appear, at great expense, and less of it seems to make any difference any real impact on getting people out of cars and on to bikes.

How can this be? Well - to start off, those devising the policies, those allocating funds and setting priorities are not, themselves cyclists, and have little or no idea what really works. Further, being politicians, they are wedded to the concept of some physical evidence of success - a trail, a set of stripes along roadsides, some amenity that "fixes" it, so that we will ride. After all, if there's no physical evidence, then the money was simply wasted, as there is nothing to show.

Being motorists, they think, if they think of bikes at all, of them as primarily a recreational aid - as something to help with fitness, health, and simple pleasure. There's nothing wrong with this notion - I've used it, myself, for years as an explanation for my odd enjoyment of cycling. But, this is not the whole story. To become main-stream culture, a bicycle must be seen by many 9if not most) people as primarily a means of transport. Like other means, it can be enjoyable. In deed, it MUST be, or we wouldn't put up, for one moment with the discomfort of riding into the teeth of a winter storm, with the exhaustion of pounding along in the broiling summer sun, with the sweat, the aches and pains in our muscles, or the wild gasping for air as we wait at the traffic light. But, primarily, the bike gets me from here to there - in jig time, with little fuss, less expense, and convenience. The more I set things up so that I require special clothing or footwear, that I must get rid of, to appear in public away from the bike, the less appealing it is to me, the less convenient it is.

No - what cyclists require, more than special lanes, more than separate (but equal) facilities - Gee, does that remind anyone of Segregation or Apartheid? - is a climate of acceptance, where the cyclist is seen by other drivers as simply another one of them. In that climate, my folly as a cyclist, my habit of ignoring traffic lights, or stop signs would be seen as MY folly, not as a blanket condemnation of all cyclists. Drivers (some of them) habitually run red lights, roll through stop signs, ignore pedestrians, or School and Playground zones. We all speed - yes, even I do, in order to make the traffic flow smooth - yet these are seen as individual faults, not as blanket condemnations of drivers in general.

When people in politics, police and other practical policy makers, see cycling as merely another form of transport, then we shall see a shift in perception. It won't, magically, build miles of bike lanes, or dedicated off-road paths for us. We really don't need that, even in the busiest cities. What it will do is have the driver overtaking a cyclist AUTOMATICALLY shift to the other lane to overtake, no matter how much room there is. Drivers will check to the right, as well as to the left, will look for, and see cyclists, and help set things up, by road position, to avoid "pinch" moves. Cyclists will light their bikes, not simply because ti's required, but because, as part of traffic, they want to be seen, so they can be avoided. We will all be one mass of traffic, with the same general end in view.

Of course, that day, also, the lion will lie down with the lamb, and the child play on the adder's burrow. I'm not holding my breath - just yet.