No neutral groundUse of the bicycle provides the exception. Normally one tries to adopt a distant neutral stance. Dispassionate, and very legal describes the best approach. That neutral attitude must dominate most of the time on a wide range of topics, but the passion surrounding bicycles doesn't allow such neutrality.
Very few political topics involve such raw emotion. Supporters of bicycle use in this nation, access the political ear to a point far in excess to their environmental benefit, social impact or political standing. They exploit the paternalism of civic authority figures. Universal childhood memories associated with bicycle use in all North American people fortify the false arguments.
Bicycles are regarded as the transport of youth despite the statistically verified inherent danger of injury. By most bicycling remains a recreation, and not more. Bicycle use joins the ranks of motherhood issues. Numerous cycle lobbyists exploit that social memory.
To this point, I am not exactly a person poised in a neutral position. Many friends are passionate users of the bicycle. And, I like and respect them. Yet my close proximity to the bicyclists lobby allowed me to examine their arguments. Writing such conclusions will likely mean a loss of those treasured friendships. Like most reformers they are unforgiving of those who appear to oppose their position. They personalize their political thought.
Their belief in bicycle use is that irrational. Their enthusiasm is welded to the childhood myth involving the bicycle. Although small in raw numbers, the cyclists present a formidable political force in Toronto. While it appears that there are dozens of local cycling organizations, in reality there are very few active cyclists since they often sign on as members of more than one organization. Usually on every public demonstration the very same few people show up. They are politically astute. Members hang around the city hall like gulls on a fish trawl.
In that closeness, I found that the politicians tend to listen to them. Usually cyclists win every political argument because few people in authority do not wish to tackle with the obvious inadequacies of the pro-bicycle lobby's arguments.
In the study for this article, I found that specific facts and observations cycle lobbyists present to advance the cause of bicycles, paradoxically are the same arguments against bicycles. It depends on viewpoint. The same material that can be used to present their argument provides equal fertile grounds to actually ban the use of the the bicycle.
Bicycle lanesThe latest political confrontation in the city of Toronto involves the deletion of a fifth lane on the north and south running Jarvis Street. The disappearing lanes converting to become two dedicated bicycle lanes. Jarvis Street is a very heavily used access road in and out of the downtown core. It needs more lanes, not less.
Bicycle lobbyists persist in using the two shoe argument. While one argument is vehicle safety, the other shoe is almost always involves the environment. Bicycle lanes do provide a level of protection to cyclists on streets. But there are so few cyclists compared with other vehicular traffic, that even a substantial increase in cycling ridership will never cover the deleterious environmental impact on the local air quality or overall safety due to the added traffic congestion.
Toronto clearly understood the advantages when it allocated bicycle lanes to parallel street Sherbourne, that is just two blocks east of Jarvis street. Sherbourne Street gets heavy use in the freshness of spring but the rest of the year that artery doesn't exactly stream with the usage of bicycles promised by theory. Winter climate, and rain pushes that use down dramatically. Torontonians by the vast majority, are fair weather cyclists. Most of the time, those established bicycle lanes are under utilized.
The theory is that bicycle lanes promotes increased use of the bicycle. This theory remains only anecdotal and totally unsubstantiated by any third party neutral study. All studies in that regard carry the support of the bicycle lobby. Such lanes do not cause the proportional increase equal to the polluting increase caused by the constriction of traffic.
Bicycle lanes will constrict the flow of traffic on Jarvis. Estimates conclude that 27,000 cars use Jarvis on a weekday. The installation of bicycle lanes create a constriction, which will increase rush hour travel times by two extra minutes. The usual travel time is about ten minutes. Bicycles use should approximately arrive at the 600 mark with the creation of the lanes. 100 cyclists per day were estimated to use the corridor previously.
Statistics are another area of information misuse used by bicycle advocates. Politicians embrace these deceitful promise and subjective statements because it is a motherhood type issue. Supporting the lanes gives the impression that they are doing something about the environment. The impact causes more traffic gridlock and greater air pollution. Bicycle lanes are a useless appendage to the municipal plan.
Irony of mathHere lies the irony. Those very same numbers used by cyclists to advance their cause are, the same statistics that can be used in the argument to ban bicycles from every public road.
In every single statement issued by the Toronto Cycling lobbyists, it seems they mark the accident but not fault. One common attitude amongst all this very small advocacy is a universal hatred of cars beyond normal logical bounds. The bicycle lobby always finds fault with the automobiles, never the cyclist.
In recent breakdown of bicycle accident statistics published in the Toronto Star recently, the lobby convinced the journalists to support the bicycle lanes by obscuring critical information. Only two accidents of bicycles involved fatalities. The rest covered the entire city area with accidents and those accidents incurring injury. They advanced their position with favorable numbers only, without presenting all the data.
In other studies where the breakdowns of accidents occur, it was found that almost half of the bicycle accidents involved the cyclists use of sidewalks. Cyclists ran into right turning cars. The bikes came into intersections from the sidewalks. Or the cyclists ran into pedestrians. This breakdown wasn't included in the Toronto Star report. It would be extremely unfavorable to the bicycle lobby and the story. It is a sample of very poor journalism to let the advocates guide the story.
