Hey ya’ll,
This week isn’t so much of an opinion, but more of a general way I’ve been viewing bikes over the years. It is a continuation on my comments recently about cycling being a “movement” that really should reflect ALL cyclists and not just one way of riding. I recently read an article by my extremely intelligent and wonderful friend Liz over at the Fender Bender blog about suburban and rural cyclists. Again, expanding what it means to be a “cyclist” in America and what the cycling “movement” needs to include.
This is all wrapped up in a saying I’ve heard before about “Think globally, Act locally.” Really what that has always meant to me is that everyone needs to understand others, different models of doing things and be broad in their understanding of the world. However, don’t get lost in all that understanding. Understand your own community most of all and do what is best for that community. A good comparison is (going back to Occupy Wall Street) the way people have been calling the American protests the “American Autumn” to the “Arab Spring.” I don’t really like this at all. Really, if we think globally we can learn from the amazing things happening in the Arab world, but lets act locally – use the global knowledge we have for our own community. We are not the Arab world and it is insulting to say our struggle is the exact same as theirs. Breaking it down even farther, Occupy Detroit is different than what is happening on Wall Street. The struggle is similar, but in case any of you haven’t noticed Detroit is not a whole lot like New York. If they are the same thing, we are doing it wrong.
So what does this have to do with bicycling? I’m glad you keep asking that question after the introduction to each of my articles. As mentioned above, cycling looks different in many places. If you live in rural Wyoming, you aren’t trying to get bike lanes like folks in Southwest Detroit. But what do these two places have in common? They have young people that can benefit from bicycling. They have low income people trying to get to work. They both have roads and people that want to bike. Some instructions and safety information will be the same. Most people ride one pedal forward at a time, but the answers to get people there will be different.
The contrast, of course is driving. Most states have a similar structure set up to learn driving, get a permit, and then a license. Sure, highway speeds vary, but for the most part, driving looks similar most places you go. That would be true at least for the “developed” or “first” world where traffic lights and paved roads are common. Going to a few countries where you drive on the left or have to read speed limits in the metric system are just minor things to get used to. Traffic lights and signs are mostly symbols that can be understood by folks that speak all different languages and those that may not be able to read. In it’s short life, driving has become a universal language.
But bicycling has been around longer so why isn’t there a universal bicycle language? Probably because bicycles take longer to get places. They are a localized piece of transportation. Sure people ride bikes across countries all the time, but they don’t get there as fast as cars. If you blast through a town on a freeway you don’t notice the localized norms of traveling through their space. On a bike you have more time to take it in and learn that even though there is no stop sign in the small town you are going through, it is near the school and you stop anyhow. The way you use a bike in that situation is very localized.
A fine example of this is going anywhere that crosses a boarder of Detroit into a suburb. I tend to ride my bike on major streets in the city, but as soon as I get in the suburbs, I find residential roads because all the major streets turn into superhighways where most people want you dead. Cross 8 mile on Woodward going north and you should notice a huge difference in how that road operates. These are local differences between two cities that share a boarder. Places farther away are even more different. Take for example the Idaho stop law. In Idaho, bicyclists can treat stop signs as yields and a red light as a stop sign. Idaho has a localize understanding of how bicyclists move about a space and planned laws accordingly (here is a good video explaining it). I tend to live by the Idaho stop law here in Michigan even though I know it is illegal. However, if I were to cycle in Idaho, it would change my demeanor. But lets talk about places even farther away.
Take, for example, critical mass. I think this is a “movement” born from the “Think globally, Act locally” phrase. The name “critical mass” came from a bunch of cyclist gathering on a corner in China until there was enough of them to take over the intersection safely. An American cyclist then brought this concept back to America and developed “critical mass” rides. In China, these folks were trying to get home from work, or just go where ever it is they were going. It was not some sort of “fun ride” to gain “rights to the road.” Folks in Southeast Asia were not fighting for bike lanes, they just wanted to get through the intersection (like this).
So is wanting bike lanes wrong? Is Critical Mass “doing it” wrong? No, I don’t think so, but lets respect local wants and customs. I would say it is wrong to ride critical mass in another city with your own agenda. You don’t into someone”s home and tell them what they need right? Critical mass is a leaderless movement, but really the leaders are the local cycling community. Critical mass, again, is a great global concept that is ridden around the globe. However, if they all look the same, then we are doing it wrong.
Recently there has been a “suburban” critical mass developing out in Royal Oak and Ferndale. I think this is a great idea! As I mentioned, cycling takes different forms as soon as you cross 8 mile, so I think cyclists living in these two areas want different things. There are many things we have in common, but if our critical masses look the same, we are doing it wrong. If all group rides look like critical mass, we are doing it wrong. When I take our youth out for a ride from the Hub, it is not going to look like critical mass because it is a different group with different goals. (m-bike was way ahead of me and wrote about this a little in 2009)
So what was my point again? Oh yeah – bikes are localized machines that can be used to take you far distances. Automobiles are long distance machines that can take you to localized locations. How we interact with spaces and communities that are not our own will look different depending on our mode of transportation. Not that the intersection in China looks the same as any in America, but it is easier to get your way through in a car than on a bike, unless you know the local way of dealing with the situation. Another way of putting it is that automobiles, for the most part, are machines that take you places and bikes are machines that you take places with you.
So when you are building that “movement” and organizing bicyclists together – don’t reinvent the wheel (haha! Get it, it is a pun!), but think globally to get ideas and learn, but you also better act locally, because unless you are planning a cross country tour, you are trying to just connect your own neighborhood.
Thanks for reading along everyone as I deal with the idea of a “movement” and “identity” as a cyclist vs. just riding my bike and it not being an “alternative”
thumbsup,
jason x