I guess I don’t buy the narrative that we’d have some kind of cycling paradise in the U.S. if it weren’t for this one guy.
In the US, not a single person, but the General Motors/Mack Truck/Firestone Tires/Standard Oil cabal exerted significant influence on shaping how our cities are built. Literally buying up streetcar companies across the nation to put them out of business, among other tactics.
It is not an exaggeration, he set national cycling infrastructure policy in the US that stood for decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forester_(cyclist)#1978_C...