Shek's Footprint

I organized a cargo bike picnic ride last Sunday. I wanted to promote the utilitarian aspect of bicycles so people can supplement some of their car trips on a bicycle.

Seven people showed up, including me. The excellent company made up for the lack of participation by far.

The ride was promoted paper free. No posters and leaflets. In the age of blogs, RSS feeds and feed readers, it is pointless to print posters. Ride information was shared on Urban Core and Bikejax, both very  popular websites. I also created a facebook event where 30 or more people agreed to attend in spite of the Tour de Cure going on. Lakshore Shwinn, a local bike shop that carries xtracycles also sent messages on twitter and facebook.

Many people who missed the bicycle ride are probably at work watch oil spewing out of the extraction site on bp’s live feed. They shake their heads in disappointment to bp’s lack of proper oil spill containment and to the damage done to sea life and beaches. They may even shed a tear at the sight of oil drenched birds. They prepare to end their work day and make their way home in the comfort of their gasoline powered cars. Over the weekend, they will probably make their way to the grocery store or a restaurant in their cars, run into friends and talk about boycotting bp, then drive their cars back home.

I like to hope that people would do something to lessen their usage of gasoline. It causes pollution, spills and war. It also supports the car tax. I hope they replace some of their trips with a bicycle. Even a short trip.

I have been riding two days to work and am upping it to three. I am supplementing my bicycle commute to work with my motorcycle. 14 miles is quite long.

I am also drooling on the pictures from the Cargo Bike Race in Copenhagen.

This video has been on my ‘to watch’ list for a while. It showes a bicycle path on the street of Amsterdamsestraatweg in Utrecht, Netherlands. It was posted on David Hembrow’s blog here: link

Things to notice are the traffic lights, car parking, car traffic and intersections on this road.

A majority of complaints made against this segregated type of infrastructure is the dynamics of intersections  between bicycle path and motorised traffic. Remember that due to this infrastructure, a majority of people are on bicycles, not in cars, thereby reducing the volume of cars on the roads that lead to the supposedly friction at intersections. Moreover, there are laws in place to reduce this friction leading to one of the lower bicycle accident rates in the world.

Another complaint made by some Vehicular Cyclists is that this system gives cars and wealthy car owners more superiority. I dont know if car owners feel superior in this video but a substantially large and growing number bicyclists seemed to be enjoying a high quality commute involving zero emissions, absymally low financial burdens and a healthy body.

Note a woman with a small child on her bicycle pedaling down the street with no worries. This sight is almost never visible in USA where Vehicular Cyclists demand we rightfully take our position on existing roads with traffic. I have asked this question before (link) and continue to wonder why a mother would not ride her bicycle on car-traffic-laden-infrastructure-less streets with her new born!

The nail that stands out gets hammered the most.

Calling a much slower instrument a vehicle and placing it on the road with much larger vehicles only with a thin shear blanket of a law is lazy. I am of the opinion that the definition of bicycles as vehicles is flawed. If the law and motorist’s courtesy is all that sufficiently protects a cyclist on a road, then let’s remove sidewalks and place the pedestrians on the road as well. They can use the shoulder and save bucket loads of money on concrete sidewalks.

Projecting a vehicular cyclist logic forward, cars, motorcycles, buses, trucks, tractor-trailers, bicycles, wheel chair bound disabled people, pedestrians etc. will all be called ‘widgets’ and all widgets will share the road with each other. Why should pedestrians be separated from the road to make it easier for vehicles to travel safely? Why support vehicular superiority? Vehicular Cyclists do not aggressively support Shared Space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space), making their arguments hypocritic and selfish.

Living in any sprawled area with no infrastructure but the blind principles of John Forrester makes life friction-full. Yells and honks start becoming an itch that wouldn’t cease so much that you would wish to cut off your limb to ease the pain. Initially, optimism and gumption help overcome the constant reminder that you as a bicyclist are unwanted and unwelcome on the road. The hammering does not stop, not till a large organization (Eg. a government) recognizes it and makes plans to stop it. Such efforts are usually graced with positive and constructive outcomes as seen in the cities of Portland OR, Davis CA and New York City NY.

I have decided to stop getting hammered. I am buying a motorcycle and moving to a bicycle-friendly neighborhood further away from work. I am moving from the top of a pile of bicycle commuters to the bottom of the pile of motor-vehicle commuters. In my efforts to latch on to a higher dynamic quality, namely car-free bicycle commuting, I am degenerating to an activity of lower quality, namely motorcycle ownership for commuting. I have kept gas bills, insurance and depreciation on the motorcycle to a frugal low of $100 a month, which used to be my taxi fare budget.

Lastly, the people who continue to bicycle commute here, Jonathan, Jose, Rebekah and the couple others who I haven’t met, are bigger people than I am. They are true heroes.

“What is Bikejax?” we get asked numerous times at the bike valet. Newbies at the Riverside Arts Market (link) wonder if we are a shop or a club. “Neither” we reply.

Bikejax started as a blog that talked about bicycling in Jacksonville. It mirrored the likes of BikePortland.org by putting a spyglass on the almost invisible community of bicyclists. Bikejax caters to a specific community of cyclists, namely the utilitarian kind. ‘People on bikes’ is what we like to call them. They are not ‘Bicycle Lifestylists’ or ‘City cyclists’. There is no hint of consumerism attached to the definition of this community.

The aim of Bikejax has been to promote bicycles as transportation. Soon after getting tired of bitching about the deplorable conditions of bicycling in Jacksonville, Matt Uhrig decided to ruffle some feathers. The phenomenal success of the night ride (link) was a beginning. Then came the ghost bikes, the MPO meeting participations, Vision 2035 participations etc. Only a year after its inception, Bikejax has been on TV (link)(youtube link), raised awareness on bicyclist deaths through ghost bikes(link)(link), participated in and organized one of the most fun rides in the history of Jacksonville (link)(link)(link) and finally started and consistently maintained a successful and free Bike Valet service (link) which has few rivals in the entire USA.

The informal saying goes, “Bikejax has achieved more in one year than most formal bicycling clubs have in decades”. Though all these tasks have been possible through the support and dedication of countless volunteers, merchants, City officials and FDOT officials, the one man that needs to be thanked is Matt Uhrig for his idea, relentless gumption and perseverance.

What 10 Questions Would You Ask?

written by Bike Jax at Thursday, August 13, 2009

Bike Jax thought it would nice to learn more about where these candidates stand and what their thoughts are when it comes to transportation. We are compiling what we think are the 10 most important questions on the current and future state of transportation for these candidates and thought we should gather your input also.

Read the full post here: http://www.bikejax.org/2009/08/what-10-questions-would-ask.html

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