The
usual books stacked next to my comfortable wingback chair in the oak-panelled library for review lean towards accounts
of great races, great (and sometimes not-great-at-all) athletes,
startling training methods, startling diets, irresistible tourism
ideas and lots of road-going technology, both old and new. But
occasionally a book comes to us that does not fit into any of these
categories and not only informs us of previously-unknown facts but
might have an importance extending beyond cycling enthusiasts. One
of these books has to be “Roads Were Not Built for Cars” by
Carlton Reid, an exceptionally well-researched book whose very title
is fightin' words. This might be ammunition against those motorists
(we have all experienced them) who loudly proclaim that cyclists have
no right to use public roads but the author unrolls a fascinating
story whose details occasionally surface but the greater history has
certainly been lost, or buried.
In 2013
Mr. Reid put out an appeal on a crowdfunding site and obtained
pledges from 648 people, enough to conclude his massive four year
research effort with a book that totals 170,000 words and in
electronic format includes 580 illustrations and more than 10 videos.
Yes, an electronic version: the book was conceived for iPad iBooks
and is available in that way as well as via Kindle and an ePub
version. A softback version was sent to subscribers and a hardback
edition sold out in six hours. A revised edition will be published
in 2015. So the most modern technology (crowdfunding, e-publishing)
has been used to present a story that covers the period from the
high-wheeler era and the start of the safety bicycle to the fading of
the two wheeler from the consciousness of the motorcar-obsessed
world. We find ourselves perhaps on the leading edge of a great new
bicycle revival but Mr. Reid's book informs us of an unknown world
that existed only less than 150 years ago and shows how our current
world could have been much different.
A
predecessor of Mr. Reid, Karl Kron, published a book in 1887 entitled
“Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle” which was also crowdfunded by
subscribers. Although Mr. Kron's massive 800 page book may be one of
the dullest creations ever put to paper, one cannot but approve of
the quote from that book that Mr. Reid uses to introduce his own
work:
“The
bicycle is an index to the existence of good roads, just as certainly
as the good roads themselves are an index to the existence of a high
degree of civilization in the locality possessing them.”
The
theme of this important book is the history of roads and in
particular the importance of cyclists in developing the excellent
roads we take for granted today. The author, who is British, focuses
primarily on the UK and US experiences centred on the 1880-1900
period but also provides a good account of the history of roads
before then, from the construction of the straight Roman streets to
the turnpikes of the 18th
Century. But the first surprise he reveals is that by the time
bicycles had appeared on the scene in a significant way roads, once
used by horse-drawn stagecoaches and mail express wagons, had been
rendered obsolete by the railway and grass now grew on once-busy
thoroughfares. It would have amazed contemporary observers that the
mighty railroads would be supplanted by road vehicles but, as the
author reminds us, the Age of Motorcars may be just as doomed to end
due to overcrowding, construction costs and environmental effects and
what we see is irreplaceable may not be so.
The
first cyclists were wealthy, able to afford their expensive machines,
and wealth means influence. Many of the early cyclists were
professionals and the ranks of Parliament including more than a few,
both in the Commons and the House of Lords. They demanded smooth,
dust-free roads and passed legislation that reorganized jurisidiction
over roads, once seen as completely local, and mandated their
maintenance. Serious lobbying occurred on both sides of the Atlantic
and very considerable success was achieved.
New
technologies arrived to make the construction of these new roads
possible and we are given an overview of them, from asphalt to
macadam to, surprisingly, wood. One thinks of cities like London
offering primarily cobbled streets (“setts” rather than “cobbles,
technically) but in fact many of the city's thoroughfares were made
up of hardwood blocks which may have been smooth to travel over but
in the Age of Horses not very sanitary at all and probably not that
durable under iron-shod wheels.
Although
the proponents of Good Roads were at pains to indicate that the roads
would benefit everyone from city-dwellers wanting to travel to
farmers moving produce, there was certainly a degree of
self-interest. One of the primary sponsors of the movement in the
United States, the colourful Colonel Albert Pope, was the head of the
Columbia Bicycle Company, one of the largest such enterprises.
However, the efforts by the League of American Wheelmen in the United
States and the Cyclists' Touring Club in the UK showed what
determined teamwork could produce. For example, the city of
Hagerstown, Maryland (not Pennsylvania, as indicated in the book)
offered roads, in 1889, of “a very superior quality:”
...eight superb limestone pikes radiate from Hagerstown...while
intersecting pikes and cross roads form a network of thoroughfares
for wheelmen that realizes the stereotyped phrase of cyclers'
paradise. These pikes are of that smooth sand-papered kind that
entrance the wheelman, while his surroundings of scenery and sweet
odours from nature's garden make his runs veritable trips through
fairy land...
