Anyone
who has spent much time bicycling or walking in America knows how it feels to be
treated as a trespasser on our streets. As the popularity of motoring has grown,
so has the belief among some citizens that there is no room to safely or
affordably accommodate non-motorized travel on public roads - at least, not on
the important roads. Motorists give us
helpful advice: “Roads are meant for cars, not bicycles.” During road
widening projects, we sometimes hear that “there aren't enough pedestrians
here to warrant sidewalks or pedestrian signals” or that “we don't want to
encourage pedestrians to walk here - it's too dangerous.” As traffic congestion worsens, competition over road space
grows bitter. “Go join a gym!” the commuting cyclist may hear from a passing
car. “Get off the road!” is the standard line from pickup drivers.
Even town planners, roadway engineers, and elected officials have
sometimes sought to encourage “people getting exercise” (as if that is the
only reason people might not drive) to stick to residential areas and stay away
from those roads that actually go anywhere.
One
of the things that walking or cycling affords us is the time to question
ourselves. If a vocal segment of the population believes that non-motorized
travel on important roadways is obsolete, hazardous, and rude, does that make
cycling and walking irresponsible? When
city planners build “multi-use paths” and sidewalks in some places, does
that make it a crime to bike or walk in other places?
If one cannot drive a car, or cannot afford a car, does this make one
less of a human being? If one owns a car but chooses to travel without it, is doing
so a sin, or simply crazy? Just what are the rights of those who travel under
their own power?
To
answer these questions, we might start with the first official document of the
United States, drafted over one hundred years
before the development of the automobile. In the Declaration of
Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed the ideals of liberty and equality that
would shape our government and public policy:
“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed.”
Jefferson
did not imply that all men are physically equal. Certainly some are stronger or
richer than others. What we believe he meant was that government should treat
all persons as equals without bias or discrimination. This has interesting implications for differences in travel
mode. Furthermore, “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are established
not just as legal rights, but as “unalienable Rights” to be given special
respect when shaping our laws. Lastly, Jefferson clearly states that
government's primary charge is to preserve these rights, and that when acting to
do so must have the consent of those it affects.
Constitutional
law, which encompasses legal opinions that derive from principles defined in the
US Constitution, allows us to relate the concept of liberty to transportation
policy. In American Jurisprudence we read: “Personal liberty largely consists
of the Right to locomotion – to go where and when one pleases – only so far
restrained as the Rights of others may make it necessary for the welfare of all
other Citizens. The Right of the Citizen to travel upon the public highways and
to transport his property thereon, by horsedrawn carriage, wagon, or automobile,
is not a mere privilege which may be permitted or prohibited at will, but the
common Right which he has under his Right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Under this Constitutional guarantee one may, therefore, under normal
conditions, travel at his inclination along the public highways or in public
places, and while conducting himself in an orderly and decent manner, neither
interfering with nor disturbing another's Rights, he will be protected, not only
in his person, but in his safe conduct.”
- American Jurisprudence 1st, Constitutional Law, Section 329, p. 1135.
Courts
have found that the “The right of
the Citizen to travel upon the public highways …. includes the right, in so
doing, to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day, and under the
existing modes of travel….” (Thompson
vs. Smith, supra.; Teche Lines vs. Danforth, Mississippi.) “Ordinary and usual
conveyances of the day” is subject to interpretation, but given that walking
and cycling are existing modes of travel used for about ten percent of trips in
the United States (and outnumber motor vehicle trips world-wide) and Americans
purchase about fifteen million bicycles each year, we can only assume that
human-powered travel is included.
The
Right to locomotion has sometimes been used, unsuccessfully, as a defense in
cases where motorists have been charged with driving a motor vehicle without a
license. The argument that “travel equals driving” sounds compelling, but
because incompetent or reckless operation of a motor vehicle is dangerous to
others, states can regulate motor vehicle operation as a privilege. The courts
strongly support this:
In
City of Salina v. Wisden (Utah 1987): “Mr. Wisden's assertion that the right
to travel encompasses 'the unrestrained use of the highway' is wrong. The right
to travel granted by the state and federal constitutions does not include the
ability to ignore laws governing the use of public roadways. The motor vehicle
code was promulgated to increase the safety and efficiency of our public roads.
