27/09/2026
“If there is one passage of this book that I would like to retract, it is Step 6's "Don't Get Greedy." Sure, bike advocates are spe-cialists, and we need our cities to be designed by generalists. As I noted, there isn't enough room in the streets for every specialist to get what they want.
But here's what I got wrong: I have yet to see a city do anything requested by a bike advocate that has not made that city better for everyone.
I've finally been to Copenhagen, and biked miles of downtown without the slightest fear for my eight- and ten-year-old boys in front of me. If you haven't had that life-changing experience, don't begin to think you know what you are doing when you deny a cyclist anything.
The cycling city is the city we all need, and remembering Co penhagen fills me alternately with joy and rage. Just today, Milan announced $271 million in funding for a 466-mile citywide bike network. Paris recently upped its biking investment to half a billion dollars, in order to achieve a "100 percent cycling city”. Meanwhile, the Boston Cyclists Union clamors enthusiastically for an increase in the city's bike budget... to $2.6 million. And Boston's one of the good ones.
So get greedy. Don't settle for scraps. Demand more, one hundred times more, and don't stop until the very last bike-hating motorist throws up their hands and decamps permanently for the suburbs.”
