I enjoyed reading this new essay in Jon Jon Wesolowski's substack.
https://thehappyurbanist.substack.com/p/vehicular-cycling
I think he did a really good job of advocating for his viewpoint while still respectfully showing where and why this approach has fans.
by mmchicago
2 Comments
Thanks for sharing.
Blaming the idea of vehicular cycling for lack of infrastructure is a big stretch. I think places are just cheap and their leadership/traffic engineers are shitheads who don’t see value in connectivity or understand why people aren’t using the existing shit infrastructure.
I’m a Vehicular Cyclist not necessarily because I want to be (I’d love to bring non VCs on a bunch of my routes!) but out of necessity. My city has very few routes where you can get from x to y safely as a non VC, add in the extra distance you have to travel to be safe and it’s not worth it unless you’re leisurely going about.
Whether or not I take the lane has no bearing on my cash strapped city putting in actual useable bike lanes/networks, it all comes down to leadership and who’s in charge of road design in these places.
I’m this article they essentially put the blame for a lack of cycling infrastructure squarely in John Forester’s hands. That’s just silly. The lack of protected bike lanes did not come about because of some thoughtful analysis where planners took into account the perspective of any cyclists; they just ignored the issue. There are virtually no us cities with good bike infrastructure – maybe three at best, but that’s a stretch by European standards.
I ride defensively like Forester advocated for, but I’ve been riding lots for all of my life and I’m late middle-aged. There is no way that I can expect other cyclists to have the confidence required to do things like take a lane or use a left hand turn lane, so John Forester was overly idealistic, I’ll admit, but to blame him for a country hell bent on cars being the only commuting mode respected is hyperbolic.