It enhances rather than infringes on the right to travel. The ability to drive a
motor vehicle on a public roadway is not a fundamental right it is a privilege
that is granted upon the compliance with the statutory licensing procedures.”
In
City of Bismarck v. Stuart (North Dakota 1996): “No court has ever held that
it is an impermissible infringement upon a citizen's constitutional Right to
Travel for the legislature to decree that ... every person who operates a motor
vehicle on public roads must have a valid operator's license.... The legislature
has the constitutional police power to ensure safe drivers and safe roads.”
In
State v. Davis (Missouri 1988) “The state of Missouri, by making the licensing
requirements in question, is not prohibiting Davis from expressing or practicing
his religious beliefs or from traveling throughout this land. If he wishes, he
may walk, ride a bicycle or horse…. He cannot, however, operate a motor
vehicle on the public highways without … a valid operator's license.”
The
courts make it clear that not only is the purpose of traffic law and operator
licensing to “increase the safety and efficiency of our public roads” and
“ensure safe drivers on safe roads” but that walking and cycling are lawful
activities protected by and fulfilling the Right of locomotion. In fact, one
might observe that the preservation of walking and cycling as safe and viable
alternative travel modes is essential if the states are to maintain the ability
to lawfully and effectively issue and revoke driver's licenses for the purpose
of public safety.
Traffic
law in very US state allows pedestrians to walk along and across roadways, and
allows cyclists to travel on roadways in travel lanes as vehicle operators, with
the exception of some controlled-access freeways that are redundant to the local
road network. But traffic laws are needed to regulate how cyclists and
pedestrians should behave in order to maximize safety.
Pedestrians and cyclists pose little threat to motorists; most of the
benefit goes to the pedestrians and cyclists themselves. Cyclists who ride with
traffic and obey traffic signals fare better than those who do not. Cyclists
must be discouraged from operating on sidewalks, and must yield at crosswalks,
in order to protect both themselves and pedestrians. Pedestrians are required to
use sidewalks or walk facing traffic in order to help protect themselves from
vehicle traffic.
Efficiency
is the other major benefit of traffic laws for pedestrians and cyclists.
Intersection controls and right-of-way laws improve the ability of all users to
share roadways effectively and keep traffic moving smoothly. Some motorists have
argued that pedestrians and cyclists impede the efficient movement of traffic.
But pedestrians and cyclists are
traffic. Any mode of traffic has some effect on the movement of other traffic.
(Whenever traffic conflicts create unacceptably poor levels of service for a
given roadway design, the prudent course of action is to improve the roadway -
not ban the public from using the road. Adding roadway width or sidewalks is the
most common way to mitigate these conflicts to acceptable levels.) The intent of
traffic laws for pedestrians and cyclists is to limit their impact to the level
that is necessary for their own safe
and efficient movement as equal users in the eyes of the law.
Some
motorists have argued that walking and cycling are inefficient or obsolete
modes, and should therefore not be accommodated on modern roadways in the
interest of increasing the efficiency of travel. There are two major problems
with this argument. First, what is efficiency? Walking and cycling require less
energy than motoring, create insignificant levels of pollution, and are much
less expensive and time consuming than owning, maintaining, and operating a
motor vehicle for the purpose of making short trips. They are also require less
expensive transportation facilities - per mile and per hour of travel - than do
automobiles, and do not require large areas of land set aside for parking.
Second, walking and cycling are still practiced for transportation in the
United States, so they are not obsolete. The percentage of the US population
able and willing to afford and operate motor vehicles is near its practical
limit, which leaves millions of Americans using other modes for transportation
now and in the foreseeable future. Cycling and walking serve a permanent niche
of road users who wish to travel independently anywhere they want to go. Walking
is often an unavoidable part of trips taken by motor vehicle, especially in
urban areas and activity centers. Furthermore, many people simply prefer to
cycle or walk, and having this choice is important to their pursuit of
happiness.
