Giddyup, baybeee

As I mentioned in the last entry, I thought I'd put some points down on the current problem with getting more people to bike instead of drive.



With that in mind, here are some issues, from my perspective, which must be overcome to make people like me bike to work and save the environment and be contemplative and reconsiderate, and not inflicting, as the author of the craptacular article that I commented on in the last post:





1. Canada is big. We've tried to cover it with sprawl, working out from urban centers. Right or wrong (and I can easily side on the latter), it's the current situation. It is too far to bike for anyone who works in the city and lives more than a 20 minute ride away.





2. It's really a young person's game. I said 20 minutes in the point above because it has to be possible for non-fanatic older folks with plain factory bikes to be able to do it. Perhaps they will miraculously get in shape after biking for a while, but it has to seem possible for them to do it before they actually attempt biking to work. Bike couriers and bike activists may think it's no big deal, but they are already too far into the lifestyle to bike a mile on another man's wheels.



Also, you'd better have a shower at your place of employment, or else you'll be stinking up the place. Perhaps there could be a spot in the bathroom dedicated to changing and wiping down with a towel or something, but it'll still be a poor second cousin to being shower fresh.


3. Rain. I'll have to carry a waterproof clothes carrier of some kind, and that will add to the frustration and sweat and wind resistance, making it all the more miserable.

4. The winter. I've biked an entire winter, in snowstorms, freezing rain, you name it. I have some experience in this matter and it sucks. You just can't put a happy face big enough on this issue for it to convince the majority of the driving world to give up cars. Maybe, just maybe, you could interest people to bike in the summer, but winter for most people would crush it.


5. Bike lanes. The author had a good point about the frustration that cyclists feel coming out as 'more bike lanes', but it's actually something that is needed to get people to consider biking. A very big problem for biking is that most non-cyclists don't take bikes seriously as vehicles. I would say that motorists consider bike traffic more in line with pedestrians than anything else. We expect them to use the crosswalks like pedestrians, not use the left turn lane.

Part of this is not having standard training on how to deal with bikes in such situations. If there is a bike ahead of you in the left turn lane, do you wait your turn behind like you would a car? I'm not sure if that's the law, or if anyone would do it, if it is; similarly, most cyclists don't wait in line behind cars when coming to a stopsign or traffic light, they just squeeze between the cars and the curb to get as far ahead as possible. Furthermore, the only training I've seen for bikes is the kind the police give to young kids when they first learn to ride a bike, and they sure as hell are not going to show a seven year old how to make a left turn from the left turn lane! But, until that level of awareness about the use of bikes as vehicles becomes commonplace, change will not come.


5. Shopping. How the hell am I going to get all the crap I need home on a bike? I don't want to have to shop for food every day after work because I can only carry one day's worth of groceries home from the store in a backpack. If I have to start buying a bike cart to haul stuff around in, I'd rather have a car. And don't hand me that crap about buying less and pulling myself out of the enviromentally unfriendly consumer lifestyle. I don't buy cheap throw-away things. I buy second hand when I can, as well.


6. Kids. If I have more than one kid, a bike ain't gonna cut it unless my wife pedals the other kid around. If she needs to be doing something else, we're shit out of luck. She'd also like to have 3 kids. Then what will we do? That bike cart bullshit again? Not going to happen. We'll get the 6 person bike like I saw going down the street last year, with the whole family on board. I looked it up and it costs $5500. That's a down payment on a good car which will keep us safe and dry and arriving on time, is usable in winter and other inclement weather.

Those are just the ideas that came to me while thinking about it for a few minutes. Each point could be expanded upon, but you get the idea. Bike lovers may be willing to spend large amounts to get their super-bikes caressed into their perfect idea of a bike, but they'll be on the fringe of motorized society for the forseeable future.