http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/nyregion/thecity/08bike.html
> ... the public perception of bicyclists is largely driven
> by the simple fact that drivers will excuse the behavior of
> other drivers, but will criticize identical behavior from
> bicyclists. The real solution to the perception problem is
> not better bicyclists, but better bicycling infrastructure
> that attracts more drivers onto bicycles more frequently.
=v= Exactly. That's actually going on in New York right now,
though there are growing pains, so the nonsense has shifted
a bit: "Once, they hated us because we were a rarity," this
guy writes, "Now, they hate us because we are ubiquitous."
I was one of the activists working to get those Brooklyn bike
facilities in his anecdote, and in those days (only 5 years ago)
the argument was that every last bicyclist had to be exemplary
or we'd never get anything. Well, we managed to get something
after all, and now the argument is that every last bicyclist
has to be exemplary because we've gotten something.
=v= I'm fine with the call for civility and his recommendations
for same. Really, that stuff is obvious. What I object to
is the rhetorical bludgeon he uses to present the obvious. He
rides a bike twice in the last 20 years and then makes sweeping
statements about "us" bikers due to what some individual did.
=v= The part I take strongest exception to is his claim that
"bikers have begun to treat people [pedestrians] the same way
the cars they used to do battle do -- in other words, like the
enemy." Perhaps he could dig up some people who act that way,
but that's not what I've experienced as a bicyclist nor as a
pedestrian in New York. What's more, bicycling advocacy groups
all over the country often do double duty as pedestrian advocacy
groups -- including Transportation Alternatives, a group he
mentions in the article, hello?
<_Jym_>
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