There
are some roads, such as controlled-access interstates, where the desired vehicle
speeds are incompatible with pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Banning pedestrian
and cycle traffic from these roadways improves safety for both motorists and
non-motorists. It also improves efficiency for motorists, but does it deny
travel rights to non-motorists? Not if alternative, safer, reasonably efficient
routes exist. Since controlled-access freeways do not provide local access to
homes, businesses, and other destinations, pedestrians and cyclists do not need
to use them in order to reach their destination of choice. But in some rural
areas, interstates are the only way to get from point A to point B. In these
places, pedestrian and cycle traffic is usually allowed even on
interstates in order to preserve the travel rights of the carless.
In
practice, the Right to locomotion means that persons traveling by non-motorized
modes have a right to access every
destination in safety and with reasonable efficiency. This means that
pedestrians and cyclists must be accommodated on every road, at every
intersection, with only rare exceptions. Those
exceptions must accompanied by alternative access that is both safe and
efficient. For instance, an underpass might be provided for pedestrians and
cyclists at a major interchange. But in the vast majority of cases, the simplest
and most cost efficient approach is to enforce traffic laws while accommodating
cyclists in travel lanes and pedestrians on sidewalks and crosswalks.
To
preserve their constitutional rights, pedestrian and cyclist traffic must be
accommodated by default when designing roadways, not considered as an
afterthought. Rather than having one network of travel facilities for
automobiles, another for human-powered vehicles, and a third for pedestrians,
the most practical approach is to have one network - public roads - and
accommodate all legal forms of travel as safely and efficiently as possible on
or along each link and across each node. Expressways designed exclusively for
motor travel are useful for transportation efficiency, but are acceptable only
if they are completely redundant to the network of roads accessible by all.
Likewise, off-street greenways for non-motorized travel can be quite pleasant,
and sometimes provide useful shortcuts, but they have their own significant
disadvantages and must not be used as a substitute for the right to travel on
roadways. Roadways are the only
facilities that go everywhere, allow safe and efficient movement, and are open
around the clock.
Some
have argued that the low number of cyclists and pedestrians found on many
roadways makes it unnecessary to design those roadways with human-powered travel
in mind. But it is primarily the number of motor vehicles on a roadway, not the
number of cyclists or pedestrians, that determines the importance of designing
the road to minimize conflicts. On streets with low volumes of traffic moving at
relatively low speeds, a motorist can share a narrow right-of-way with a cyclist
or pedestrian with minimal inconvenience or danger to either party. Lateral
movements can easily be made by the motorist, or occasionally, the pedestrian.
But as motor traffic volumes and speeds increase, the presence of other vehicles
makes it more difficult for motorists to move laterally to pass cyclists and
pedestrians within a narrow right-of-way or between narrow lanes. Without room
to pass, the motorist must follow the cyclist at reduced speed waiting for a
safe opportunity to pass. Another all-too-common result is that overtaking
vehicle operator violates the right-of-way of the overtaken traffic or forces
pedestrians to abandon the roadway. This is inconvenient, unsafe, and
unacceptable. Since walking and cycling are both legal and inevitable on
virtually every roadway, it is essential to design roadways with careful
consideration given to how non-motorized users affect other traffic and how
other traffic will affect them. Better facilities such as wide outside lanes and
sidewalks minimize these conflicts. The cost of better facilities should be paid
with funds raised from all Citizens, but a fair share must be paid by motorists
because it is the volume of motor vehicles, and the preference of motorists to
travel at high speed, that makes the improvements necessary. When motor traffic
volumes are high enough to require facility improvements, the per-motorist cost
of such improvements is not unreasonable.
