no1mad 

I don't think that looking to the Politico's is the answer- it's grass roots. Also, there really isn't a universal "influence" people to make the transition to LCF. For every similarity in a community, there is also a distinction.

I personally would have no problem being LCF in my current town if left to my own, at least as long as my vision holds. My wife, on the other hand, is the polar opposite.

.

Artkansas 

Example

B. Carfree

Portland, OR asked people what was keeping them in their cars. The answer was their fear of...other people in cars. While elected officials are good at lip service and short on performance, the city staff are where the rubber meets the road, at least in terms of mitigating that oft-cited fear of scofflaw motorists. Thus, my boring solution has been to get involved in organizations that can influence the city staff in my community. It's time consuming, frustrating and thankless, but my cohorts and I have begun to get some positive results. Equally important, we have prevented some negative things from happening.

It helps if you both know the engineering rules under which things happen as well as the local and state laws and policies. At least it helps here since our local traffic engineers and planners routinely violate state law and guidelines. It's just been their habit and no one has ever called them on it. After a few public calling-outs, they have begun to listen when we engage them rather than put up with the inevitable public shaming that will follow if they don't.

I truly believe that if we eliminated door zone bike lanes (bike lanes are good, but not if they are in the door zone), place sharrow markings with "bicyclists may use full lane" signs where the lanes are too narrow to share, enforced our traffic laws, placed traffic control devices to facilitate human powered folks instead of fossil fools, had sidewalks the length of every street, provided safe bike parking and subsidized reasonable public transport then motorists would be a minority of road users. Pick one or more and get to work locally.

I-Like-To-Bike

Although many of your suggestions may be helpful for people who are already bicyclists, and perhaps influence a relative few new bicyclists, I believe only your recommendation for subsidized reasonable public transport would or could have any significant (or even noticeable) effect on converting adults who already use their car daily to living car free. Of course "reasonable" would have to include an extensive network of routes and frequent scheduling from early morning until late evening at the very least.

B. Carfree

I left the definition of reasonable up in the air since it would really depend on the community/region in question.

As to the rest, I watched in dismay as external pressures led to a rapid increase in bike use in my city which then fell off almost as fast as it came into being. It seemed to me that the reason one-third of our bicycle-using commuters returned to their cars was the horrific hidden dangers of our infrastructure like door-zone bike lanes. (Those may seem obvious to anyone who rides, but to someone who is just starting they look like a welcoming place to ride until their first door encounter.) As I did some door-to-door canvasing on a related issue, I found that this situation was a concern to many people who had either given up riding or had dramatically reduced their saddle miles.

I could be wrong and it was a small sample set in one neighborhood, but I don't think the benefits of making our roads safer for people can be dismissed out of hand. Every person who gives up on cycling/walking/whatever and returns to the car not only contributes to the notion that it is hard to move about without a car, but they are no longer in the pool of folks who will show that it is quite easily doable.

We'll likely disagree here, but I just wanted you to know how I thought about it. I'd love to hear what you think would encourage more carfree living.

bragi

I'm a little skeptical that fully one-third of bicycle commuters went back to cars so quickly in your community. Here in Seattle, which is arguably a more arduous biking environment than Eugene, the numbers of bicycle commuters seems to be continuing to increase, even though our bicycle infrastructure is still kind of mediocre. In some parts of town on the weekends, I actually have a hard time finding a decent place to lock up my bike...

And honestly, is riding your bike in an area with no bicycle infrastructure actually "horrific"? I think this is an unhelpful exaggeration; talk like this makes people think bicycling is much more dangerous than it actually is. The surface streets of any large city are almost always decent places to ride a bike even if no bicycle infrastructure is there. If you spend a few seconds choosing routes wisely, follow traffic laws judiciously, dress for the weather, and stay at least minimally aware of what's going on around you, the odds are really high that you'll actually survive and probably even have fun riding your bike without a cycle track or bike lane anywhere near you. It's not like the average person is a completely helpless idiot.

bragi

I'm with Artkansas on this one: be a good example and don't talk about it much. I don't like evangelists of any type, and I think a bicycle evangelist might actually be even more annoying to most people than a Jehovah's Witness, or, heaven forbid, a self-righteous atheist.

wahoonc

It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around. Many times all you need is someone to lead by quiet example, other times you need rabble rousers (evangelists if you will) to get people mad enough not to take it anymore. I fall in between.

Aaron

plustax

Sidewalks, and a decent public transit system. I cover more miles on my legs than anything else.

GodsBassist

^ This. Plus a lot of times it opens up a dialogue for candid discussion. "What about when it gets cold?" "How do you get groceries?" "Isn't it dangerous?" Ie. Not proselytization. But this is just a way to spread acceptance, not influence usage.


^ This is what we have to change in order for the vast majority of people to shift to cycling. The way we design our communities has to change. I'm all about evangelizing for this part.

Ekdog

Leading by example is fine, but if people see cycling as too dangerous, they're unlikely to take it up and even less likely to allow their kids to cycle, so I work through my local cycling organization, which is part of another group that pressures for change on a national level, to make sure the type of cycling infrastructure exists that allows for a safe commute.

I'm also fond of haranging in this forum.

