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“When I see an adult on a bicycle I do not despair for the future of the human race.” H.G.Wells

CYCLING & DEMOCRACY

The first article in any Constitution states that all citizens are equal before the Law. As a consequence, public good must prevail over private interest. Democratic urban design should reflect this. If a large number of the population can walk and ride a bicycle but does not have access to a motor car, sidewalks and bicycle ways must have a higher priority than roads for motor-vehicles.

Safe mobility is a basic human right. Citizens have a right to go out of their homes, move safely about their neighborhood and their city, go to work, or to buy food. In a democracy the right to safe mobility cannot be restricted to those who have access to a motor vehicle. Quality sidewalks and protected bicycle-ways are thus a basic a human right.

Cycling is neither an eccentricity, nor a game. It is a basic form of mobility, akin to walking. Children and the young have no other form of individual mobility, for many, no other possibility to go many places. Safe individual mobility cannot be a privilege of any group in society; it cannot be a privilege of motor vehicle owners. All citizens must be allowed to exercise that right.

Cycling is natural human mobility. Do we have a right to infrastructure for walking safely in our cities? For the same reason, we have the right to demand for the necessary infrastructure for safe bicycling.

~ by Nicolas Alexandre on May 18, 2010.

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