Blaine Harden (in this article — late last year) -
“In the United States, with the exception of a handful of cities … car-centric transportation policies and suburban sprawl continue to make bicycle commuting rare, arduous and relatively dangerous. Although millions of Americans recreate on bikes, they ride them for just 0.4 percent of their trips to work, according to the U.S. Census.”
“In recent months, bike shops across much of the United States have been flooded with new customers fed up with high gasoline prices.”
“Yet without major changes in U.S. transportation policy and infrastructure, an earnest desire to save money on gas is not enough to turn American bike owners into everyday cyclists who ride to work, according to [some] urban planners, transportation experts and bicycle company executives.”
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Some relevant statistics -
- According to a 2009 survey, 88% of Americans consider cars necessities (source)
- “Canadians and Americans use bikes for fewer than one in a hundred trips - although in Vancouver … it’s a bit higher, at about 2.3 per cent. Compare that to the 20 to 35 per cent of trips taken by bike in the European Union and 50 per cent in China. (Unfortunately, the trend is reversing in China as the country embraces car culture.)” (from a 2008 source)
- “Germans are 10 times more likely than Americans to ride a bike and three times less likely to get hurt while doing so.” (from the same 2008 article quoted above)
Of course, cycling is just one transportation alternative. Although I’m focusing on cycling in this post (as I have in other blog entries here, in the past), I also think that rail and bus systems are two more important alternatives to cars, trucks, and vans. I’m not going to try to summarize all of the constructive alternative transportation possibilities (right now, anyway); basically I’m just questioning the entrenchment of automobiles — while looking at cycling, as one positive alternative.
April Streeter (in this blog post) -
“Even in bike-crazy Portland, the stats have showed an approximate split of 70% male riders versus 30% female riders. In Paris, there’s a similar split, says mobility consultant Eric Britton. The numbers are even more skewed in other places.”
(I agree that we should find ways to make bicycling attractive, but I also think that we should challenge mainstream standards of sexiness and beauty (like waifish models of femininity); I’ll elaborate on that point below.)
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Dominick Tao (in this journalistic blog post) -
“As a whole, men in the U.S. make three times as many trips by bicycle than women, according to research [pdf] by John Pucher, a professor of urban planning.”
“The numbers are actually worse in New York, where only 21 percent of trips by bicycle are made by women. According to a voluntary survey by members of the New York Cycle Club, the largest organization of its kind in the city, only about a third of the club’s members said they are female.”
“With the exception of areas [of New York] like Central Park and designated bike trails — which female cyclists populate almost as zealously as their male counterparts) — bike riding in most parts of the city is hardly leisurely. ‘It’s like going into battle,’ Mr. Pucher said. ‘You need a helmet and gloves.’”
“Indeed, a ride through Midtown during the rush often means dodging trucks and speeding taxis, weaving through flocks of ear-budded pedestrians, swerving around gouged asphalt, and rocketing across intersections when the traffic signal does not say go.’
Mr. Pucher said to make cycling more appealing to women, and children and the elderly, for that matter, cycling in the city needs to be safer.”
In other words, our streets needn’t be macho battlegrounds.
(Mr. Tao also stresses fashion issues in his post.)
David Chernushenko’s perspective on two European cities (specifically, Stockholm — “a northern city that has plenty of ups and downs, and cold”; and Freiburg — a city “bordering on Germany’s Black Forest mountains”) -
“What strikes the Canadian visitor is just how ordinary cycling seems to be in the lives of the locals. It is not a big deal to choose to ride somewhere. It does not involve special clothes, helmets, gloves and fancy bikes. Herds of children roll by on their way to school together. Couples head off to work. An older lady rides by with a load of groceries in the rear panniers, and a lapdog in the front basket.”
“In Copenhagen I saw people using cargo bikes to cart their kids all over the place. I rarely saw an adult wearing a helmet. It made an impression on me. This lack of protective headgear — or any special bike gear, for that matter — is one of the things that, to my eye, made biking in Copenhagen seem so remarkably convenient, casual, safe and part of regular daily life. It didn’t matter what you’re wearing. In Copenhagen you just hop on a bike and go.
The sheer sense of normalcy conveyed by streets filled with helmetless, kid-toting Danish cyclists seemed to me to do more to encourage bicycling and promote safety than any personal equipment or piece of infrastructure I’d ever seen back home. And the numbers back that up. Somehow, despite the lack of headgear, Danish, German and Dutch cyclist injury and fatality rates are a fraction of our own [in New York].
We know from the work of Peter Jacobsen that one of the most surefire ways to make urban bike transportation safer is to increase the number of cyclists on city streets. There are a lot of proven and effective ways to encourage more people to get on bikes. Compelling everyone to strap a styrofoam shell to their head is not one of them — at least not in the world cities with the safest streets for cyclists.”
“Copenhagen now routinely tops international quality of life rankings.” “Copenhagen’s newfound prominence rests largely on its inviting city centre, which is latticed with a half-dozen pedestrian-only promenades and a dozen car-free squares and stitched to the rest of the city by one of the world’s most meticulously assembled bicycle-path networks.”
“The Strøget – downtown Copenhagen’s high street and the pedestrian network’s main artery – is Europe’s longest pedestrian thoroughfare, and most days it is a dense forest of marching feet.”
“Copenhagen’s lively inner city is a recent and deliberate phenomenon. And it started with a bold experiment similar to Montreal’s summer flirtation with pedestrianization. The Strøget had traditionally been closed to vehicles for two days each Christmas, but by the 1950s its narrow eleven-metre width was choked with two lanes of cars, trucks and buses every other day of the year. So was every other street in downtown Copenhagen, and the city’s stately old squares served mainly as parking lots. So in November 1962, half-disguised as an extended holiday closure, the Strøget went car-free.”
“The initiative immediately inspired widespread and often strident opposition, particularly from downtown merchants, who assumed that a permanently car-free Strøget would be their ruin. Other critics argued that the measure was simply un-Danish. We are Danes, not Italians, they argued. It’s too cold here and it rains too much. We like cozy meals at home, not outdoor cafes.
The live version is more fitting for this post. Live music is somewhat like photos of celebrities who aren’t wearing make-up — that is, celebrities who aren’t made up to look greater.
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Here are a few British monuments to figures who often have been presented as great people -
![Cycle Mural by [Zakkaliciousness].](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/2827632450_f660369189_m.jpg)
