Hed:

If you’re like me, and statistics show you probably are, you rely on an automobile.

• Nine out of 10 times that Coloradans go somewhere, they use a car.
• I don’t rely on buses or light rail. In the Denver area, public transit ridership is stuck 38% below pre-pandemic levels.
• Denver says just 6% of residents walk or bicycle to work, a figure boosted by those who can afford more expensive housing near offices.

A car, SUV, or pickup opens up horizons, whether that’s going to the mountains, a grocery store, or appointments.

If you rely on your vehicle for your living – let’s say you work in construction, housekeeping, or landscaping – it is your most essential tool. Research shows a reliable car is associated with upward economic mobility.

If you’re one of the 40% of Colorado families who don’t attend their neighborhood school, a vehicle allows you to get to the best option for your kids. 

And public transit isn’t always a safe option for children. My son was called as a witness to crimes he witnessed on the RTD bus on the way home from high school.

Walking is my primary form of exercise. Walking to meetings, to the store, to a neighborhood restaurant, coffee shop, or bar.

My family also loves our cars. They include a hybrid (averaging 43 mpg) and a partial-zero-emissions vehicle (PZEV) whose tailpipe emissions are sometimes cleaner than the surrounding air.

I aspire to own an all-electric vehicle. I believe global warming is real, caused by humans. I believe we should renew EV incentives because that is the future our planet deserves. I support fuel-efficiency standards.

I’m grateful for the technology that makes vehicles safer, both for those inside them and for those outside. Think backup cameras, lane centering technology, and automatic braking.

This technology will continue to advance, and fully autonomous vehicles are the future, as we see with the Waymo ride-hailing service. They will be safer for everyone; driverless cars will never be drunk, high, angry, or distracted.

I support increased enforcement of laws cracking down on drunk driving, driving high (I’m tired of smelling marijuana smoke wafting from car windows), aggressive driving, and speeding. I have no problem with speed cameras, red-light cameras, or auto emissions monitors.

I hope the police ticket more people for using their phones while driving. Those who choose to bicycle or walk responsibly should be safe from irresponsible drivers.

If I were a bicyclist who had endured close calls or worse with cars, I would be mad as hell. As a pedestrian, I yell at drivers who don’t follow traffic rules and endanger me. I don’t blame the vehicles or streets; I blame inattentive, aggressive, or reckless drivers.

I think it’s too hard to drive downtown, and there isn’t enough parking. That discourages me from going there and spending money.

Like most of you, I often sit stuck in traffic next to empty bus and bike lanes that were previously available to cars.

Denver can’t widen most streets, so every time the city adds a bicycle or bus lane, it eliminates a driving or parking lane. Denver traffic is already bad, and this only makes it worse. For anti-car activists, that is not a bug but a feature of the system. They want to make driving so frustrating that drivers give up their cars.

The activists who love bicycles and hate (not too strong a word) cars are very aggressive and effective. They are single-minded, well-organized advocates who move the battle from one neighborhood to another.

Sometimes, neighborhood businesses and residents push back, but this local opposition is typically episodic. There is no sustained advocacy for the vast majority of us who rely on cars. Cycling advocates punish those who stand up to them, often in coordination with media allies. They attack the messengers (like me) instead of debating the facts.

People who rely on their vehicles don’t see their chosen mode of transportation as a problem to be solved. They may not know that the traffic congestion they sit in (which creates greater air pollution, not just frustration, while traffic lights cycle) is part of an intentional plan to create car-free urban utopias.

It would be fantastic if cyclists had protected lanes to go anywhere. But Denver’s road capacity is a zero-sum game; every gain for cyclists comes at the expense of the vast majority of people who need to drive. These car-dependent people are a largely silent majority, often drowned out by the small but loud bicycle bloc.

Drivers are too busy getting to a job site, health appointment, youth sports practice, or just hoping to get home in time for dinner. So I thought I’d speak up for them.

Eric Anderson is a longtime Denver communications strategist who focuses on behavior change and public policy on issues from affordable housing to public health. In the past, he consulted with the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association to create the nonprofit Clear the Air Foundation, which has crushed over 10,000 high-polluting cars. The views expressed here are his own and not of any client.