By way of Bike SA, I recently stumbled on this classy piece of work in the SMH on 3 December last year: Off yer bike - for the sake of all of us on the roads by a drongo called Michael Duffy. His key thesis: ban bikes from the road "for the good of all of us" (the all here presumably not including cyclists...)
Some classic catches from this opinion piece:
Bikes cause pollution
Bikes are dangerous to ride and slow traffic, which creates more pollution.
Sorry Michael, I didn't follow that. Could you run that by me again?
Reds on bikes
Today, fewer than 1 per cent of all trips in Sydney are made by bike. The bike activists blame this on the paucity of bike lanes and tracks, but this is like Marxists excusing the failure of communism in the Soviet Union by blaming the nature of its regime.
Just love that "Reds on bikes" imagery. Actually, lack of dedicated cycling facilities sounds like a pretty plausible explanation to me.
And Bicycle Victoria seems to agree: "Cycling numbers have increased at 5 per cent a year on average for the last five years as more bike lanes and path go in around the Melbourne Central Business District."
Traffic lights, maybe?
Many bike riders hog the centre of their lane, legally and perhaps wisely, but also slip between traffic when it stops. Where there are traffic lights, this means you can find yourself grinding along behind the same bike several times in the space of a journey. So thousands of cars are inconvenienced by two or three bikes, and the amount of greenhouse gas produced increases.
And the traffic lights don't slow you down at all, Mikey? And how about the extra greenhouse gases produced if those cyclists were also in cars?
Amateur psychology
Bike riders tend to be unhappy and resentful people. They relish telling stories of narrow escapes from death at the hands of stupid car drivers.
Well thanks for the analysis there, Dr Freud. And I bet sitting for hours in a stationary car makes you a happy, well-rounded individual.
Although I've got to say that throughout this piece you sound pretty unhappy and resentful.
We all know that significant proportions of the population are depressed, tense, on a vast range of attention-limiting prescription and non-prescription drugs, or like using their mobile phones while driving.
So this stuff is all OK? Talk about blaming the victim!
Thanks for your concern
For bike riders to launch into city traffic expecting everyone else to respond instantaneously to their unexpected appearance in the same lane, or when they flash through red lights at intersections, suggests a desire for self-harm. As does their preparedness to engage in sustained exercise where they breathe in large quantities of monoxide, with health consequences that can only be guessed at.
I love this one. I bet he typed this while he was tugging on a Marlboro. Your concern is touching Michael, but it's actually motorists themselves who need to be worried about car exhaust fumes, not cyclists.
Whose money?
Unfortunately, bike riding is one of those activities that has acquired an aura of virtue. Supporting it (with other people's money) is an easy way of demonstrating your moral stature.
Pardon? Don't cyclists pay taxes?
A campaign?
And he concludes:
Fortunately the State Government is less enthusiastic about spending its money on bike infrastructure and has recently halved such expenditure. But more needs to be done. A public campaign encouraging people not to ride bikes in traffic would be a responsible start.
Oh, well done the NSW government!
Motivation
This piece is so badly researched and so badly put together that I can only conclude that it's a deliberate piss-take to try to provoke some public debate.
Or maybe Duffy is one of those "satirical" columnists. (Ah, perhaps not. Some of his other recent sprays include "All toll roads lead to Sydney's future", extolling the dubious virtues of Sydney's far-flung, car-only "technoburbs", and "Some reasons to be lighter on the tunnel", cheerleading for Sydney's cross-town vehicle tunnel.)
Hmm, perhaps he's just one seriously ignorant dickhead.
Regardless, putting something like that into print - in a paper as well respected as the SMH - only gives comfort to that small lunatic fringe of drivers who literally want to drive cyclists off the road.
Sanity
Fortunately, sanity prevailed when Professors Pucher and Bauman of the University of Sydney responded on 8 December: Cycling is a healthy way to break the iron grip of the car.
Debunk
They debunk Duffy's nonsense, chapter and verse: health, safety, greenhouse gases, traffic flow - the lot:
One wonders upon reading the article by Duffy whether he would like to turn Sydney into the endless sprawl of Detroit or Atlanta, where there is virtually no alternative to the private car. Evidently, he feels that the car is the only acceptable way to get around, and that all other modes should be eliminated, thus forcing everyone to drive for all their trips. Surely, he must feel that buses and pedestrians get in the way of cars just as much as cyclists. In short, he wants to eliminate choice in means of travel. It would be one sure way to destroy the liveability of Sydney.
…
It is unfortunate that cycling in Sydney has such a marginal status, so marginal that a piece such as Duffy's is even possible. In the highly liveable cities of Europe and Canada, cycling is an essential part of transport systems. Contrary to Duffy's assertion that cycling is inherently unsafe, cycling in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany is quite safe indeed, with clear cycling infrastructure within and between cities, and less than a third as many cycling fatalities per bike trip as in Australia.
Nowhere fast
Now contrast Duffy's drivel with two recent features in the SMH and summarised by Spinopsys: A city going nowhere fast and A city going nowhere fast: Part 2.
Some highlights:
Cost
The real cost of running off the rails:
The city's heedless dependence on the car is stunting its growth and dimming its future to an extent previously unimagined. That is the grim warning from a new study by the Centre for International Economics.
Oh really? Now there's a surprise...
Gas
Heavy road congestion is killing us, study finds:
Road transport is costing Sydney $1.4 billion a year in greenhouse gas and other air pollution, with the city's heavy congestion exacerbating ill health and climate change.
Hey Michael, what was that again about cyclists contributing to greenhouse gas emissions?
No, really - whose money?
Future shock: driving strangles streets
The report says motorists now get "heavy subsidies" for using the road. They are receiving what economists call an inappropriate price signal - that is, the true cost of the activity is not being felt by the user. The cost of using a car needs to reflect the full social and economic cost of driving.
Who's really being supported by "other people's money", Mr Duffy?
I wonder if Michael Duffy has read any of this? Probably not - you don't get much time to read the paper when you spend half your life stuck in traffic…