I rode my bike home in late April, a nine mile commute that I do four days a week, when a car suddenly turned right, only a few yards ahead of me, crossing the bicycle lane. There was no time. I pushed my brakes so hard that I flipped forward over my front wheel and crashed on the street with my jaw and arm. I dad a black eye from where the goggles smashed into my face, chipped a tooth (that I would later learn had a cavity), missed a week of work because I could barely use my arm in the first two days and had lingering pain, and the height of my chin is now uneven. I have a beard now to hide it, and I'm not fond of beards. After thousands of dollars in medical bills that the taxpayers ended up paying, there is a scar on my chin where hair no longer grows. It required six stitches. Why would a driver look over their right shoulder before turning if they are already on the rightmost lane? They train themselves to look out for other cars, not cyclists. Cars and cyclists never should have been mixed as they are now. Though I was pissed off at the driver and still am for avoiding my lawyer and likely not having insurance, when I sat there with blood gushing from my chin, unable to rise easily because my brain had just been jostled, I was even more furious about this car infrastructure that I had been criticizing for years. I felt defeated by it. The paramedic whom I refused to take a ride with for fear of being charged thousands of dollars* told me that I wasn't wearing a helmet. Why tell me this? The doctors also wrote that I wasn't wearing a helmet. I landed on my jaw, not my skull! Helmets are just things that make drivers feel better about the awful state of American cities. It's cope. At the time, I wore 3M over-the-ear muffs to reduce the noise of cars. Now I do wear a helmet again.
*When I heard the sirens, I got up and rode my broken bike away. The fire truck cut me off so that they could speak to me. I lay on their stretcher before finally deciding not to go with them and signing an electronic form acknowledging that they informed me that if I did not go with them my injuries could get worse, potentially resulting in death. Thirty minutes later, I went to the hospital on a tram and my own two feet.
Buses and especially trains move far more people than cars. Drivers should WANT better transit, because it removes cars from the road and gives them less traffic to contend with. Almost nobody in America takes transit because it's always done so half-heartedly. Infrequent stops, almost nothing at night, no service on Sundays in many places, unreliable drivers. The few good lines we do have are always in danger of having their funding reduced by politicians who never have to fight for anything in the long term and are only looking out for their next positions as they appease car-brained voters who feel threatened any time there are plans to improve walkability and transit.
This lopsided car infrastructure isolates us, both as pedestrians and as commuters. You need to work far harder to overcome it, meaning go to places you normally wouldn't to meet people, since everyone is in their motorized cage until the last small stretch of their destination. Everything is zoned separately because the expectation is that everyone will drive, which stretches everything out far more and of course also hampers public transit. Your friend might not even want to come to your home because it's so time-consuming and expensive.
Remember all those people who froze to death in their cars in the northeast early last year trying to get essentials in that big storm. That's single use zoning for you. They could have had smaller stores in their communities, places to walk to that wouldn't need so much parking because they would serve smaller communities. Or residents could run shops in their own homes (which was legal in many places before the car boom). Instead, everything is separated by zones and the streets are designed to move as many cars as quickly as possible, which only increases traffic by way of induced demand and lets superstores dominate. The big chain stores that can afford the huge parking lots dominate and the little guys struggle and go under because they are usually not even seen by motorists. Nearly every business is in a single story building, again because the expectation is that everyone will drive. The amount of land that we use could be significantly reduced and thereby commuting made easier if businesses shared buildings with multiple stories, maybe two or three businesses per floor. You could place the stairwells and elevators at the front of the building so that shoppers or workers wouldn't spend as much time walking to the stores as in malls.
This obviously also adds to obesity. What is America at now, almost half percent obese and 2/3 overweight? That's insane. I don't think it's just because it's so difficult and often dangerous to walk anywhere, but also because the single use zoning and the great distances made by all the parking and roads and lawn requirements places supermarkets so far away that most people don't buy enough fruits and vegetables. They buy more frozen foods and non-perishables that will stay good before their next expensive drive to the supermarket. If they are lucky, they have a store on their way home from work. But maybe they don't want to go shopping after working for nine hours. I understand that as a cyclist. (My backpack doesn't even have that much room when I go to work.) Obviously, grain and fiber being removed from foods (requiring people to eat more before they are full) and sugar being added is a big factor, but that's another story.
It ruins the children. When I was a little kid, I went outside without adults all the time. My brother and sometimes my friend and I played soccer in the neighborhood, explored the forest, rollerbladed, dug big holes in the playground, sneaked into a school construction site, one time drew with my mother's art chalk all over the sidewalks until she got pissed... All of that changed after we came to America when I was nine. The amount of time my brother and I spent outside instantly changed and then rapidly declined farther. The noisy streets and parking lots are so unwelcoming. It's like that with kids in this country all over. Parents don't want their kids to be outside on their own because they are afraid they will be hit by a car. It makes sense when you consider how children play and their lack of experience. Parents drive their kids to schools that are just a mile away. I can't remember the numbers, but the decline of kids walking to school from the 1950s when car infrastructure was not so lopsided to now is gigantic. What do you think always being inside, having their parents drive them to the few places of safe activity, having no autonomy, does to their minds?
