… if you want proof that language shapes thoughts, look no further than Seattle — where one of the country’s biggest bikelashes has turned decisively around in the last four years. … For several years, instead of arguing about whether biking, walking or riding transit should be improved, the city was arguing about whether driving should be made worse. A winning issue had become a losing one. …
Though there were many forces behind the turn of Seattle’s tide — the “war on cars” phrase in particular — no single organization has more to do with the city’s new language than a tiny nonprofit group called Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.
SNG was founded in 2011, the year the “war on cars” meme peaked. Their goal: to advocate for a citywide network of low-traffic local streets, modeled on similar systems in Vancouver and Portland, that could be optimized for biking, walking and running.
Though the group made no secret of their biking advocacy, they didn’t brand themselves as biking advocates. They branded themselves as neighborhood advocates. … Together, the groups fought bad language with good language.
Instead of “bikers” or “cyclists,” they said people biking; instead of “drivers” or “cars,” they said people driving.“Cycle track,” an engineering term translated from Dutch, became the more intuitive protected bike lane. Instead of “accident,” which implied that conscious choices like speeding aren’t involved in traffic collisions, the group simply called them collisions.
Seattle Neighborhood Greenways’ cheat sheet for neighborhood advocates and city officials.
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“When you start thinking of somebody as a ‘driver’ or somebody as a ‘cyclist’ or somebody as a ‘pedestrian’ – which is actually my least favorite – it’s easy to think of someone as part of a tribe,” said Fucoloro. Seattle Neighborhood Greenways broke down that tribalism by convincing advocates around the city to talk about “bicycling,” an activity, rather than “bicyclists,” an identity.
“It’s harder to get really angry,” Fucoloro said. “Just because you’re riding a bike doesn’t mean you’re in epic opposition to everyone who’s driving a car.” …
Fucoloro said that Cascade once tended to describe anything that improved bicycling as a “bicycle project,” unintentionally implying that if you weren’t a bike commuter, you wouldn’t benefit.
“That didn’t work as well as People are getting harmed on this street for no reason,” Fucoloro said. “That’s a much better story.”
Fucoloro thinks Seattle is better, too, for having had this linguistic fight.
“In the end, I think the ‘war on cars’ is, like, this necessary step the city has to take,” he said. “Because it’s an obviously wrong idea, but it forces everyone who knows it’s wrong to figure out how to say that and explain why it’s wrong.”
