Letters to the Editor
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Please Point the Finger the Other Way
Perhaps your statement that:
"But that would require long-term thinking by government..." might be more accurately stated as:
But that would require long-term thinking by VOTERS...
Some politicians are leaders (and often suffer for it) but most simply react to voter pressure or lack thereof(and claim that that is democracy in action) while voters seem to consistently vote to cut taxes today and complain about the consequences tomorrow.
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Bike-friendly roads
Well, well, well! I suppose when people stop driving so much, the roads will become friendlier for us even without the appropriately forward-thinking infrastructure!
We just bought a Trail-a-Bike to supplement the kid-toting trailer we already had, so now we can travel as a family of 5 with three kids under 7 years of age. I even bought a front-loading rack because I had to take off the back rack to accommodate the Trail-a-Bike, but the new rack can only safely carry 25 pounds. So now we just have to figure out where to put the groceries....
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USA is so bike unfriendly...
And it sucks...
I don't even own a bike but its because biking in rural USA is absurd.
I often hear a lot of people talk about how it would not be possible to do in USA what they do in Europe. Their argument is that countries like the Netherlands are flat and therefore more conducive to biking. They say USA could never have bike paths everywhere because of terrain. This is total crapola. I was visiting a friend in Mindelheim, Germany, which is a rural and not completely flat part of the country (Unterallgäu). There are bike paths EVERYWHERE. They go through farm fields, parks, along the streets. It's amazing and it made riding a bicycle a pleasure.
Not to mention the train system (Die Bahn), kicks Amtrack's sorry ass.
And the climate argument? Montreal and Quebec in general is LIGHTYEARS ahead of any city in the USA as far as biking goes.
How awesome is their green route - one of the best bike routes in the WORLD: http://www.routeverte.com/ang/
Yeah so it can be done if cities did any planning at all. I agree with you here Leonard. It is SO frustrating. ARGHGH.
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A bridge too far
It's possible that our oil and energy companies operating without restraint under the Bush regime and piling up obscene levels of profit (which are always to be celebrated and regarded to be justified under the amorality of "free market economics") have run into chaos theory in ways they never expected. They didn't realize that running up the price of gasoline, diesel fuel and other forms of energy would eventually bring consumers to a tipping point - that pumping up prices just because they could (and massively enriching themselves in the process) would have no effect... no effect... no effect... until suddenly EVERYTHING shifted.
What they will realize as time goes on, is that once the shift in human attitudes and behavior happens, it will tend to remain in place until conditions change in the negative direction just as far as they had to change in the positive direction to accomplish the shift. The effect of this may very well be that there will be no going back - that given the competition for energy resources in the world the cost of fossil fuel energy will never drop far enough to shift usage patterns back to where they had been prior to midyear 2008.
Perhaps the day will yet come when the new brand of economics which uses the realities of chaos theory and bases itself on the way humans actually behave in markets will finally supplant the multiple mythologies of Friedmanism we have followed as if they were holy scripture since Reagan became president - mythologies which seem to state nothing more than, "if I can get rich doing it, it must be good and right," coupled with the ideal that it is proper and desirable that the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the middle class disappears and the nation comes to be ruled by a small group of wealthy, powerful people for their own benefit.
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commie latte sushi pedal perverts!
I predict a hurricane or tornado or worse will strike NYC as punishment from God! Riding a bicycle is un-American, and these godless heathens are a dire threat to the American Way of Life. The Lord will not let them get away with this affront!
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@Unadilla
LMAO. You would think that, by the way people act when they pass you sometimes. They sincerely believe that bicycling is WRONG, and they want to harm people on bikes. I think it's no so much a religious thing as an "environmentalist=pussy" thing.
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Shortsighted much?
Where exactly do all you idealist live, anyways? San Francisco (with a VERY mild year round climate)? New York City (very high density, good public transportation)? Berkeley (cute, small, walkable college town)?
