Erica...

I can't help but see the irony in your last post...

So, did the Jerry lovin', Bike worshipping hippies of Davis, CA. welcome you with open arms as you pulled up into their fair town with a cheap rental car?

Or did you park the car outside of the city limits, lather yourself down with a Patchouli stink and twirl your way into their fair city disguised as a Hippie?

What is it with Seattle and bikes anyway? All those hills... eek. Most major cities don't have the fanatic bicycle fetish that Seattle does. The fact that the author had to go to northern California to find one that surpassed Seattle is pretty telling.

Welcome back, Erica... we missed you. Have you ever ridden on a tandem bike? I'd be happy to take you for a spin sometime.

Davis sucks. If I lived there, Id hang myself. Its flat and hotter than a crack ho's mouth. Yes, the streets are wide with bike lanes, but so what. The "city" all looks the same, just like an overgrown northern california suburb with a UC school.

LOL Paul. Should she have biked from San Francisco to Seattle?

Nonetheless, she provides a good question, which I shall provide with an answer: that would take changing a lot of fat, lazy, and/or complacent lifestyles and changing a lot of attitudes about commuting without the car. Changes must be made at the fundamental, human level before you can expect infrastructural changes to work.

Bulldoze all the hills in Seattle, channel the ship canal in a buried pipe and create one huge extended flat level mesa landscape. Then, maybe we could create a bike paradise like Davis.

C'mon, man. Davis is pancake flat for 20 to 50 miles around. The comparison is [fill in blank].

Gomez,

I'm curious, do you actually practice what you preach or like the dear author, do you roll into the town in your car and then criticize people for driving them?

You ask, what was she supposed to do, ride her Bike From Seattle to the Bay Area? Umm, if your gonna preach this kind of drivel, then the answer is yes.

While having the greater majority of Seattle all riding around on Bikes makes for a wonderful masturbatory fantasy for the pro-bike enthusiasts. It is totally and completely unrealistic for the vast majority of residents in this area.

This has nothing to do with a fat, lazy or complacent lifestyle. It is based on things like responsibilities, commitments and deadlines.

It's also about making excuses, Paul. Not everyone genuinely has those alibis. Some do. Not everyone does. Not even close.

I also don't own a car, so "roll(ing) into the town in your car and then criticiz(ing) people for driving them" would be rather hard for me.

Bike commuting is not unrealistic for many people within Seattle city limits, yet most of them won't even consider it. That, not whatever universal blanket statement you're insisting on semantically deriving from my point, is the point.

I wonder if any study has actually been done but I suspect the #1 reason why most people don't commute by bicycle isn't laziness but rather safety.

Not everyone is willing to accept th bruised ribs, scraped palms and injured knees that comes with cycling in a city with crappy drivers and few seperated bicycle routes....

Weather and topography - the two main reasons why Seattle could double the number of people who commute to work by bike and it would still be something like 6% of all commute trips (and, guess what, SOV use still leads the way by far.)

Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first...

Gomez,

First off, not owning a car. How much does this decision have to do with personal economic limitations vs your personal ideals?

Secondly, let's separate the generic "everyone" and speak about our own personal experience.

I live in The CD, work in a section of Ballard that is not accessible via bus, my wife and I carpool (even though we have 2 cars) as well as drop the kids off at daycare , not to mention I have clients I need to meet with during business hours.

I highly doubt that those clients will really get the right image of my company or me personally when, for instance: I am taking one of them out for a client lunch to discuss why they should be spending Thousands of dollars with us over the course of the next year and ask them if they want to sit on the seat or the handlebars.

Even better, how about a nice rainy day in February in order to pick up my son and daughter from daycare?

Would you recommend I?;
A. Take public transportation, which would mean walking two miles just to get to the bus stop only to take 3 different transfers and more than likely about an hour and a half just to get to daycare. Then factor in an additional 40 minutes with 2 and 4 year old in tow on a bus. That comes out to an additional 5 hrs per day for travel, 25 hrs per week & 1,250 hrs per years for this venture.
B. Make this same trip on a bike, making sure my kids are dressed in gortex. Drawback, wet and more than likely sick kids. benfit, my kids will have excellent balance from all the time balancing and my seat and handle bars.
C. Pick them up in our car, while dismissing this discussion as a point of view that is complete and utter nonsense?

I've been offered cheap cars time and again, Paul. I've refused. Connect the dots.

Why do you feel guilty and defensive enough to retort at length? If you're an exception, then you're an exception, and big deal. But I don't think 80% of the city consists of working professionals with tightrope deadlines and children to haul around, that chose to work in an out of the way neighborhood some distance from their distant out of the way neighborhood.

Hell, I had a boss who lived in West Seattle with a wife and two kids and was always under deadlines and meetings and had to travel... and he rode his bike to work a couple days a week. It's about handling your schedule and making it work if you want to. In your case, maybe you're in too tight a position to bike to work, and fine if that's the case. But don't tell me I'm completely wrong simply because of YOUR circumstances. Don't use your situation as absolvence for the other driving city dwellers who live 3 miles from work and just don't feel like doing anything other than driving in.

