The Redemocratization of Cycling

Abstract

After those 7,000 years of urban democracy, we have suffered 70-odd years of transport dictatorship in every corner of the globe. Our streets were expropriated in favor of what we now know to be a flawed transport form in our cities. The bicycle, that most democratic of inventions that had transformed human society in such spectacular fashion, was declared persona non grata and exiled to suburban driveways, parks, fragmented stretches of infrastructure, and remote country roads. It was oppressed, humiliated, and ridiculed, but despite best efforts it could not be eradicated. Bicycles remained hidden in garages, in summer houses, and in cellars, like dusty but sturdy musical instruments awaiting a new orchestra, without ever knowing when it would arrive. Cycling is like music—you will never be able to rid the world of it.

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

Walt Whitman