John Forester, RIP

Effective Cycling, First Edition
this copy originally belonged to the dad of
a workplace friend at LANL

John Forester checked out of this life on about 14 April and is now riding in The Hereafter. A last interview with John by Peter Flax, done last year, has been reprinted from Medium to Bicycling Magazine.  I'll provide both links to be fair.

Depending on one's point of view, one knew (and either loved or loathed) Mr Forester based on his Effective Cycling training program and book (I have a copy of the first edition as well as the sixth and files from an early draft of the seventh!) or his adamant opposition to separate facilities for cyclists. I'll stay out of that one for the most part except to say that I think John did cyclists a lot of good with his Effective Cycling training, at least for those who took it, and furthermore, the cadre of "vehicular cyclists" he nurtured ensured that lousy bikeway design would have a harsh spotlight aimed at it.I'll note also that the Effective Cycling pedagogy is the underlying basis for much of today's cycling training including the League of American Bicyclists' Smart Cycling programs and the independent CyclingSavvy.

Bikeways have come a long way since the seventies and eighties. Nowadays, bicycling in many locations is seen as essential for good urban traffic management and healthy living and less likely to be hammered in as a hideous afterthought. That doesn't mean cycling policies and infrastructure are optimal.

I got involved with bicycling advocacy in Honolulu in the early nineties when the city and state were willing to slap together facilities ranging from excellent to dreadful with few enforced standards. We fought tooth and nail to ensure cyclists were not confined to torturous "bicycling sidewalks" such as the one the City and County of Honolulu once built in Kailua. So as a cyclist since the late 1970's, I appreciated those who worked to ensure I would not be confined to second class status. Even today in progressive locations such as Santa Fe, one cannot get around town only on bikeways; one may not even have access to one without first riding on a road, so one must have equal, safe, and legal access to the roads. Not to mention, be competent to ride on the road.

John Forester. Photo: Peter Flax

 And on that note we should all tip our hat to Mr. Forester for the training program he set up. A vehicular cyclist doesn't HAVE to mean an anti-bikeway cyclist. It means a cyclist who is competent and confident to ride where the cyclist needs to go on the available transportation resources provided to him or her, whether it be a roadway or a bikeway. A cyclist who does not feel as though he/she/whomever does not have a right to the road. A cyclist who has a keen eye for transportation engineering and knows good design from bad design, and can spot troublesome designs before, as John Schubert used to say, the moment of impact.

Neale Pickett and Yours Truly teaching a BikeEd class in Los Alamos a few years ago. 
That's me behind the camera.Neale is kneeling in left foreground.