I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE, I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE! Thank you Freddie Mercury, I love you. and I love my bike. As the scabs fall off my right hand, I start to forget the perils of cycling, and return to that blissful state where I praise all the time I save by riding my bike places instead of walking. Then I vaguely remember all the time I spent in a car in the US (I commuted for my last job)… now I can’t remember the last time I was in one (does not include buses or trains!). Since we Americans are notorious for our car love, this frequently comes up when I am talking to non-Americans. and this gets old. So, besides blaming individual laziness, which does play a factor of course, please understand that there are larger forces that make it difficult to change our habits. Some of my favorite scape goats are environmentally unfriendly city planning, like LA and some smaller towns/cities that don’t even have sidewalks. Cities in the US can be so big that it would take hours to walk across, which is very different from smaller Europe cities. Also, there is not good public transportation between cities. Bikes are a good idea, but unfriendly, even hostile traffic, and a lack of bike lanes discourages people. and ok, I’m no social anthropologist OR city planner, and I wish America was the land of the car, but please think about these few points before you talk to me about the American automobile obsession.