And yes, taking the bus is okay too. Again, you're awfully defensive about the idea.

Paul --

Fair enough, but families with small children are somewhat of an exception in the city.

As far as leading a professional life without a car, people in NYC, Chicago even DC manage to do it, but those cities have much better infrastructure as far as public transit.

Speaking from my own personal experience as a single young professional, I discovered about four years ago that cycling was faster than almost any other option for me. I work in SLU and the U-District and just moved from Sandpoint to Cap Hill. I own a car, but all of my daily commuting and most of my errands are done on a bike, typically 5 - 15 miles and 30min - 1.5 hours.

The weather here is nearly ideal for cycling: it's cool and very moderate. Even the rain is almost always light and managable. The only real weather kryptonite for cycling is snow or ice, which happens about twice a year.

I think a good chunk of the city (young, healthy, single) would be better off cycling rather than driving.

Gomez,

I coud not have said it better myself

"But don't tell me I'm completely wrong simply because of YOUR circumstances."

This really applies to the whole Seattle needs more Bicycles mentality. It would be nice and it would benefit peoples health, but your decisions to ride bikes are just that, your decisions

I get all over town on my bike. I hope that's okay.

Oh, and no bruised ribs to show for it.

Great....

I get all over the County in my car?

Does that make me a target?

Oh, and no bruised ass to show for it.

No offense to white/semi white/ pale/ semi pale/ not white/ urban hipsters who buy pricey bikes and shoes and make statements about biking and put down those that don’t bike, and act self righteous because they choose to bike and run over pedestrians and act like they’re above everybody else because They choose to bike or have the option to bike.

But here are some folks who ride shitty bikes to work and than work 9 hour days as day laborers and immigrants and ride more miles in crowded urban cities in a week than most urban hipsters ride in their lifetime. They ride because they have to and without fancy equipment or IKEA clothing. No bike clubs, but workers fighting with LA traffic. They lead by example, not by rhetoric. Quietly and humbly, as true class warriors and revolutionaries, ignored by the IKEA clad hipsters of LA, Portland or maybe even Seattle. At times, it seems the urban hipster bikers are like a social club, much like vegans, who have no interest in changing the world, but rather in advertising how self righteous they are.

Good piece by the hippie rag Utne

http://www.utne.com/pub/2006_136/promo/12170-1.html

PS I bike ( a shitty bike) and ride the bus, and I also ride my shitty car when I have to pick up my kids, but I don’t put down those that don’t.

I get around town on a bike, commute by bike, shop by bike, etc... A road trip is not the same thing as commuting. I've never advocated for people to take vacations on bikes or on foot as an alternative to driving. Seriously. Calm down.

Seme,

Not to b a wiseass, but....

IKEA makes clothes?

I meant REI. maybe the swede guy in the comercial has a bike? Great, there goes my whole post. Thanks a lot Paul. This site needs an editor.

Sorry...

It does make more sense with REI inserted.

;-)

Sorry...

It does make more sense with REI inserted.

;-)

People who ride bikes are more moral that other people. Fat and lazy people drive cars and watch TV all the time.

If more people would ride bikes and eat vegan, there would be no global warming.

Paul in Seattle,

I saw your initial comment this morning, thought you were just being a wise guy, and moved on. Now, I come back in the evening to find that you were actually serious. You actually think Erica is a hypocrite because on the one hand she advocates public policy that promotes and accommodates more bike use in Seattle, but, holy shit, on the other hand she rented a car to drive up and down the West coast—between Seattle and S.F.—for a vacation, rather than biking.

Are you fucking kidding? That's the dumbest gotch-ya I've ever heard. That's like criticizing someone who thinks our public shcool system should be reformed—better salaries for teachers, more equity in funding citywide, smaller class size, more choices—yet they still send their kids to a flawed public school.

Look: cars are useful & appropriate in certain situations and bikes are useful & appropriate in certain situations. As I understand Erica's beef with public policy in Seattle, it's that the city inappropriately limits and discourages people from taking advantage of all the opportunities that actually exist for using bikes. By failing to maximize these opprotunities (and simultaneously enhancing—artificially— opportunities to drive a car...when that might not be the most appropriate option), we are fucking up the environment and catering to a more exspensive mode.

Erica has never advocated outlawing cars. She just wants more equity for bikes. That's smart. And it doesn't condemn her to a world where she's not allowed to use the national highway system. Girl pays federal taxes. And she also paid for the rental car.

I agree, Kimberly. Gotchaing you for the flight was dumb: that flight was headed to South America whether or not you were on it.

And that rental car company would have rented Erica's car to someone else if she had rode a bike to California. Even if you only bike one mile a week and drive two hundred, that one mile a week is helping save the planet.

Every little bit helps.