This summer the city’s Department of Transportation inaugurates a new
bike-share program. People who live and work in New York will be able to
travel quickly and cheaply between many neighborhoods. This is major.
It will make New Yorkers rethink their city and rewrite the mental maps
we use to decide what is convenient, what is possible. Parks,
restaurants and friends who once seemed beyond plausible commuting
distance on public transportation will seem a lot closer. The
possibilities aren’t limitless, but the change will be pretty
impressive. I’ve used a bike to get around New York for decades. There’s an
exhilaration you get from self-propelled transportation — skateboarding,
in-line skating and walking as well as biking; New York has good public
transportation, but you just don’t get the kind of rush I’m talking
about on a bus or subway train. I got hooked on biking because it’s a
pleasure, not because biking lowers my carbon footprint, improves my
health or brings me into contact with different parts of the city and
new adventures. But it does all these things, too — and sometimes makes
us a little self-satisfied for it; still, the reward is emotional
gratification, which trumps reason, as it often does. David Byrne is an artist and musician; he wrote this article in the NYT.
Portland’s Alameda Bike Bus Turns One!
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On Earth Day 2022, Physical Education teacher Sam Balto - inspired by
Barcelona's Bici Bus - decided to attempt to start his own at his school in
Alameda n...
1 year ago
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