I noticed the alignment of three articles in this paper in the last week. One was about how Ireland is likely to fail to meet its international commitment to reduce carbon emissions. One was about the unfamiliar pleasures of cycling in Copenhagen. One was a polemic against cyclists and their presence on mixed-use paths.
The last was very popular and stimulated letters to the Editor about the iniquities of cyclists. We are too fast and too quiet. We frighten pedestrians. We should stay on the roads, with cars and lorries, where we belong.
I don’t cycle on the pavement for the same reasons that I avoid driving in city centres. I’m afraid of hurting someone. But when I’m tempted to ride where I shouldn’t, it’s usually because I’ve run out of safe road. Roadworks invariably close bike lanes and never make alternative provision. You can get off and walk or jostle drivers already annoyed by the disruption. Some junctions are obvious death-traps for cyclists, and others have special provision that rely on sensors that don’t always work.
In other countries, I’ve cycled for pleasure as well as transport. I don’t do that in Ireland because rural roads are too dangerous, but it’s obvious to me why greenways might be busy: there are very, very few of them. There are also, compared with most European countries, very few public footpaths and hiking trails. I respect the postcolonial reasons for Irish landowners’ resistance to the footpaths and bike tracks that criss-cross the hills, fields and woods of most of the Continent, but one result is heavier use of the existing few.
To normalise invective against cyclists is to miss the point spectacularly
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It’s not comfortable to have cyclists and pedestrians mingling. The whole point of a bicycle is that it allows you to move faster than you can walk. Bikes are, indeed, quieter than cars, because they are not burning fossil fuel. No noise or air pollution, no disturbance of wildlife. We are, apparently, required to ring bells as we approach walkers, but not abruptly. A small, apologetic tinkle is correct. Anything louder smacks of aggression, like a car horn.
I have ridden bikes almost daily for more than 40 years, all of them with bells. I am not musical so it’s probably my failing that I never achieved control of the tone of these bells; I’m sure a more skilful percussionist could express the required range of emotion. My bike bells make a noise or don’t, depending on the rain. I use them before crossing a pavement on a blind corner, or when I see someone about to step off a kerb into the bike lane. If, as often, that person is using earbuds or headphones, it doesn’t work, and I wonder how many of the collisions between pedestrians and cyclists involve such scenarios.
The bike lanes of Copenhagen, like those of most cities, separate pedestrians from cyclists. There are also cross-country bike trails all over Denmark, connecting every town and city on routes that allow small children and elders to ride fearlessly. You can put your bike on the bus or train for longer commutes. The same is true of Belgium, the Netherlands, much of France and Germany. There are separate networks of hiking paths. You can – I do – run on the paved bike trails, but if you want to saunter there is other provision.
We won’t reduce carbon emissions or air pollution or deaths on the road by driving cars. Cars make us and our surroundings sick. At the moment, we have infrastructure that also makes them necessary, but the problem is the infrastructure, not the individuals doing their best to get themselves and their families through the day. I don’t blame drivers for driving – no one would drive in Dublin for fun, and in much of rural Ireland there’s no safe alternative even for the shortest journeys. People respond reasonably to unreasonable situations. Normalising invective against cyclists directs anger away from the structures of power and towards vulnerable human bodies.
Some people will always need motorised transport and their needs should be generously met, but for most of us – just like for most Dutch, Belgian and Danish people – cycling and walking could be safe, clean, healthy and most importantly pleasurable ways of getting around. Playing divide-and-conquer between forms of active transport and outdoor activity only distracts us all from the most urgent problem of all, which is the climate emergency.