In
addition, the asphalted streets of Washington, DC, were seen as
worthy of emulation elsewhere. There were wonderful projects
planned, including an elevated bicycle highway in California.
But
this remarkable state of affairs had a dark cloud on the horizon.
The groundbreaking work (in every sense) of the road lobbyists of the
LAW and CTC was soon to be overtaken by a new user of the road. The
motorcar, which was not distinguished by sweet odours from nature's
garden but was rather characterized as a murderous “stinkwagon”
arrived noisily on the scene—driven for the most part by those same
people who had been early adaptors of the bicycle! There was a great
ruckus and attempts to ban cars. The author details how the lawful
rights to road usage were once determined but arrogant motorists
simply forced other users off of the roads as might became right.
 |
| Leading the group is C.S. Rolls, of Rolls-Royce note, who moved from bicycles to fast cars and utimately, but fatally, to aircraft, perishing in the crash of his Wright Flyer in 1910 |
Where
once pedestrians, cyclists, streetcars and other modes of transport
flourished, all fell before the onslaught of the mighty car. And now
we come to the interesting idea behind the book: all the efforts of
cyclists, those two decades of raising money, printing pamphlets,
lobbying legislators and even building demonstration road sections,
to ensure the acceptance of good roads, roads that were invaluable to
all settlements they passed through for the common good, have not
only been forgotten but history has been rewritten. For example, the
author cites the self-congratulation of the Ford Motor Company in
1927 when, marking the building of the 15 millionth Model T, it
claimed that the Ford car “started the movement for good roads.”
This claim was to be repeated across the country. It was ironic in
that Henry Ford's first car, the Quadricycle, owed much more to the
bicycle than the carriage, as was often the case with pioneer
automobiles. Henry Ford had been a keen cyclist and as the author
points out in a fascinating appendix to the book almost every major
figure in the automotive business had some connection to bicycles.
These included Henry Leland, who founded both Cadillac and Lincoln;
Albert Champion of spark plug fame and winner of the 1899
Paris-Roubaix bike race; Louis Chevrolet; the Dodge brothers (who
once had a bicycle business in Windsor, Ontario); the Opel brothers
(whose father, Adam, refused to consider constructing “stinkwagons
for the rich” and now has a car named in his honour); Peugeot;
Pierce-Arrow; Rover; Rolls-Royce—the list is impressive.
 |
| Promotional image for the powerful League of American Wheelmen (L.A.W.) |
Not
only did the automakers take advantage of the roads that were the
work of the cycling lobby, but they also were able to use many
technologies that were first developed for the two-wheeler, including
spoked wheels, pneumatic tires, ball bearings, differential gearing
and chain drives. With the advent of trams and buses, and eventually
motorcars, the decline in cycling became precipitous. In 1898 there
were 103,293 members of LAW; within seven years that number had
fallen to 2,874 even though cars were not yet widespread. But as the
car ascended, the bicycle, once seen as the very symbol of modernity
and progress, became a second-class citizen on the very roads it had
once made possible. It is only in recent years that bicycles have
regained some of that lost status and may play a more important role
in our transportation (and fitness) future than anyone would have
thought. Of course, there are countries such as Denmark and the
Netherlands where the use of bicycles is already widespread but these
other examples are beyond this book.
“Roads
Were Not Built for Cars” is a fascinating book, describing the
development of much of the world we see outside our doors if we live
in an industrialized country. But it is also a warning about the
dangers of twisting history, of forgetting why things are the way
they are and in that respect provides much food for thought. Perhaps
in a century people will be amazed at the idea that we once found
1.24 million annual deaths due to motorized traffic acceptable (war
kills less than half a million), along with horrific air and noise
pollution, the asphalting of our countryside, the need to support
otherwise unpalatable dictatorships to ensure our fuel supply and the
primary source of anthropogenic climate change in order to have
two-and-a-half ton SUVs with one obese person in them sit in
gridlocked traffic. As much amazed as they would be by the decline
of passenger railroads or the disappearance of stagecoaches, perhaps.
“Roads
Were Not Built for Cars,” which surely can be said to break new
ground in cycling history, shows us not only the highway from the
past but also how we might want to consider how we view the future.
So the next time you are out cycling that smooth asphalt, think of
how it came to be and salute those brave wheelmen, now forgotten, who
made it once possible. But watch out for those cars.
“Roads Were Not Built
for Cars” by Carlton Reid
580
pp., copiously illustrated
Available
from Amazon.com in Kindle format for a mere US$ 8.74 but also
available through iTunes as an iBook for US$25.99 with complete
illustrations and notes. There seem to be all kinds of formats
available, all at different prices, so for more information just go
to: www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com
