Enemy list

The cyclist cartel

Bicycle advocacy usually arrives as a safety plan or a public-health argument. Then the squeezing starts. Lanes narrow. Alternatives become suspect. The goose is told to wait for stakeholder engagement.

HONK. No further consultation.

Villains is too strong. Control freaks will do.

Operational theory

The lane never arrives alone

A safety claim usually comes first, often with respect to larger vehicle traffic. Then comes the protected lane, the community ride, the film screening, and some vague promise that everyone will benefit. Some of that may be true, but compared to what? Compared to 15-minute cities? Compared to self-driving cars? Once the street is redesigned for bicycles, someone has to make the case again for walking, fields, trees, and honk the right of a bird to stand in judgment.

So here we have a list of cartel member types. Names can wait. You have probably seen these people in your city.

Public safety lane-reduction type

Cycling advocate

Charge: Argued that fewer traffic lanes could make a street safer and easier to use.

Protected bike space, shorter crossings, and clearer sight lines would make the street easier to understand and less hostile to people outside cars. Fair enough. The danger, from the goose point of view, is that a bike lane becomes harder to oppose when it sounds like a basic amenity.

Goose finding

A goose does all of this without special infrastructure, apart from grass, water, and a place to stand. Imagine that cars simply could not drive there. Wouldn't everyone be happier?

Equity-and-accessibility type

Cycling non-profit

Charge: Proposes to correct the gender balance in cycling by attracting more women to bicycles.

This usually begins with a fair point. A lot of cycling infrastructure assumes a lone rider with a strange amount of confidence. The group wants more women and girls riding, with lessons, safer routes, cargo-bike parking, and lights that detect bikes without making riders press the pedestrian button. The goose position is simpler. If men cycle at roughly twice the rate of women, reduce male cycling until the numbers look better.

Goose finding

Fewer men in lycra would leave more room for walking, trees, and birds.

Overly cheerful political figure

Bubbly mayor

Charge: Applies the machinery of civic ceremony to bicycle legitimacy.

Usually there is a mayoral proclamation. A day is named. A ribbon is cut. A microphone appears. Soon the bike lane has been turned from a strip of asphalt into a civic virtue, and everyone is expected to smile.

Goose finding

The counter-proclamation is obvious: Municipal Freedom to Waddle Day, observed whenever a goose decides a path now belongs to the wetlands.

Normalization-through-playdates type

Cargo-bike family meetup group

Charge: Makes family cycling look ordinary and normalizes unacceptable behaviour.

This group helps families try cargo bikes and meet other people doing the same. Harmless, or so it seems. A parent learns a route. A child treats the box-bike as normal. A daycare starts hearing about cargo-bike parking. By that point, you are done for.

Goose finding

Family mobility should include walking to a park, stopping under trees, and teaching children about the wonders of geese.

Corrective program

Against the bicycle monoculture

The corrective program is small by the standards of urban reform. Earlier reformers tore through neighbourhoods in the name of smoother traffic and called the damage progress. Reduce male cycling until the gender gap improves. Replace some social rides with social walks. Put benches near trees. Fund wetland edges, quiet paths, and lawns where a goose can stand without being treated as a stakeholder problem.

Count fewer bikes. Leave more room for feet. Honk. Admit that the bird was here first.