This blog is taken from a memo from a senior bureaucratic, Mr. Screwspoke, to his assistant, Mr. Wormwheel. It seems that Wormwheel was preparing for a meeting with a new cycling advocacy group. Here is Screwspoke's guidance.
10 Bureaucratic Tricks to Marginalize Cyclists
- Get them to fight amongst themselves. Start a discussion about bike helmets, bike lanes, paths, on or off road facilities, priorities and stand back. Hopefully they will alienate one another in the subsequent fight to the extent that they will never be able to work together again.
- Present the cyclists with such an overwhelming number of bicycle “shortcomings” in the community that they will get discouraged at the sheer magnitude and give up. On the other hand, while attempting to set priorities, they’ll fight (see above).
- Ensure that each group in your community understands that their interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of every other group. Seniors vs. cyclists, motorists vs. pedestrians, this is a zero sum game. You can use this if #1 above fails. With all groups at an impasse, you can do pretty much as little as you want.
- Use jargon and denigrate those who don’t understand. Traffic is a complex and difficult subject, best left to experts. If cornered, use as many arcane terms as possible and look pained at any response from the cyclists.
- Present a huge, expensive and totally impractical bicycle engineering plan that will never be implemented. You’ll probably be long gone before ground is scheduled to be broken on phase one.
- If forced to build a “bike facility” give the project to your least experienced/motivated designer and make sure there will be cost overruns and nothing budgeted for maintenance. Nothing takes the starch out of a bike movement more than a poorly designed facility that is unusable within months due to lack of maintenance.
- Never, ever, ever allow a connection between “their” taxes and the funding you utilize. People can get pretty upset when they think you are wasting “their” money. It’s amazing that they never make the connection that, as a government bureaucrat, every penny you spend is their money. If pressed, you can always say the money came from a “grant”. “Grant” money usually translates as “free” money to most folks and you can get away with the most amazing amount of waste if you are using “grant” funds.
- Cite “lack of personnel” as the reason you can’t respond to their requests. Be vague about your job description and use statements like, “I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that.” or “I’d love to do that but I would get in a lot of trouble with my bosses.”
- If you’re forced into having a bike position on your staff, hire someone with no interest, qualifications and initiative. It’s amazing how little people expect out of their “public servants” and how quickly they will become accustomed to expecting little or nothing from the “bike person”.
- If all else fails, just be unavailable. Don’t answer your phone, or respond to email or letters. If pressed, cite “meetings” as the reason you can’t respond. It normally works. Look around, some of your colleagues have probably made a career out of dodging the public. If skilled enough, you should be able to retire on a nice pension with the knowledge that you have done little or nothing for the public in general and specifically those pesky cyclists.
There are a lot of other “tricks of the trade” to marginalize cyclists. You’re only limited by your imagination, initiative and energy. Of course, if you had any of these qualities…..
