kehoe@reed.UUCP (Dave Kehoe) (05/31/85)
Yesterday our bicycle route proposal was passed by the City Council, and construction will begin shortly. Some of you on net.politics may be wondering why I'm telling you this, and why 2 months ago I posted an article about the bicycle route proposal to this newsgroup. The reason is that I'm interested in and active in the local political process, and I'm hoping to compare notes with persons involved in local politics in other cities. While lots of people have posted replies regarding bicycling with obnoxious/violent motorists, no one has replied regarding local politics. From all the postings on net.politics, you people seem to be only consumers of politics. I realize that we're living in the age of the consumer, but don't you people do anything but passively watch the TV news and read the newspaper? Aren't any of you involved in politics? Back to the bicycle route: This proposal would seem to be something that no one could object to (a 3/4 mile bicycle route through a residential neighborhood in relatively progressive Portland, Oregon, proposed by the City's Office of Transportation Engineering, supported by our new Mayor Bud Clark, who rides a bicycle to City Hall), but the proposal just barely passed, after a hard and sometimes bitter fight. The opposition consisted of most of the residents of the 19 houses on the bicycle route, and several owners of businesses one block off the bicycle route. The business owners testified that bicyclists will hurt their businesses, and the home owners testified (and paid a realtor to testify) that bicyclists will lower their property values. They also said many things even more ridiculous (see my previous postings). Many of these people are retired and probably senile, but several are middle-aged or young. Most of these people are lower middle- class, but not all. At least one of the business owners is very well-off. The only thing they have in common is that they hate bicyclists. I tried to discover why. I couldn't, until I talked with a bus driver. Ten years ago the bus garage didn't have any parking for employees, so the drivers had to park their cars on the streets. The residents hated this, and many bus drivers had their tires slashed. The driver I spoke with said that one morning he parked his car in front of a house, and the homeowner (a retired man) came running out yelling, "Get away! Don't you park your car there!" The driver politely said that it was a public street, and started to walk away. The homeowner ran down and put a board with nails under the tires of the car. Anyway, this bus driver explained to me that my neighbors don't hate bicyclists: they hate everybody. I learned that I couldn't argue with these people. Nothing I or anyone else (e.g. the city attorney) said could persuade them that the bicycle route will benefit (or at least not hurt) everyone. Their minds were made up. As I found it useless to discuss the proposal with those opposed to it, I found it most useful to reach the people who didn't know about the proposal or were undecided. I wrote an article (not a letter to the editor) in the Oregonian (Portland's daily newspaper), I got PSA's on the public radio station, and I passed out flyers to bicyclists. The former two methods seemed to be highly effective; the third I'm not sure about. I suspect that the mass media was more effective because people tend to have more faith in what's printed in the newspaper or read on the radio than what some guy hands them on the street. Anyway, if you've had similar experiences with local politics, please let me know. -- Dave tektronix!reed!kehoe
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (06/13/85)
>bitter fight. The opposition consisted of most of the >residents of the 19 houses on the bicycle route, and several >owners of businesses one block off the bicycle route. The >business owners testified that bicyclists will hurt their >businesses, and the home owners testified (and paid a realtor >to testify) that bicyclists will lower their property values. >They also said many things even more ridiculous (see >my previous postings). Many of these people are retired and >probably senile, but several are middle-aged or young. >Most of these people are lower middle- >class, but not all. At least one of the business owners is >very well-off. The only thing they have in common is that they >hate bicyclists. I tried to discover why. I couldn't, until It may not be hating bicyclists (or bus-drivers or everybody, as the unquoted part of the message said), it may be just a fear of change. Some years ago, there was a large water-tank about 150ft high near my house, and reflections from it played havoc with TV reception (ghosts all over the screen). There was a proposal to replace it with a police radio antenna that would have been as tall, but slim and much less of a blot on the skyline. A neighbour came around with a petition against the antenna on the grounds that "it would hurt TV reception." I told him I would happily sign a petition FOR the antenna, so as to get decent reception. It's the same kind of unreasoning opposition to a change. (The tower came down, the antenna went up, TV reception became fine, and the skyline appearance improved substantially, in spite of the strong opposition). -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt