Comment 34780

By Borrelli (registered) | Posted October 14, 2009 at 13:50:43

Jonathan, not that it matters (do I have to ride a bike to have an opinion on this?), but no I don't ride a bike in this city any more. I used to ride to get to Mac, but found the bus a much preferable option given the routes I was required to use (I will likely never feel all the comfortable riding on King, even with the dedicated "lane" they have there). Now I am primarily a ped when traveling within the city.

And in response to your polite demand, sure I can give you the name of a city where ridership has increased: Davis, California. Its had mandatory bike registration since the 1970s, and even though there is a lack of comprehensive cycling statistics like ridership or safety numbers, I'm going to guess that they've increased the number of cyclists since the 1970s.

But that's sort of cheating isn't it? Well how about this: why don't YOU give me the name of a city where ridership has demonstrably gone DOWN because of a license. Again, I think you'll find it quite difficult given the dearth of stats, but I'm happy to be educated, so take a shot anyway.

I'm going to guess that at best, we can say that licensing MAY be a barrier to increasing ridership, but so is the perception of safety, and so is lack of infrastructure, so ass-backward logic or not, I'm going to reiterate that I think a complex problem like this requires more than a one-dimensional solution.

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