I-Like-To-Bike

Exactly. And for all the jabber about the horrific danger of door zone bike lanes, and bike infrastructure not in place, or not up to the latest specification, where do those fear mongers think cyclists have always ridden before the painting of those stripes?

My experience in Philadelphia in the 50' though the 90's was: in exactly the same lateral location on the street regardless of parked cars. If a cyclist rides around blissfully unaware of his/her surroundings he/she may face more risks than someone who looks where he/she is going. Only in the ardent VCers nightmares/fear mongering stories are there any significant number of cyclists who are unaware that adjacent car doors can be opened in front of them, or that painted lines are not shields of invincibility.

Artkansas 

I also work with my local cycling advocacy organization and have also been part of the National Bike Summit several times. We need better facilities. But on a person to person level, I model a certain behavior and am happy to answer any questions, but I don't proselytize.

chewybrian 

Yes, I think the best you can hope is to convince a few close friends that you're not completely bonkers.

No matter how badly people need the savings, the workout, or the peace of mind, they have to find it for themselves. You might convince them to try a new restaurant, or switch cell phone plans, but ditching the car is like:

Smallwheels

Just ask people how much money they spent on gasoline last week. Multiply that number by 50 and tell them you don't spend any money at the gas pump. You buy groceries.

Ekdog

The question you must ask yourself is: Would I allow my children to cycle to school in the area? If the answer is no, I'd say yes, it's horrific.

Ekdog

We're not supposed to be discussing religion here, so why don't you knock it off?

enigmaT120

Is it OK if they start with driving less and using other options more? Actually, I don't think I've ever convinced anybody of anything.

wahoonc

I agree, unfortunately in too many places in the US the answer is NO! I know a family from the Chicago area that lives car free, one of the huge concerns of the mother was her son having to literally fight for a place in traffic to get to and from some places. I know my parents put limits on where I could ride, fortunately the town we lived in at the time had a grid layout and plenty of alternate routes. I was in that town recently and many of the routes I used to use have been expanded to 6 lane roads and are no longer viable as cycle routes. King Kar Kills another city...

Aaron

gerv 

I differ on this one. Without some people who are willing to chat up policiticans, get on city boards, keep up cycling web sites, a lot of the infrastructure and benefits that cyclist do see wouldn't exist.

Give you an example: in Des Moines, we have bike racks on every bus. These get used a lot. In fact, there's always a good chance your bike might not get on the bus. All cyclists love them especially in bad weather.

But... the reason those racks exist is that one individual canvassed city hall and the transit people. It took a while, but he didn't give up.

Without him, those quier cyclists wouldn't have racks.

GodsBassist

I think a core difference is political impetus and social evangelization. I'm totally comfortable writing developers, politicians, engineers blogging, all that stuff for social change. I will harass the living daylights out of a local entity if I think it will help cycling in my community in the tiniest bit. Walking through offices at work reminding everybody who complains about the price of gas, that you're not burdened by the same terrible life choices, I think, is closer to what Artkansas and bragi are talking about. Even if we are better human beings in general because of it. =P

B. Carfree

You misunderstood me on the horrific infrastructure. I completely agree that roads with no bicycle specific infrastructure are not necessarily horrific. The overwhelming majority of my many miles in the saddle have been on such roads and likely always will be. The horrific infrastructure to which I was referring was poorly implemented bike-specific infrastructure. To wit: door-zone bike lanes (all arterial bike lanes in Eugene have these), cycletracks that have beaucoup driveways and side streets such that cyclists are out of view of the motorists who will cross paths with them, extremely narrow (I'm talking less than a foot) rideable surface bike lanes, particularly those on right curves, bike paths that come to blind crossings (lost a cyclist to a train this year; no way to see it and he couldn't hear it.)

Now, none of those infrastructure failures would matter if we enforced our traffic laws. We don't so it does matter.

As far as losing one-third of our bike commuters, the data is in the US census American Community Survey. While I don't trust the data for comparing between different locales, I think it is a good measure of what is happening in a particular place over time. You can double-check these (I'm pulling them from memory, so please do).
Bike Commuters in Eugene:
2008: 7.8%
2009: 10.8%
2011: 7.3%
2012: somewhere between 8 and 8.5%

Yes, we really did lose one-third of our bike commuters between 2009 and 2011. It actually felt like we lost even more, but that's what the ACS reported. People tried it, they didn't like it so they returned to their cars.

DX-MAN

That IS a good way to look at it -- until I realize, the only place in the COUNTY where I live that I'd allow the kids to ride UNESCORTED, I can't afford to live in! If I'm WITH them, then it's irrelevant.

Dahon.Steve

I wish we could agree on this theory.

Recent studies show that lightrail actually increases car ownership! Transit oriented communites in the past were often poor minority neighborhoods. Many of those living in those communities are often too poor to afford a car. However, once a billion dollar lightrail is constructed, gentrification takes place with new construction and property taxes going through the roof. The poor in the neighborhood are replaced by middle and upper middle class who can afford cars.

I-Like-To-Bike

I wouldn't recommend gratuitously quizzing people about their personal expenditures with the intention of mocking them for two reasons:
1. The questioner will be correctly judged as an obnoxious jerk;
2 The questioner better be prepared to compare the totality of his "lifestyle" vis-à-vis those he intends to mock. If the questioner can't convince anyone that he is indeed living better, he will only be considered a deluded fool.