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REVOLUTIONS- biking in NJ
Saturday, 13 August 2005
The green mov't and the exclusion of cyclists
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Environmentalist vs bikes
Ever notice how the "green" mov't, which benefits immensely from support borrowed from seemingly likeminded cyclists, actually doesn't care at all for bike riders?

Ride enough in the woods and you'll get this. It isn't just limosine liberals, either -- those guys in Hummer's with the Sierra Club stickers on their gas guzzling bumpers. Speaking of the Sierra club, they have a policy of, whenever possible, urging the gov't to exclude bikes from "protected" lands.

The problem, however, becomes blurred when it comes to roadriding. While the environmentalists may be seen easily as opposing off road riding, it has become cliche that they agree with bikes on the road. But this is not for any love of cycling -- it is for hate of the auto, and if some other alternative to the car were to present itself, the greens would congregate toward that. As individuals some of them may be cyclists, but as a movement and an ideology, environmentalism is incompatible with cycling. It is just a lot easier to see this in reference to offroad riding.

People say, well, if the greens close trails, who cares, becaus emost people who oen moutnainbikes do not take them offroad? Even if that's the case, they ARE mountainbikes, and as knobby-tired machines constitute more than half the stock of your average LBS [local bike shop], anything that hurts mountainbiking hurts cycling. That many of the mtb buyers wouldn't be directly hurt, as they may not be frequent offroad riders, is irrelevent. Anything that hurts cycling, hurts cycling. That the greens have rationalized this by saying, well, a lot of folks don't use their mtb's offroad anyway, is ironic -- because part of this yes, may be due to people who buy mtb's for commuting, etc. -- but part of it is certainly due to trail and land closures. Most local woods are "officially" off limits to bikes though we all ride there, at least here in NJ; the county gov't has long ago been talked into excluding bikes, mostly due to mythic theories by the greens about alleged "trail damage". The absurdity here is that the same county land is usually littered with been cans and dog feces, which apparently the government does not see as damaging to the woods(?!)

So how does the mountainbiking and roadbiking relate to greens? Simple: By bike paths.

The issue of bike paths is often proposed by greens who offer it as an "alternative" to mountainbiking [these guys obviously aren't mountainbikers] and by traffic planners as an alternative to roads. So you have the gov't on one side saying the solution to bike vs. car is to take the bikes off the streets, and on the other side, the greens saying the solution to bike vs. nature is to take the bike off the dirt. Bike paths -- and urban [or sub-urban] "planning". Two concepts that should scare American cyclists.

Rereading an issue of the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, one thing sticks out: An article in the August 30, 2003 edition titled "Sprawling suburbs may fuel weight gain and inactivity", on page AA3. The point of the article is that fewer people walk or bike when distances are farther apart.


Ostensibly the focus of the article is health benefits of exercise, but in trying to explain why people aren't getting exercise the article brings in the risks of biking: "For bicyclists, Americans are twice as likely to be killed as Germans, and over three times as likely as Dutch cyclists."

This belies a crucial difference between the U.S. and Europe, however. First, Americans have a greater -- and growing -- number of automobiles in terms of the ratio of cars to people: by an account in the August 30th issue of the Daily Record NJ newspaper, it is the highest ever. Narrow-streeted, crowded European cities cannot support the vast number of cars, trucks, and SUVs that the U.S. can. There is just no room for them. Thus there is a more even ratio of bikers and pedestrians to cars on the road -- whereas in America there are many, many more cars than bicyclists let alone pedestrians. Another key difference, especially with regard to those long-lives and accident-free Dutch bicyclists, is that they make extensive use of bicycle paths separate from the roads.

The article in the Virginian-Pilot talks of suburbs versus cities. Yet, for a long bike ride, where would you rather ride? A ride through New York City, versus, say, a ride through a rural area? Even with the skills and fearlessness of the most death-defying bike messenger, a cyclist would be apt to spend more time in the NY trip dodging potholes, cabs, careless pedestrians, and walking his bike around double and triple parked trucks than he would actually riding it. If it be exercise you want, a ride in a more suburban environment will take you greater distances between stops. When I ride through the great swamp, I can ride nearly twenty miles -- at least -- before putting a foot down on asphalt to stop. In more crowded areas the stops are more frequent, interrupting one's ride. These things are not going to be solved by paths that go nowhere when we already have an adequate road system .....Adequate for cars anyway, the proliferation of SUVs in suburbia has created dangerous situations; imagine two SUV's passing on a road where there are also SUV's parked on either side?


