My take on what to call people who use transportation

By On October 25, 2010 · 15 Comments

Bicyclist versus person riding a bike? Which is the better term?

I first came across this “transportation user identification” debate on Human Transit:

Is there anything wrong with calling a group of people “transit users” or “riders”?  Is there anything wrong with calling yourself such a thing?

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Reducing mode choice categories to nouns – cyclists, motorists, riders, etc – is potentially divisive.  These categories seem to give us the clarity we need to do any thinking at all, but clinging to them can blind us of all the ways that two cyclists can be different…

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Who is this person?

Travis said on my Facebook wall:

We are all just people using various forms of transportation. Sometimes I use feet, but I am not a pedestrian. Sometimes I bike, but I am not a cyclist. Sometimes I drive, but I am not a motorist. I am a person. Why must we compartmentalize and deal in absolutes? It causes Us-Them situations.

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Is this a scofflaw motorist or a person illegally driving on light rail tracks? Photo by Richard Masoner.

About two weeks ago I started changing the way I identify people in my writing and in my photo descriptions. You’ll now read “people riding bikes to the grocery store” instead of “bike shoppers” or “person in a car” instead of motorist.”

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  • Christy Leigh Fisher

    I like this Steven. Down here in Virginia, cyclists are still imagined as wearing spandex. Remember when you were little and “road bikes” with your friends? When I was a teenager, people would ask me to go bike riding by saying “wanna ride around?”. Absolutely lovely.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Christy, I think you should start a Virginia Cycle Chic blog to show Virginians what people riding bikes REALLY looks like.

      Here’s some inspiration: http://www.paysbascyclechic.com/

  • http://twitter.com/BikeNounVerb Travis A. Wittwer

    Being an English teacher, I enjoy words and word play. I find the subtle differences in how we describe our lives intriguing. Telling. I had a long conversation with Jonathan Maus, editor of Bike Portland blog, one night during billiards and beer and he spoke at great length on how he avoids “cyclist” and “bicyclist” and “motorist”. I went back through a month of BP posts when I got home and it was indeed true.

    I found this naming of groups particularly harmful when I was in junior high and high school when it became clear that the music I listened to and the concerts I listened to was defined as “punk” but I did not see myself as a “punker” nor wanted that. It seemed limiting…like if I adopted the term, brought it into myself, I would have to be rude and fail my classes as that was the way of the “punker”.

    Thanks for posting this, Steven. I like reading your varied perspectives on city development.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Picking on the word, “punk”… My brother would call me a punk (among 100 other names) but I hated this one the most.

      By talking about people instead of modes or vehicles, I, as a writer, can be a lot more creative and descriptive. I can better illustrate and identify who I’m talking about without “boxing” them in to a single idea or category.

      I don’t want to be calling anyone a “biker” who’s not, but by all means, identify yourself as one. I think my brother would call himself a “car enthusiast.”

      A police officer doing an investigation asked me if I considered myself an environmentalist. Knowing full well that him and I may have different ideas about this identity (for all I know he might think it’s synonymous with eco-terrorist), I chose my words carefully. I responded, “I consider myself someone who cares about the environment.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=678847491 Gin Kilgore

    Food for thought. Not only is it good practice to not box people into any particular facet of their real or perceived identity, it also helps when you need to avoid overuse of the words pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, etc in planning docs. That said, I might still use the phrase scofflaw motorist. But I’ll try to be more thoughtful.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      If I have to choose between “driver” or “motorist,” I prefer to say driver. To me this means someone who drives, while “motorist” means someone really into automobiles. I don’t think all drivers are really into driving cars – they have to in order to transport themselves.

  • http://www.livestreets.ru Vladimir Zlokazov

    It is definetely divisive. Especially when one refers to people on sidewalks as ‘pedestrians’. There is a need to somehow define different street users but there’s so much 2nd class attitude in that word as to people whose interests can be ignored.

    Another point is that by calling people this divisive way we mentally bind them to their modes of transport chosen at a given moment. Which in turn distorts our transportation picture as we become more focused on moving certain types of vehicles around the city rather then moving people.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Jokingly I like to say that government agencies in charge of streets should be called “Department of Moving Cars Around,” instead of their proper and original names, “Department of Transportation.”

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