Comment 88766

By arienc (registered) | Posted May 16, 2013 at 13:39:50

The problem is mostly political.

The 33% "no way no how" group carries a lot of political weight, compared with the 1% "strong and fearless" and the 7% "enthused and confident" groups, both of which have different ideals about what bike infrastructure needs to be. While these arguments are more emotional than factual, they are also largely unwavering in their hostility towards spending public resources on anything bike related.

The majority group ("interested & concerned"), don't see themselves as having a stake in cycling becoming more mainstream. These are the followers, who will come around after the infrastructure is proven and others have shown how cycling can be integrated into their lifestyle.

Measures like this may help to mitigate the fears and issues that the 33% have, and therefore reduce their political opposition. Many elected officials are actively courting the anti-bike vote, and are seeing successes with this stance (e.g. Rob Ford). There are indeed a lot of people out there that believe that the car has to be given priority over everything else. Politicians therefore become afraid to stick their necks out to support something that should in theory be a no-brainer.

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