Eric Budd has an excellent letter in Boulder Weekly in response to an earlier Op-Ed by Gary Wockner.

I never read Garys op-ed, but Erics response makes great reading. It eschews the accusatory, selfish language often found in driver vs cyclist exchanges, and focuses on the positive aspects of cycling in a community, much of which you’d never know unless you had cycled. Among other things, Eric says:

Whether it’s riding bikes downtown for happy hour, to the grocery store or to go on a hike, putting people close to the places and services they need makes biking a great choice.

Biking, by implication for most people has distance limitations, earlier in his response, Eric says when discussing the surge in biking fatalities:

The safety of people on bikes is the highest priority. Given the steady rise of death and serious injury across the country to people biking and walking, Boulder and most American communities are not doing enough to make people safe. Increases in vehicle size, distracted driving and the number of miles driven all contribute to a dangerous environment for anyone not in a car.

This is why I argue my home town, Louisville CO should focus more on non-car residents, than catering increasingly to the demands of drivers for more roads, more quick right-on-red lanes, and parking garages.

Cyclists, pedestrians, and people on personal electric vehicles including ebikes and scooters having visited one location in the neighborhood, are not simply going to leave and travel 10-miles to the next. They’ll stay local. They generate more income for a town. Eric makes the point when he says:

Lastly, people and community are the bond that makes bicycle-friendly cities amazing. Not a week goes by when I don’t see several of my friends around Boulder while on bike. Whether stopping to chat or riding together to our destinations, community is what makes biking so great. That many of my friends live a short distance away by bike is such a pleasure.

If only car and truck drivers would see cyclists, and personal electric vehicles, and even public transport in a positive light, and treat the users with respect and make their safety priority #1 – then more people would adopt this for transport leaving fewer cars on the road and more parking spaces available.