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Bicycle Friendly?This is a composite picture. We do not know any city that puts a BFC sign on the same signpost as a no bikes sign. But there are cities that have both signs. We think that's a disgrace. |
BFC gives very little emphasis to competent training for bicycle operation in traffic. The overemphasis on facilities at the expense of education propagates the misinformation that cycling on roadways is dangerous and therefore that segregated facilities are needed. This misinformation encourages harassment from motorists and police and it marginalizes cycling for transportation. The emphasis on facilities -- any facilities -- with no consideration of safety, often results in Bicycle Blunders.
The BFC program was extensively revised in 2002. While there were some improvements over the original program, serious problems remain, particularly in the most important areas: (1) Failing to educate society about bicycle operation; (2) Encouraging unsafe bicycle facilities; (3) Granting awards to cities that do not preserve cyclists' rights to use the roads; and (4) Giving mostly lip service to safe bicycle driving practices. It is apparent that this project did not have significant input from the League's cycling instructors.
The BFC program rewards things that are visible and easy to count (miles of bikelanes and paths) with a shameful disregard for whether they are safe for cyclists (i.e. sidewalk-type bike paths, doorzone bikelanes, or bikelanes with other safety defects are uncritically counted as "good" things). We view this as corrupt.
We note that the bicycle industry's vigorous funding of this program could be either a great opportunity or a great disappointment. The industry funders could look at the program criteria and ask, "Which of these have been abused in previous awards? What areas have caused controversy? What changes should be made to ensure that all cyclists benefit from the measures taken to earn the awards?" That would be a step forward. But if the industry money just goes to "do more of what you've been doing," the problems will likely get worse.
| The BFC program is NOT about being friendly (or even fair) to cyclists. It's about spending money, ribbon cutting and symbolic projects to glorify "The Bicycle". Never mind safety, rights to the road, education or improving the status of cyclists |
The BFC rating criteria, the applications submitted and LAB's feedback are kept secret from LAB members. If LAB revealed this information, we could easily see the overwhelming emphasis of the BFC program on segregated bikeways and the lack of emphasis on safety and fairness to cyclists. As it is, we can infer these problems by looking at what is asked on the application and by examining the communities getting the award
If the BFC evaluation process were equally divided on the four non-engineering areas (education, encouragement, enforcement/adjudication, and evaluation/planning), then "engineering" (which mostly means building segregated facilities) could produce only 20 percent of the score. In addition, at least half of the engineering score should go towards non-bikeway facilities (e.g., bike parking, public transit access, roadway traffic signal actuation, pavement surface maintenance, ATB trails, recreational facilities (e.g., velodromes or BMX tracks), and even winter maintenance of shared-use paths).
In other words, in a balanced BFC evaluation process segregated bikeways should count for no more than 10 percent of the total score. It's obvious that BFC rewards segregation.
The main motivations seem to be (1) fear and hatred of auto traffic; (2) a fanatic belief that bicycles will save the world from the evil automobile; (3) the belief that bicycle facilities help sell bikes. While the two goals above may be worthwhile, bicycle advocay coupled with a zealous "ends justify the means" approach, can be deadly.
The BFC program claims to have five areas of emphasis: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement and Evaluation. A recent article in the LAB magazine suggested a sixth E, "Equality" (perhaps better called "Equity"). With the way BFC has been promoted, we need yet another E, "Ethics", which has been missing from the BFC program. In the sections to follow we will look at each of the 5 E's.
| 1. Engineering: | Winking at Safety vs. Better Ideas |
| 2. Mis-education: | Perpetuating Cycle of Misinformation vs. Emphasizing Best Practices |
| 3. Encouragement: | Cheerleading for Bicycle Use vs. Useful Encouragement |
| 4. Enforcement: | What About Fair Laws? vs. Law Reform and Equitable Enforcement |
| 5. Evaluation: | Current Detrimental Program vs. A Program that Actually HELPS Cyclists |
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© Copyright 2003-2008 Fred Oswald and LAB Reform.
May be copied with attribution.
Some materials may have been reproduced under fair use guidelines or with
permission of the original author.
The author is a Professional Engineer in Ohio and a certified
League Cycling Instructor.
Last Revised 4/15/08