Another
common argument for limiting human-powered mobility is that many or most
pedestrians and cyclists are walking for recreation - they don't need
to be using roadways important to motorists. There are two problems with this
argument. First, there is no hierarchy of trip importance in government
transportation policy or the Right to locomotion. Many motoring trips on
important roads are for recreational purposes; for example, automobile traffic
jams frequently occur on holidays, long weekends, sunny days at the beach, and
at sporting events. “Sports cars” and “recreational vehicles” consume
considerable highway resources but are completely legal. Discrimination against
non-utilitarian pleasure travel is not tolerated in a free country.
Second, it would be impossible to reliably determine which road users
“need” or “ought” to be using the roadway for “worthy” purposes
without stopping to interrogate each and every one. This would constitute
unreasonable search. We must conclude that surrendering our freedom would be
much more costly than safely accommodating recreational human-powered travel on
roadways.
The
most emotionally compelling argument for the prohibition of human-powered
traffic on roadways, one that leverages the fears of many compassionate Citizens
and policy makers, is the premise that walking and cycling in the presence of
automobile traffic is unsafe. But this activity is quite safe with responsible,
competent users on properly designed facilities. The vast majority of collisions
between motor traffic and pedestrians and cyclists can be attributed to (a)
illegal or incompetent behavior by the motorist, and/or (b) illegal or
incompetent behavior by the cyclist or pedestrian, and/or (c) inadequate
facilities. Statistically, cycling on US roadways produces fewer deaths per hour
of exposure than travel in a personal motor vehicle. Children living in downtown
neighborhoods, where walking makes up a greater percentage of trips, are usually
less likely to suffer automobile-related deaths than children living in suburbs.
Vulnerability does not necessarily result in fatalities because competent
roadway users compensate by using caution. The most appropriate response to
unacceptable levels of pedestrian and cyclist deaths is to improve the
competence of all road users and improve the roadways to better facilitate safe
sharing. After these efforts have been exhausted, if human-powered access to
some destinations is still not acceptably safe then it is motoring that should
be discouraged in those places, not walking or cycling.
The
safest facility improvements for pedestrians on high-volume roadways tend to be
segregated facilities such as sidewalks and crosswalks. However, the same is
usually not true for cyclists. The operational characteristics of human-powered
vehicles traveling at typical cycling speeds are much more similar to motor
vehicles than to pedestrians. Attempts
at encouraging cyclists to use sidewalks and multi-use paths instead of
vehicular travel lanes have typically resulted in an increase in cyclist crashes
while simultaneously decreasing the convenience of cycling for transportation.
Despite the vulnerability of cyclists in crashes involving motor vehicles,
increasing the visibility and predictability of cyclists operating on the street
as vehicle operators has been shown to improve both the safety and efficiency of
cycling transportation in the US better than segregation. And while off-street
greenway paths can offer useful short-cuts and pleasant recreational
opportunities for pedestrians and cyclists, they are not an adequate substitute
for safe accommodation on every roadway and every intersection for access to
every destination.
State, federal, and local government transportation policy affects the safety and convenience of human-powered travel. These policies and their execution are largely shaped by the often misinformed opinions of the motoring majority and the interests of the transportation industry. In recent years, the opinions of environmentalists on how people ought to travel have been given increased weight. Government programs and bureaucracies have formed to determine how to spend an increasing amount of funding available for non-motorized modes. But conspicuously absent are the voices of those who actually use human-powered methods to travel - especially those who rely on them. It is a mistake to assume that those responsible for building and regulating our transportation infrastructure can or will best serve the needs and desires of pedestrians and cyclists without the direct involvement of such users. By default, government is more likely to serve the interests of the motoring majority, and provide for cyclists and pedestrians only what is easy to provide. For this reason, those of us who travel by human power must do our part to get what we want. We must do what we can to educate ourselves in the principles of traffic science and the politics of transportation policy. Many of us also drive cars, and appreciate the importance of accommodating efficient motor travel. To defend our rights to travel as we wish, we must draw upon all of our experiences as motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians and actively speak out to our elected officials, public servants, and the society in general. Only then will government policies affecting the Right to travel by human power be applied with the consent of the governed.
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