Statistics can mislead. In all the United States figures, bicycles seem to have a lower fatality rate than cars but a far higher serious injury rate. The problem in comparing fatality rates is that the single accident with cars can include multiple fatalities while each bicycle accident has a single fatality. Further to the issue is that the automobile travels on highways at much higher rates sustaining more serious injuries but at an injury rate lower than cycling accidents. Per unit of distance, per period of time, the bicycle injury rate is almost double that of cars. Using such figures one must adjust for the reality. After some study, I can testify that the fatality rate for bicycle accidents under 40km/hr exceed the cars fatality rate at the same speeds.
People in an automobile are more likely to survive injury free in a low speed crash such as found in parking lots. Also very troubling is the lack of a world standard in collecting global statistics between jurisdictions. One can conclude that the accident statistics involving bicycles and pedestrians are tremendously skewed because many of these low speed accidents are not reported. And often those fatalities are called pedestrian fatalities not fatalities charged to bicycle use.
Also, there is no legal mandatory reporting of bicycle accidents like there is for automobiles. Many low speed automobile accidents aren't reported. When a cyclist falls of the bike on a sidewalk and scrapes a knee that injury is never reported. Indeed the fact that an injury comes from bicycle fall such a fact is often never charted by the hospital emergencies or first aid clinics.
The cyclists in the cyclist lobby groups know that the accident rate for bicycles is far greater than reported. The average cycle courier suffers frequent injuries from their professional use of bicycles. And injury free accidents are almost never counted. By far and away if a bicycle accident is reportable or not, I've yet to hear where the cyclist admits fault.
Abuse of the social contractAnd here lies one real bugaboo about the use of bicycles. While automobile laws are rigidly enforced cyclists abuse their traffic laws constantly. Very few cyclists obey the traffic laws on a ride. Even bicycle police ride on sidewalks, cross lawns, go up the wrong way on one ways, fail to come to full stop at intersections. And they are the police.
The most egregious law abuse I saw recently was at a Toronto Cyclist demonstration at city hall. They paraded on bikes onto the square. After across Toronto's Nathan Phillips Square, moving pedestrians out of the way, to the front doors of City Hall, these cyclists rolled out a fake bike lane made of old roofing tar-paper .
Nathan Phillips Square is supposed to a pedestrian use only gathering area. Were they a legal protest, they should have dismounted and walked onto the square. They knew cycling onto the square was wrong. Didn't bother them at all. They broke the law regarding the safety of pedestrians to protest the abuse of safety for cyclists by cars. They want bicycle lanes running the length of Bloor. And the demonstration featured the presentation of a petition to the city politicians with no apologies to pedestrians.
There was little police presence for the demonstration beyond the quizzical looks of the normal security guards. I doubt they had the required permit to have a demonstration. In all my time, I have never seen cars drive onto Nathan Phillips Square to protest the lack of downtown parking. The bicycle lobby gets away with anything.
So here lies the heart of an issue. Cyclists want to use streets designed for the efficient movement of car traffic. And in turn, allocate dedicated lanes for use by unregistered, unplated vehicles by users who are not licensed, insured, or subject to vehicular safety regulations. Cyclists pay little or no road tax, energy tax, or tax of any kind. Use of these paved streets are gratis. They even get free parking.
Lobbyists want to use bicycles with no applications of the same legal sanctions applied to motor based vehicles. A driver with a suspended license can use a bicycle on the same road used by vehicles that this person was banned from. Indeed a lot of bike riders drink and ride. Every impaired charge applied to a cyclist usually stands up, cyclists pay a fine, or spend a short time in jail, lose their driver's license if they have one, cyclists simply hop on a bicycle the day after their punishment expires with no fear or sanction. Police prefer chasing cars rather than cyclists.
The worst punishment a cyclist incurs is jail time. Police rarely enforce traffic laws effecting bicycles. How do we know? Well when a cyclist gets a speeding ticket, that's news. It makes news or the rumor mill because catching, charging and convicting a cyclist is an exception not the rule.
There is a special license each for motorcyclists, for professional drivers, for truck drivers, for schoolbus drivers and more. There is none for bicyclists, yet they insist on having a special lane on major routes where other vehicles must meet safety standards, be insured, and be happy to provide tax monies for the maintenance of those roads. They get special treatment in so many ways.
Pedal power cyclists also don't want to share. Moped type vehicles including the recently introduced electric scooter presently have the right to also use those lanes. But the cyclist lobby has recently filed a protest about that also. The electric scooters become more popular, are an environmental gem but the cyclists don't like them.
Active TransportationOne avenue of advocacy is the use of the bicycle for transport of goods into the city core. It is a movement called Active Transport. The theory is that cargo movements into the city core must be made by human powered vehicles. The position does reduce carbon emissions in the city core. But using the factors and numbers supplied by that lobbyist group and Revenue Canada, one can demonstrate that overall and indirectly that humans are poor power converters of energy. Active transportation advocates managed to get a taxable allowance for energy use that car driving couriers have.
