Interview with Shane Farthing

GGW has an interview with new WABA Executive Director Shane Farther. Some highlights below:

The new director's priorities include improving outreach to communities that are or could be bicycling but are not sufficiently engaged with the rest of the city's bike community. "WABA needs to reach outside its core demographics in order to serve all different types of cyclists [and] I intend to make WABA more active outside its core geographic areas of influence," he said.

Farthing is also interested in renewing the organization's focus on law enforcement issues. Seeing that DDOT has made great strides in bicycling infrastructure, he believes that "the next major step for the District involves integrating cyclists in other ways, such as ensuring that safety laws are enforced and fairly applied." In addition to changing the contributory negligence standard, Farthing would like to see consideration of "other laws that are more tailored to the realities of urban cycling."

Yes. Getting rid of contributory negligence would be nice, and is he talking about the Idaho Stop? Farthing has a legal background and he thinks that can I help (I agree).

In any form of advocacy, I think that law is a key tool. It is law that provides the rules of the game, and one key goal of bicycle advocacy is a set of rules that are appropriate for cyclists and fairly applied. Having a clear knowledge of how laws are made, applied, and integrated into behavior informs strategic decision-making and provides another method, in addition to pure education and issue advocacy, to impact social behavior. Different situations call for different approaches, but I hope that the addition of legal advocacy to WABA's toolkit will make the organization more effective in pursuing its mission.

Though this blog probably focuses too much on facilities, because that's what I'm interested in, I recognize that the law probably plays a bigger role in making a bike-friendly city.

Comments

[pete]

Contributory negligence left me with nothing but a broken collar bone and months of pain. Terrible concept. Any normal person you ask would say that the person who took a right turn from a straight only lane (right in front of me) was at fault. Even the police thought so. But, thanks to contributory negligence I was left out in the cold. Thankfully I have a good job and great insurance. I feel sorry for those who don't.

[John]

While having a bike-friendly city is undeniably a good thing, WABA stands for the Washington AREA Bicyclists Association. Those of us who live beyond DC's borders wouldn't mind it if WABA's new ED keeps that in mind.

[CyclingFool]

Those of us who live beyond DC's borders wouldn't mind it if WABA's new ED keeps that in mind.
@ John

What about the following statement makes you think he doesn't have cyclists outside the borders of DC proper in mind, too? To me, it sounds like he's planning on doing exactly what you're asking for...

"WABA needs to reach outside its core demographics in order to serve all different types of cyclists [and] I intend to make WABA more active outside its core geographic areas of influence," he said.

[Richard Layman]

Maybe he focuses on law because he is trained as a lawyer. That tends to be how a lot of people think in DC. I am not so sure it's the best approach as far as social change and transformation is concerned.

E.g., the people who work in BikeArlington and WalkArlington aren't lawyers. They are planners and programmers and architects.

[Michael H.]

Law and regulations are important but so are budgetary decisions and transportation/land-use plans.

Arlington is already very active in bike promotion. There's a lot of cooperation between Arlington and D.C. as we've seen with the new bike sharing program, and events like Bike DC.

Farthing can build on the foundation of D.C. and Arlington and help to expand cycling (facilities, knowledge, participation) into other jurisdictions that aren't quite as bike friendly (Fairfax, based on the comments and posts I read on this blog).

[MB]

Culture culture culture

(says the lawyer)

[Richard Layman]

Culture is in fact a construct says the planner.

Mostly, people use the word "culture" (in my opinion anyway) to describe a system that they don't understand, but they can see the end results (how it works).

In other words, the "culture" of sustainable transportation in places like Portland or Arlington County is built upon breakthrough decisions of vision, which are supported by the creation of systems, regulations, processes, facilities, and programs to bring about (implement) the decisions and policies.

This is an incremental process, but without the initial decisions, and then subsequent policies and other decisions which strengthen and extend the vision, and the supportive programs necessary to help people make the transition from one mode to another in the face of automobile dominance, it's very difficult to bring about what we would call "transformation."

I am trying, best as I can, to lay out the path for such a structure in the plan I am writing for Baltimore County, but I am not able to put in everything that needs to be there, given the social and political climate, not to mention the period of financial exigency that the county is experiencing now.

But yeah, lawyers look at law as the basis of everything. (This is an issue imo with Michael Jackson, the bike and ped planner for Maryland DOT.)

Law isn't the right framing device to bring about transformation, for the most part...