I was a member of INCOG's bicycling subcommittee, now defunct. Members were drawn from area bicycle clubs, businesses, and geographical areas. As far as effectivity goes, it was a mixed bag. Our input on some projects produced positive action. One was especially bad, and we thought it had been shelved permanently. Yet in the last couple of weeks, it popped up again like Dracula risen from the grave.
I think one of the problems is that unless a project is going to receive federal money, INCOG has no due diligence function. So if a city or county department wants to do something, it doesn't have to meet any standards or guidelines. AASHTO sets the standards for federally funded projects. Ideally, the city would have a standard incorporated in an overall bicycling master plan, but Tulsa hasn't developed one yet, or if it has, I've never seen a reference to it.
This means that in the absence of federal money, governments and their departments are free to build as they see fit - unless someone can show them that a particular design brings considerable liability. This also means they can solicit citizen input, and then disregard it entirely. I sat in a meeting with some CofC types who were utterly dismissive of any viewpoint other than their own. When the revolution comes, they'll be at the head of the line for a cigarette and a blindfold.
Just recently, I read a piece comparing modern media to cargo cults:
http://klausler.com/cargo.htmlThe piece is interesting because the principles can be applied to so many arguments in our world. These are some of the points from the first section:
Complicated explanations are suspect
The world is simple, and there must be a simple explanation for everything.
Certainty is strength, doubt is weakness
Admitting alternatives is undermining one's own belief.
Your opinion matters as much as anyone else's
When a person has studied a topic, he has no more real knowledge than you do, just a hidden agenda.
The herd should be followed
Popular beliefs must be true.I bring this up as an illustration of the ways citizen input can be disregarded by those in authority. On one hand, a professional planner dismisses public input because the man-on-the-street hasn't been educated in his specialization, yet when he encounters citizens who have educated themselves, he assumes their agenda conflicts with his own.
Now, I don't want to sound overwhelmingly negative. The subcommittee really did have some successes, and it met with failure as well. But one thing I find infuriating is the stubborn unwillingness to consider providing for public input in so many aspects of our lives, not just transportation and urban planning. Some public input is no more than window dressing, officials engaged in a CYA effort because they're required to ask for public comments, yet they have no intention of actually implementing them. The only way we can hold them accountable is at the ballot box, but by then it's too late.