Its all in the math. This Canada Revenue discount on the gross income is equivalent to $15.00 per day. It is for energy delivered to the human as food. Food it should be pointed out has one of the highest energy foot prints on the store shelves. Fuel is used to fertilize, til, spray, harvest, process, transport, refrigerate, house, and display food product. And the food must be consumed as most comes out as crap or lost in other human bio activities. So humans are inefficient energy converters.
The Active Transport cyclist travels a bit better than 100km per day. A 4 cylinder car on the other hand does better than 200km per day. The Active Transport carries no more than an average of 15 Kg at any one time over that distance. A car can carry usually 50 to 500kg over the whole distance of its travel.
Usually the fuel costs for the car at 99 cents per litre over that 100 km distance is about $7 dollars. So a bike delivering the capability of moving the average 15kg over 100k at double the rate of a car carrying the same amount. When the larger cargo capability is included, the car becomes far more efficient transport including the energy foot print, than the single bicycle. It would take 33 cyclists to carry the 500kg over 100km. Only one car and driver is used.
To move that material, would cost Revenue Canada $231 dollars on lost taxable income in the energy discount versus the seven dollars declared by a car. What is worse, is that 33 bicyclists on the roads do not curtail traffic congestion especially since according to accident statistics half of those vehicles are going to use sidewalks on their journey at 66 times the likelihood that an injury will occur using the US traffic accident statistics.
While a member of Active Transportation groups, in a study of the issue I presented a comment that bicycles were unsuitable to be a cargo carrying vehicle in the present configuration. Bicycles possess a high center of gravity. The greater the weight destabilizes the vehicle. The rider must balance the bike and the load at the same time.
As a generality an ordinary rider can cope with about 18Kg carried in a back pack. Saddle bags on the rear can extend that weight carrying capability about 300pounds. Unfortunately, modern bicycles lack sufficient sturdiness in mechanical design to sustain those loads over long distances. Bicycles tend to breakdown due to the very high loads on a very fragile frame. Time is lost on repair on bicycle movements exceeding the on journey breakdowns of the automobile. A bicycle are more likely to suffer a mechanical delay enroute than cars.
I found that there were better environmentally sound, human powered inventions more capable than bicycles. They were tricycles. These devices are available today at about the same cost as a high priced bicycles. Yet couriers of the City of Toronto use few, if any of these vehicles for standard delivery. One reason is that they don't go fast enough to suit cyclists. The second reason is that they have very poor snow characteristics. They get stuck easily. Bicycles can be carried across snow banks with the cargo in the backpack.
And that is the reality of Active Transport heavy machines. It only works well in snow free environments. Even the numbers of cyclists decline in snow conditions. This is offset for cars because cars can move faster because all traffic is down. If one can get downtown during heavy snowfalls one finds very few traffic delays due to the lower numbers of vehicles. While Active Transport types of vehicles do reduce pollution the solution to clean air is to convert those vehicle designs to alternative power sources such as hydrogen or electric sources.
So here we have bicycles as only one way but not the major way of getting pollutants out of the air. However the design of the vehicle is meant to deliver an unburdened person rapidly and efficiently. Cargo and freight designs are not competent when the major motive force is human power alone.
Live long and pay monthlyThe last issue concerning bicycles has already been outlined but must be revisited. That issue is insurance. These vehicles possess no major insurance support framework to pay for accidents or social liabilities. Any vehicle using publicly supported, and publicly maintained streets should have some sort of insurance. Its not a complicated demand. The vast majority of bicyclists are not insured for that activity.
Cyclists want to use those roads without operator's license, without safety inspection, without plates, without insurance, without adequate personal protection, and without sanction of law. Cyclists do not want to pay extra despite the heightened level of injury due to bicycle operation.
Here is the kicker. If bicycles were introduced today, and not in the world of the mid-1800s few jurisdictions would welcome the invention. Bicycles would be declared unsafe vehicles and banned from public roads. The rates of injury are high. No insurance company would issue the proper insurance because the vehicles do not meet modern safety standards.
Banning bikes would reduce accidents for motor vehicles and a safer environment for pedestrians. Proportionally a majority of pedestrians complain about bicycles on sidewalks rather than cars on streets. Banning bikes saves health costs. The values of the savings exceed the minor environmental benefits gained from cycling.
Money saved by the reduction in health costs due to elimination and allocated to renewable energy development would do more for the environment than treating bicyclists like special citizenry. Banning bikes would reduce car insurance costs. Regardless of fault, cyclists almost always incur injuries in auto bicycle collisions which means excess medical costs.
In many ways the Toronto Cyclists should be thanked. Without their advocacy of bicycle lanes using questionable statistics, this study would not have been done. Cyclists in Toronto and other urban environments have had about 120 years to clean up the misuse of bicycles. They want special favors but give none in return. One favor would be to clean up their act. Because at this point there is a very viable alternative answer to the bicycle problem. The only socially efficient and cost effective solution to the bicycle problem is the simple one. Ban the bicycle.