In most parts of the US, which is FAR more sprawling than ANY part of Europe, it would be physically impossible to use a bicycle 12 months out of the year -- fancy bike paths or not -- assuming one is not Lance Armstrong. Most people already live in suburban, or exurban, communities that are MILES from jobs and shopping. There is literally NO WAY to get to work, or buy food, or get medical care, unless you have access to a car (and affordable fuel for that car). So continuing on our present path (unlimited price increases, with a happy liberal goal of returning to a blissful European-like ideal) will NEVER work and will lead quickly to disaster -- poverty, job loss, economic recession or even depression, not to mention widespread misery for ordinary people who can't change homes or lifestyles on a dime.
@melthough: where exactly do YOU live? how do you feed a family of FIVE while dragging home all your grocieries, toilet paper, laundry soap ON A BICYCLE? Because I'd be fascinated to see this if it were true. You've got three toddlers stuffed into some kind of contraption on the back end of the bike, eliminating any rack or panier baskets (and of course, those kids will continue to get bigger and heavier, unless you plan to let a SIX YEAR OLD ride a bike in traffic) -- and you can only put 25 lbs of food (or anything) in the front of the bike. What are you eating? rice cakes only?
Not to mention the weight of three kids, plus the baby cart, PLUS the grociers -- you must be in marathon condition, my friend. Good for you! But please explain, precisely, how people can do this if they have a bad back....torn knee ligaments...arthritis? How about the elderly?
Bikes are not suitable for most of the errands or commutes that American in MOST PARTS OF THE US have to face on a daily basis.
Let's use me as an example: I'm 52, I am in decent shape (I do like to bike for pleasure and own 3 bikes). But my work is 30 miles away, and can only be accessed from the freeway. There is NO bus service -- zero. There are no other employees from my part of town who I could possibly car-share or commute with.
Riding a BIKE on the freeway (even if I could do this in the few months of decent weather here in the Midwest) is illegal, as well as very dangerous. Since I would have to take a very roundabout way on surface streets, instead of the direct freeway, my trip each way would take almost 2 hours, instead of 30 minutes. This isn't even taking into consideration that I would arrive at an OFFICE JOB, hot tired and sweated up at 8AM, or that I'd have to leave the house at 6AM to get there on time. BTW: my work has no shower or dressing room (besides a tiny bathroom) for employees.
Additionally, I'd be packing a lunch every single day without exception (or starve) because my work is also miles from the nearest food outlets.
None of this even takes into consideration that I live in THE MIDWEST and IT IS COVERED WITH SNOW AND SLEET for six months or more of the year! The roads are barely passable for cars, let alone bikes. Even the rest of the year, we often have bad weather: very humid summers, lots of rain in the spring, etc.
Do you idealists suggest that I quit work? Nice thought, except the local Rust Belt economy is so bad that I lucky to even HAVE a job, let alone the luck of having one within "biking distance".
Do you suggest I sell my home, and move closer to work? For starters, my work is in a far pricier "edge city" and I currently live in a cheaper inner ring suburb -- it is not an economic option. And I've had many jobs over the years, as companies downsized or right sized or exported jobs to other places -- tying my residence to a particular job would be economic suicide.
Like melthough: I will listen to this "bicycling" claptrap more seriously when ANY ONE OF YOU comes to my home in the dead of the next winter, and can bicycle at least ten miles through 2 feet of snow and ice, carrying 3 toddlers in a cart behind you and FIFTY POUNDS (more realistically) of food and cleaning products like laundry detergent or cat litter, in a basket in front of you.
On that day, I will switch to a bicycle.
Till then, I am a victim of big corporations and corrupt US government, and the greed of Saudi sheiks, and there isn't a damn thing that I can do about it, but pay and pay and pay and pay.
BTW: notice these "huge bike sales" in NYC are occuring in a mild and pleasant spring. How many of these people will still be riding those bikes in January? How many of these bikes will end up in a closet or hallway -- unused?