Failing an attempt to denounce human progress as destructive to the natural landscape, the social engineers of the next grave new world are now trying to blame a preponderance of fat people on "suburban sprawl". The idea is to argue everyone into cities again, by saying it'll be good for them and they will get more exercise. True, in cities fewer people drive, but not for any sheer love of walking or biking: They don't drive because in cities that are overcrowded with cars crammed onto roads not designed for the volume of traffic they hold, there is no room for additional cars -- and because the roads are not modern and designed to handle the volume of auto traffic, in many cities a bike is actually faster and more practical. Healthiness, or a love of cycling sports, has nothing to do with it for many. Of course, there are a good many actual cyclists in the urban area, as many as outside it. But they are not cyclists because of their environment. And if put in an environment where the auto was a practical alternative, many would still cyclists be. That is what makes them cyclists; they choose to ride bikes, even when they could ride their cars.

Yet, if people are too lazy to ride leisurely from one town to the next on wide, usually well-maintained suburban streets, what makes one think they will dare brave a hair-raising trip across a busy urban center to get to a store, dodging taxis, double parked delivery vans, and drivers who may or may not know enough English to read the road signs?

The fact is that the statistics are not accurate. The article in the Pilot said in Europe people make 33 percent of their trips by bicycle, but Americans make just 9.4 percent of their trips on bikes. Yet this is not a representation of cyclists; it is a representation of overall Americans. If you looked at American cyclists, suburban and urban both, you would see a different picture, people who may use a car or train to get to work but who in their spare time may spend more of their time on two wheels than at home.

Moreover, by trying to force people into "healthier" lifestyles, by putting them in a situation where they have no choice but to walk or ride a bike because the car is impractical, the urban planners of the nation are doing nothing to encourage love of bicycling. Far from it, by practically forcing people to bike, walk, or use mass transit, these would-be social engineers are virtually denying those same people the chance to willingly choose bicycling as a means of transportation and -- more importantly -- recreation. Why is this the case? Because someone who bikes only because he has to will not continue to do so when he no longer has to. But someone who bikes because he chooses to will continue to do so even if he is offered other alternatives.


This is the same whether one is talking about forcing biking on the populace by limiting "suburban sprawl" and confining citizens to the urban world, or whether one is talking of taking the bicyclists and confining them to bike paths in parks and so forth.

Bike paths by themselves are no danger to cyclists, but they are not for everyone, any more than HOV lanes on the highway are. Let's face it, a bicycle path will never get you to the same place as the vast road system in this country. For the bicyclist who doesn't just want to ride around in circles but who actually wants to use his bike to cover distance, a path is useless. In New Jersey, for instance, there is a path from Madison to Morristown. But if one wishes to ride through New Providence, Summit, Chatham, Madison, and on to Morristown, the road is the only way to go. There is simply no chance that any system of paths, no matter how well made, could do for the cyclist what the road does. Moreover, there is the danger that once bike paths become commonplace, that may be the only place cyclists are permitted to ride, and they may find themselves barred from the road. As to safety, there is no risk that can't be addressed via enforcement and education of drivers... bikes ain't the problem.


That guy in the car might have four wheel disc brakes, but the dude on the Bianchi who's clipping along at 40-plus miles per hour cannot stop on a dime just to accommodate the guy in the car, who be too lazy to extend his foot and stop at a stop sign.
Speeding is, next to drunken drivers, one of the most talked about problems on the roads in America. Politicians and police alike complain mightily about speeders -- while hoping silently that they continue to speed, so that the politicians and policemen may continue to collect their money. But speeding does not "cause" crashes -- running stop signs or other course alterating acts do that. Yet, these are not enforced. Meanwhile, the punk who
"floats" a stop sign and hits hte cyclist blames the cyclist -- and so now the same dude who isn't allowed in the woods, is not wanted on the road, simply because he is getting "in the way" of other people's illegal driving. The sad irony here is that the automobile as we know it wouldn't exist without the bike. The inflatable tire? Invented for the bicycle. Good paved raods? Implemented upon advocacy from cycling groups.

Bike paths, to the urbanm planners and greenies, are a "Solution" -- but to bicylcists they are a danger. Because, tho a fine idea in and of themselves, they may soon become compulitory, and cyclists may soon be banned from the very pavement whose improvement they facilitated earlier in the 20th century, and the very woods that they have often, in misguided moments of sympathy, helped the greens preserve.

It is a fate worth avoiding.


Posted by Elvis at 7:33 AM EDT
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