If it was that bad here, I wouldn’t ride a bike at all. It is, after all, a CHOICE.

What ARE you talking about?

These circular arguments are getting tiresome. And, in case you haven’t noticed, nobody’s buying them. Move on.

Kevin’s comment:
I’m used to enforcement being placed on the hardware side. The difference being in the source of the motivation.

Is the motivation coming from within the human person? Things like education, moral suasion, preaching, etc. all seek to change the internal motivation of a human being.

Or is the motivation imposed by an external constraint preventing the behaviour? Such constraints or barriers range from concrete to a man with a gun.

To quote Robert Heinlein, “Guns are the ultimate hardware solution.”

Or to quote Eric Flint, one of whose fictional characters said:

“It’s simply a myth that social attitudes are so deeply rooted that they’ll last for generations under any circumstances. And the reason it’s a myth is because attitudes in the abstract require actions in the concrete in order to remain solid and well-entrenched.

It’s not enough to ‘feel’ or ‘think’ this or that bias or prejudice. To keep those biases and prejudices solid – give them meat and blood and bone – you have to be able to act on them. And you’ve got to be able to do it frequently and regularily and in the public eye. Destroy the ability to act, and you will – very quickly – see the attitudes crumble and fade away…

There was a time in America when you could lynch a black man with impunity. And then the time came when if you did so, you would get your ass handed to you. Often enough, by a black man wearing a badge and carrying a gun.

It’s amazing, Francisco, how quickly ‘deeply ingrained attitudes’ will change – when the consequences of not changing are so immediate and obvious…”

I agree with Eric Flint. This is precisely how effective bicycle advocacy works. By imposing external environmental constraints upon our roads and transport systems. It could be a concrete barrier or a man with a gun – motorist behaviour will be forcibly changed.

You can call it hardware, or external constraints, or forcibly imposing our will upon social deviants, or reclaiming cities for people not cars, or whatever you want to call it. It remains the same: the physical prevention of bad behaviour by changing the external environment.

This new environment then provides a framework in which education, moral suasion, preaching and the other elements of soft power can go to work. Today, we’re seeing the battle of soft vs. hard power on the streets of Tehran. It is time to bring the same fight to the streets of Orlando.

The government intervention was ENFORCEMENT. That’s a software solution.

Your solution to the cyclist harassment problem would be analogous to the government having built a totally separate parallel society for African Americans so they never had to interact with Euro-Americans.

As a follow-on to Steve’s Forester reference, what do you think that separate infrastructure would have looked like? Well, you don’t have to imagine it, there are still vestiges of it everywhere. Because that’s what was being done!

ding ding ding, we have a winner!

Kevin’s comment:
But that wasn’t how Jim Crow was overthrown in the US South. It was a top-down process of LBJ sending in the US federal Armed Forces to impose desegregation at gunpoint. Wallace was democratically elected by the white people of Alabama on a “segregation forever” platform. Take a look at what he presented to the voters who elected him at:

http://www.ep.tc/georgewallace/

Those attitudes were not going to change until the hardware of the US federal Armed Forces came along.

“Guns are the ultimate hardware solution” – Robert Heinlein.

Or, to quote LBJ himself,

“When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will inevitably follow.”

Within the environment created by this hardware, software solutions such as education, moral suasion, and the preaching of preachers like the Rev. M.L. King gained traction. And, thank God, we have a more just society today where software solutions did thrive in the environment created by the hardware solution. And racism is socially unacceptable today. Even George Wallace changed his attitude.

But I feel it fairly safe to predict that all the software solutions in the world would have been ineffective if it were not for the hardware of the US federal Army.

It is the same with the bicycle. A small contingent of six yellow-shirted die-hard caraholic protestors showed up at the Toronto City Council meeting that voted in the Jarvis Street bike lanes. Although grossly outnumbered by the hundreds of cycle advocates that packed the public galleries, I predict that their attitudes are not going to change.

What will change is their ability to act on their attitudes. Hardware will ensure that they are going to lose their privileged position on the road – thank God. Within the social space created by that hardware, education and changing attitudes have a chance.

Kevin’s comment:
Not necessarily. The city in the USA with the highest bike mode share is Davis, California. Davis has a very low population density. The major city with the highest population density, Manhattan, historically has had a very low bike mode share – although it has been sharply increasing in recent times.

Dutch cities like Assen also have very low population densities – and high bike mode shares.

“30 years ago, Toronto looked nothing like Orlando.”

What you overlook is the fact that since the current borders of Toronto were set in 1954, Toronto’s population density has increased by 250%. Indeed, the current 20-year Official Plan is to add a million more people to Toronto’s population – and zero new roads for cars. That will have been almost a 400% increase in population density.

This change is due to people democratically taking hold of their destiny and their future at the land use planning level. There is absolutely nothing in Orlando preventing a similar democratic process also resulting in a 400% increase in population density. My advice: Try it, you’ll like it.

Kevin’s answer:
It obviously depends upon geographic and demograpic factors. For example, the city of Venice, Italy will probably remain car-free with a low bike mode share. On the other hand, the residential communities of Toronto Islands will remain car-free with a very high bike mode share.

A key demographic factor in Toronto is that a high percentage of households have more than one person working outside of the home. This causes issues with living next to the place of employment, as different members of the household may be employed in different parts of the City.

Copenhagen is at 55% bicycle mode share, and plans to increase that. Much of Copenhagen has what people in Toronto would consider to be an inferior public transit system; Toronto has a much more developed transit culture.

For Toronto, I would say that an ideal mode share would be:

For commuting (allocating multi-mode by distance) -
Bicycle 35%
Transit 40%
Walking 25%

For all other utility trips -
Bicycle 40%
Walking 45%
Transit 15%

For Toronto’s current mode share, see:

http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps.html?xml=080830_commuters_walkandbike.xml

Racism is a software problem. It requires a software solution—changing attitudes and social norms. The problem with harassment of cyclists is similarly a software problem. It requires changing attitudes about who the roads are for. Real and subjective safety also requires changing attitudes about personal responsibility for driving in a safe and respectable manner. That’s a rallying point we should use, because it’s something that is really necessary for the quality of life in our communities. It affects everyone, no matter their mode of transportation.

We can’t fix the core social problem with a hardware solution. There are appropriate uses for cycling infrastructure, but improving the belief system regarding cyclists’ use of the roadways is NOT one of them.

Isn’t that what Dutch infrastructure is? Separate but “equal.” As John Forester notes, what a majority provides for the minority is never as good as what they provide for themselves.