When I first started riding bikes for recreation and then for commuting in Kalamazoo (MI), I remember angry motorists honking their horns and screaming "GET BACK ON THE SIDEWALK!" They thought of bicycles as kid's toys, and kids rode on the sidewalk. In the ensuing 30 years bicycles have come into their own as recreational and fitness vehicles. On any given Saturday morning you can find packs of weekend cyclists in their fancy-dan spandex clothes out on the country roads and people are kind of used to it. Oh, sure, once in a while Bubba would lob Mountain Dew cans at us way out on Chicken Bridge Rd. in NC, but there's one in every crowd, eh?
Cycling is different in DC. Here people (like me) ride for transportation, because it's quicker and cheaper than either a car or public transportation. Lots of people walk to work, too, and the sidewalks are frequently very crowded. Luckily there are bike lanes on most main streets, to keep cars, bikes, and pedestrians in their own happy environments. But. There is a certain segment of the cycling population that will not use the bike lanes. The bike lanes are wide, smooth, convenient, and safe. But they will not use them.
And in the vast majority it's one ethnic group that will not use the bike lanes. Will. Not. Use. Them. So they dodge among the pedestrians, scattering people in all directions. I still can't figure out why this one group choses the crowded sidewalk over the empty and beautiful bike lanes made just for bikes. I asked M, who happens to belong to that ethnic group, and she couldn't explain it. A couple of times I've yelled "¡bicicletas deben estár en la calle!" and the perpetrator looked at me like I was from Planet Clair.
I've decided to enlist the help of a friend/family member from NYC who knows the way things *aught to be,* the next time he visits. He's generally excitable and should be able to help stir things up. And I never thought I'd be referring to cyclists as "them."
Comments