Once again, Jarrett Walker nails it:
I think that the potential for organized activism and fellow-feeling is easier among a group of people who all wield the same tool ….
The possession of the tool, and the knowledge of how to use it, becomes a feature by which a group defines itself and sets itself in opposition to other interests.
If you don’t think this still happens, look at all the clubs and forums for people who own and cherish a particular tool — a Linux-powered computer, say, or a certain musical instrument….
So this is another thing that’s going on behind the obsessive attachment to transit technologies. People who love aerial gondolas or whatever can now network worldwide with every city that runs one, compare notes about each other’s problems and achievements, and thus form a global community based on love of that particular tool. Psychologically, it’s just like a club of guys who all own a particular kind of car, or computer, or electric guitar, or whatever.
Pedestrians don’t have that. So I doubt we’ll ever see a pedestrians-rights movement that has anything like the shape and force of the cycling movement. Nor do we need to, really, because the best urban planning thought today is all about the primacy of the pedestrian.
