Drawing from The Great Bicycle Protest of 1896” by Hank Chapot

We have all heard the tall tale that roads were built for cars, so bicycles and pedestrians have no place on our streets. Perpetuating this myth might help some motorists sleep better at night to think that they have an exclusive, god-given right to our streets, but it simply isn’t true. Motorists don’t have an exclusive right to our streets in the first place. Driving is a privilege that is granted only to those who earn it (and the methods in which the government grants this privilege is questionable). That privilege can be revoked at any moment too, by the way. Bicyclists on the other hand have an inherent right to our streets. Citizens have a right to lifetime mobility – and short of cutting of our legs, this cannot be revoked for any reason. Furthermore, roads are paid for by everyone – not just by drivers. In fact, people who don’t drive cars pay disproportionately more for our streets than those who drive cars. Driving is the most highly subsidized mode of transportation. Truth be told, roads weren’t built for cars in the first place. Cities with more than 100 years of history have been altered to attempt to accommodate as many cars as possible – at the expense of general liveability and to the detriment of the mobility rights of people who choose not to use cars to get around. Long before Henry Ford brought Americans the affordable personal motor vehicle, there were a group of advocates who fought for better roads. These tireless advocates envisioned cities with better mobility and fought to make their streets safer and more enjoyable to navigate because they were tired of being treated like second class citizens.

Sound familiar yet?

It was called the “good road movement”, and on July 25th 1896, residents took to the streets in downtown San Francisco to advocate for better roads for bicycles in “The Great Bicycle Demonstration” – garnering over 100,000 people in the streets.

The next day, the San Francisco Call heralded these bicycle riders as “Disciples of Progress”.

San Francisco Bicycle Riders As Disciples Of Progress / from “The Great Bicycle Protest of 1896” by Hank Chapot

The bicyclists demanded that Market Street be repaved – as a wheelman explains:

“The purpose for the march is three-fold; to show our strength, to celebrate the paving of Folsom Street, and to protest against the conditions of San Francisco pavement in general and of Market Street in particular. If the united press of this city decides that Market Street must be repaved, it will be done in a year”.

The demonstrations and advocacy from these wheelmen resulted in the swift re-paving of Market Street.

The victory was short-lived however as combustion engines allowed motor vehicles to become the method of choice for Americans to transport themselves. Nonetheless, the wheelmen succeeded in paving the roads before being subsequently squeezed off the streets by motorists.

Bicycle sales in the United States sadly dropped from a whopping 1.2 million in 1899 to just 160,000 in 1909 due to the rise of the car. The bicycle rose again during the Great Depression of the 1930’s and again in the 1990’s.

Tomorrow night I will be participating in a demonstration just like these wheelmen did 115 years ago . Except while these wheelman fought for better conditions in San Francisco, I will be fighting merely to prevent our suburban car-is-king mayor from tearing apart what little bicycle infrastructure we have.

Despite the fact that my city is being torn apart, bicycling is on the rise in almost every major city in North America.

History tells us that we will experience an even more significant spike if the United States defaults on its debt for the first time in history – catapulting the global economy into a state that will make the 2008 bust seem like a walk in the park.

In the meantime, while we wait for economic catastrophe to help people discover the freedom and pleasure of using a bicycle for transportation, you can free yourself from the imprisonment of automobile ownership now so that you’re one step ahead.

You won’t regret the decision.

James D. Schwartz is the editor of The Urban Country. You can contact James at james.schwartz@theurbancountry.com or follow him on Twitter.

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