The Street in Question
This made the front page of Levante, the local newspaper that usually isn’t carrying on a war
against cyclists like the other daily, Las
Provincias.
They aren’t asking the right questions. First of all,
the bike path hasn’t yet opened; it’s under construction. What has it
collapsed? As I live near this street I’ve seen it first hand and nothing has
collapsed. Has traffic slowed a bit? Yes, but so what? Is the purpose of city
streets only to provide drivers the unlicensed ability to drive at the highest
rate of speed allowed?
What these poor excuses for journalism never ask is
how does this new bike path un-collapse bike traffic. How many more bikes will
now pass down this same street? As the old saying goes, when one door closes,
another opens.
I was discussing this new addition to Valencia’s bike
path network in a bar recently and someone mentioned that ambulances will now
be hindered on this one lane street. There are lots of one lane streets in
Valencia, and it seems absurd to make urban design dependent on the flow of the
occasional ambulance. I lived on the street in question for three years and
can’t recall an ambulance passing by. My point is that ambulances will do their
job, even when attending to emergencies on this street.
But I’m most insulted by the assertion that cars
should be our greatest priority in urban design. On as Friday evening I made my
way down Calle Colón which has
recently added a bike path along the left side of this one-way thoroughfare.
Has the bike path slowed automobile traffic? Undoubtedly, but pedestrian
traffic has increased exponentially, a fact never mentioned in the war against
bikes being waged by the local press (as I mentioned above, mostly in Las Provincias).
There two a couple of choke points on this street
where cars have to turn left into an intersection with a green light for
pedestrians. Neither of these two problem areas have anything to do with bikes,
but bikes take the blame according to the shoddy journalism in Las Provincias.
In my personal experience on a bike, I’ve found that cyclists are much more
civil than drivers and pedestrians, but that doesn’t seem to make for fun copy
in the cycle-hating press.
What other questions aren’t being asked in these
shallow critiques of Valencia’s new aggressive expansion of bike paths? How
many people will be able to commute faster to the city center when this
particular bike path is finished? How will the diminished access to cars affect
the air quality of the city center? How will this alleviate the problem of
parking in the center if more citizens choose to effect their commute on a
bike? How will the long-term use of cycling improve the health of the people
choosing this transportation option?
I could go on and on, as the advantages of bicycles
over cars are almost infinite. I just can’t believe that in the local press there
is almost no defense of cyclists. The good news is that our current mayor rides
a bike to work and understands the benefits of bikes—our former mayor probably
never went anywhere except in a tax-payer paid limousine.
