A Place to Ride
Bike are a popular present for Christmas. And no doubt many kids are jumping with excitement about their new bicycles right now. However, very soon they will get wise to the nature of the world.
Yep, within a few months they’ll know what they want next Christmas.
So let’s help deliver it to them this year.
I taught my four kids, who were born in the nineteen eighties, to take a lane starting at age six. We live in the city in Hartford, CT.
Excellent work, Mike. That’s the cure for all this hullabaloo about safe places–education.
I love my mother. But thank goodness over-protectiveness didn’t run in her veins. I rode three-quarters of mile to school every day from the age of 9. On 25 mph urban residential streets. I had two wrecks in that whole time: one because I hit a 6-inch diameter patch of ice–the only one on the roadway and easily avoided; the other because I was riding on the wrong side of the street–against traffic, at the urging of a friend–and swerved to avoid an oncoming car. I stopped listening to him, went back to riding with traffic, and fared very well until the advent of the automobile.
It’s too bad fear trumps reason and calls it love.
Fortunately, the situation is much better here (suburban California). My kids learned to ride on our neighborhood streets around age 5, and cycling to school is pretty common. There’s a MUP around the lake in our main park. The minor streets are pretty well connected, so you can cover a lot of ground off the arterials. Most of the arterials have decent bike lanes if you don’t mind the traffic noise. And this is in a place with no formal bike coalition.
And of course, the weather at Christmastime is nearly perfect for cycling.
Last year I retired after 28 years as a firefighter in London England. Statistically, the most dangerous thing I did during my time in the fire service was get to and from work on two wheels. There is room for us all on the highways and parks if they are used sensibly and with respect for one another, but the “us and them” mentality always seems to muddy the water. Cyclists jumping red lights, cars and trucks cutting across cycle paths, pedestrians texting or listening to loud music are all cited as justification for banning or restricting activities or failing to own up to our own shortcomings. It’s always “THEM” allowing for the divide and rule mentality to prevail and no real progress towards safer streets for all. New York has proven that with motivated and sensible approach to the infrastructure almost anything is possible, but sadly their leadership hasn’t been embraced by many other places, particularly my own capital city of London. These Bikeyface posts and images are fantastic – thank you for sharing.
Meanwhile, in civilized parts of the world, children walk or cycle to school and it is cars that are banned from school travel.
See:
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2009/11/stopping-ban-by-schools.html
Or see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iaz_T89wJ2o
I recommend skipping the first 1:15 of the author describing what you are about to see and go straight to seeing it. Note how the guard enforcing the ban on cars at the beginning of the car-free zone bows politely to passing cyclists. I love Japan!