I understand that some of you consider driving to be freedom. The problem is that there is no balance with other modes of transportation and there is almost no walkability, which makes your travel more congested and miserable as well. I don't know how you can look at these inherently ugly places with almost no pedestrians all over the country, listen to the ceaseless noise and breathe in the fumes and think it's good. Why do I not go some place else? Because I'm poor and not that courageous.
*When I heard the sirens, I got up and rode my broken bike away. The fire truck cut me off so that they could speak to me. I lay on their stretcher before finally deciding not to go with them and signing an electronic form acknowledging that they informed me that if I did not go with them my injuries could get worse, potentially resulting in death. Thirty minutes later, I went to the hospital on a tram and my own two feet.
Buses and especially trains move far more people than cars. Drivers should WANT better transit, because it removes cars from the road and gives them less traffic to contend with. Almost nobody in America takes transit because it's always done so half-heartedly. Infrequent stops, almost nothing at night, no service on Sundays in many places, unreliable drivers. The few good lines we do have are always in danger of having their funding reduced by politicians who never have to fight for anything in the long term and are only looking out for their next positions as they appease car-brained voters who feel threatened any time there are plans to improve walkability and transit.
This lopsided car infrastructure isolates us, both as pedestrians and as commuters. You need to work far harder to overcome it, meaning go to places you normally wouldn't to meet people, since everyone is in their motorized cage until the last small stretch of their destination. Everything is zoned separately because the expectation is that everyone will drive, which stretches everything out far more and of course also hampers public transit. Your friend might not even want to come to your home because it's so time-consuming and expensive.
Remember all those people who froze to death in their cars in the northeast early last year trying to get essentials in that big storm. That's single use zoning for you. They could have had smaller stores in their communities, places to walk to that wouldn't need so much parking because they would serve smaller communities. Or residents could run shops in their own homes (which was legal in many places before the car boom). Instead, everything is separated by zones and the streets are designed to move as many cars as quickly as possible, which only increases traffic by way of induced demand and lets superstores dominate. The big chain stores that can afford the huge parking lots dominate and the little guys struggle and go under because they are usually not even seen by motorists. Nearly every business is in a single story building, again because the expectation is that everyone will drive. The amount of land that we use could be significantly reduced and thereby commuting made easier if businesses shared buildings with multiple stories, maybe two or three businesses per floor. You could place the stairwells and elevators at the front of the building so that shoppers or workers wouldn't spend as much time walking to the stores as in malls.
This obviously also adds to obesity. What is America at now, almost half percent obese and 2/3 overweight? That's insane. I don't think it's just because it's so difficult and often dangerous to walk anywhere, but also because the single use zoning and the great distances made by all the parking and roads and lawn requirements places supermarkets so far away that most people don't buy enough fruits and vegetables. They buy more frozen foods and non-perishables that will stay good before their next expensive drive to the supermarket. If they are lucky, they have a store on their way home from work. But maybe they don't want to go shopping after working for nine hours. I understand that as a cyclist. (My backpack doesn't even have that much room when I go to work.) Obviously, grain and fiber being removed from foods (requiring people to eat more before they are full) and sugar being added is a big factor, but that's another story.
It ruins the children. When I was a little kid, I went outside without adults all the time. My brother and sometimes my friend and I played soccer in the neighborhood, explored the forest, rollerbladed, dug big holes in the playground, sneaked into a school construction site, one time drew with my mother's art chalk all over the sidewalks until she got pissed... All of that changed after we came to America when I was nine. The amount of time my brother and I spent outside instantly changed and then rapidly declined farther. The noisy streets and parking lots are so unwelcoming. It's like that with kids in this country all over. Parents don't want their kids to be outside on their own because they are afraid they will be hit by a car. It makes sense when you consider how children play and their lack of experience. Parents drive their kids to schools that are just a mile away. I can't remember the numbers, but the decline of kids walking to school from the 1950s when car infrastructure was not so lopsided to now is gigantic. What do you think always being inside, having their parents drive them to the few places of safe activity, having no autonomy, does to their minds?
I understand that some of you consider driving to be freedom. The problem is that there is no balance with other modes of transportation and there is almost no walkability, which makes your travel more congested and miserable as well. I don't know how you can look at these inherently ugly places with almost no pedestrians all over the country, listen to the ceaseless noise and breathe in the fumes and think it's good. Why do I not go some place else? Because I'm poor and not that courageous.
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