sggoodri

I don't take this guy seriously. Whom is he going to influence?

But if I did, the best way to deal with conservative/libertarian critics of cycling is with conservative/libertarian arguments in favor of cycling. In case you hadn't noticed, there are plenty of conservatives and libertarians who love cycling. Why is that? Simply, cycling has broad appeal. Consequently, it's easy to find conservative and/or libertarian arguments to support it.

Some examples:

Protecting the travel rights of bicyclists protects civil liberties.
Preserving the right to travel by bicycle protects freedom of movement for a wider population than who motor.
Preserving the right to travel by bicycle increases the supply of labor who can reach their jobs, which is good for business.
Preserving the right to travel by bicycle increases the population of people who can reach commercial goods and services, which is good for the economy.
Protecting practical bicycle transportation improves the ability of low-income people to become employed and leave government assistance.
Protecting safe bicycle transportation can be done by enforcing the laws we already have.
Enforcing existing traffic laws well enough to reasonably protect bicyclists has the additional effect of improving safety for all road users.
And so forth.

The line of argument focuses on the cyclist exerting their own personal effort to travel (the pick-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps idea), be it to improve their standard of living, participate in the economy, improve their health, or protect the environment. The public costs of supporting this are less than the public costs of supporting other travel modes. It just makes good conservative sense to protect it.