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| A mass of bicycles Cambridge Train Station, Cambridge, United Kingdom |
Riding a bicycle is something that feels fundamental to modern humanity, but is perhaps more accurately described as an acquired taste. It is apparently also a polarizing topic these days. Cycling has become one of many de facto stand-ins for the rhetoric surrounding climate change and political differences. It's often considered liberal to ride a bicycle; I think a more appropriate term would be progressive. Riding a bicycle gets you out of your comfort zone, it requires you to see things differently – it quite literally moves you forward. That is progress; that is progressive. But not everyone sees it that way.
Take a gander at the comment threads of articles covering myriad topics from greenhouse gas emissions to the automobile industry to gridlock to street safety and you will find opinions voicing both support and malice for the humble bicycle. The vitriol is all rather baffling. Yes, we've no doubt all witnessed a cyclist rolling through a red light at one time or another (though the Idaho stop – which alters allowed behavior at stop signs and red lights – is legal in several states); it really is a case of a few bad apples ruining the whole bunch. Additionally, there is no shortage of driver complaints about the slower and more exposed cyclist occupying the same lane or an adjacent lane on public roadways, an arrangement that is decidedly unsafe for the cyclist, unless he is protected by a physical barrier of some sort.
There can be no denying, though, the benefits of cycling. Cycling is low-impact, and therefore contributes to cardiovascular health without damaging effects to the joints. Health benefits also include general fitness as well as reduced stress and anxiety. A further benefit of cycling is reduced traffic congestion, which may explain the corresponding reduction in stress for the rider who is no longer caught in traffic.
From an emissions standpoint, motor vehicles produce an estimated 30% of total carbon dioxide emissions in the US, and of this total it is estimated that 60% is produced early in the trip when the vehicle is operating inefficiently. Cycling is an excellent replacement for these short trips. The efficiency of bicycles could be a gamechanger in the transport industry if only we can bring it to scale: a person on a bike can go approximately 960 miles on the same amount of energy required for a car to travel a mere 20 miles. It is critical, then, that we increase cycling rates to combat climate change; a prospect that appears to have broad public support if only we make it safer.
There also appears to be sufficient interest in locations with varied climates and political systems, with the percentage of people using bicycles as their primary mode of travel for short distances in China and Japan slightly outstripping the rates seen in places more traditionally considered to be bicycle friendly such as Germany, Belgium, and Sweden. In the United States, a slight majority contends that infrastructure projects should prioritize cars rather than bicycles, though the United States has generally been more reactionary to cycling demand rather than a visionary driver of it. This hasn't always been the case, though.
The League of American Wheelman, a cycling organization, was an instrumental early proponent of The Good Roads Movement, an advocacy group that sought to update and improve rural roads around the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Alongside these efforts, bicycle specific roads were built on each coast, including the 5.5 mile Coney Island Cycle Path in 1894 in Brooklyn (still maintained to this day) and the 18 mile Santa Monica Cycle Path in 1900 that connected famously car-centric Los Angeles to the beach. Unfortunately, the success of the Good Roads Movement would lend a hand in the downfall of the humble bicycle, as road surfacing and road maintenance techniques were already substantially improved when the automobile came along.
And therein lies the rub. It was perhaps inevitable that the automobile – given its convenience, ease, and comfort – would eventually overtake the bicycle in popularity as a practical means of transport. But car-centric infrastructure is not built for humans or at a human scale – it's built for cars. It depersonalizes our cities and the individuals operating the machines (yes, cars are heavy machinery). Operating a car distorts our psychology to the point that we see other cars on the road as objects, not as a machine with another human being inside. It insulates the operator from the surrounding world. Anyone who has ever driven a car knows this to be the case.
When things are built at a human scale, though, this connection to other humans is not lost. On a bicycle, you are exposed to the world around you as well as to other humans. While technically qualifying as a machine, a bicycle allows the humanity of the rider to be preserved. We therefore behave as a human and treat others as humans. The scale is more manageable, the speed more reasonable. It's a shared struggle and a shared joy to see others walking or cycling, exposed to the elements just as you are. To return to the opening sentence of this post, this is what makes riding a bicycle fundamental to modern humanity: it preserves our connection to the world around us that we otherwise ignore in our technologically saturated day-to-day lives. It provides us with genuine experience; it gives us joy.
It's to the joy of riding a bicycle that I will turn to in my next post.
