Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

This is what happens when you design roads for cars instead of people.

Also see the discussion at Commute Orlando.

Technorati Tags: car culture, pedestrian safety, walking

Owens says traffic is often a free-for-all of individual drivers pushing for position and advantage. Related to this, he says the Chinese are perfectly comfortable with line-jumping.

I think I’m stating the obvious when I claim: This would drive Americans bonkers.

We Americans have a cultural disposition toward what I’ll call systemic literacy. In other words: 1) We want to know what the rules are, 2) We want to follow them, and 3) We think others should follow them.

But…

We American have a cultural disposition toward rugged individualism. When the situation calls for it, we’re perfectly happy to bend or break the rules. We feel individually justified, although we often condemn the same behavior in others.

I know. What I just described sounds a lot like kindergarten.

Now add the automobile and shake vigorously.

One of the sources of animosity toward bicyclists for some drivers is their unwillingness to yield right-of-way to bicyclists (although they are often forced by circumstances to yield, which, then, apparently causes a spike in blood pressure). I imagine it offends some sense of entitlement they have as operators of the bigger machine. This may be analogous to the bigger kid in the kindergarten sandbox deciding that the toy the smaller kid has should be yielded — now rather than later. The bigger kid knows the rules — even respects them in many cases — but can’t help letting his inner rugged individualist run wild when advantage shows itself.

Resistance to such temptations being, I think, a sure sign of maturity in individuals and cultures.

Technorati Tags: bicycle culture, car culture, cycling

…refers to the tendency for people to over-attribute the behavior of others to personality or disposition and to neglect substantial contributions of environmental or situational factors….  People are generally more aware of the situational influence on their own behavior.

In other words:

You choose driving over transit because transit serves your needs poorly, but Joe Straphanger takes transit because he’s the kind of person who takes transit. This is the sort of trap we find ourselves in when considering how to fund transportation, be it transit, cycling, walking, or driving.

This error calls into question cultural reasons for choices. Do Europeans walk, ride bicycles, and take mass transit more than Americans because it is part of their culture — who they are –  or because the infrastructure exists to make those choices possible and attractive?

Druker acknowledges that culture does play a role in the kind of infrastructure that we build. So a car culture does exist because of the kind of cities and suburbs we built in the U.S. It can also be seen in the kinds of cultures that built the Trabant versus the Shelby Mustang. But it may be an error to assume that the choice to drive a car is because we have a car culture or that suburbanites are the kinds of people who drive cars rather than walk or ride mass transit. The fact is that driving is more convenient in many circumstances because we have created an environment — a situation — that privileges cars.

I’m wondering, however, about my experiences riding around Springfield. I find it remarkably easy to do. The flat terrain, grid road system, the bicycle route system, the abundant parking, and the slow residential and collector street speed limits make the urban core of Springfield a good situation for choosing a bicycle. (At least for someone like me. Am I the kind of person who rides a bicycle? I chose to do so for environmental, health and well-being reasons. I stuck with it because it was — situation-wise — easy. Hmmmm…

So why don’t more people do it? I have to believe that our car culture is playing a role here but not necessarily in the sense the fundamental attribution error challenges. The choice to drive is entirely rational. I think the choice to ride a bicycle is, too. So I’m thinking one reason for the difference must be individual perception of the quality of various travel choices.

Here’s my take on it: Advocating for bicycle/pedestrian and public transportation issues meets a very particular type of resistance (among many). If people are making rational choices to drive cars based on the situation (the infrastructure and land-use patterns of car-centric cities and suburbs), then it will be difficult to encourage them to use alternative transportation until credible, multi-modal systems exist. And these systems won’t exist — or will be difficult to create (i.e. fund) — as long as driving a car is the rational choice (i.e cost-effective).

That leaves us with the need for crisis in order the break that cycle, e.g. very expensive gas. Or, that leaves us with the need for leadership to avert crisis by creating credible alternative situations. Or something else?

Now here’s where I think the 1-mile Soultion comes in. Yes, it addresses the challenge of transit situation in terms of culture. But its greatest strength is how rational it is (i.e. cost effective): For many people there will be at least one destination within a mile of home to which they can ride a bicycle or walk. The situation remains the same, but we change the way they think about it. From there it might be easier to talk about funding to change more situations for what I hope are very rational reasons.

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle culture, car culture, cycling, transportation, Transportation Planning

And by now this walking has become habitual enough that, if for pressing reasons I do not or cannot walk, I feel that an important part of my day is either missing or has been denied me. I feel, intellectually, the loss of walking the way I would feel, physically, the absence of caffeine, life’s most pleasant addictive substance. Deprived of my walk I am deprived of time to be alone, of time to think, to be reminded that I live in the world regardless of how sedentary and abstract my life might otherwise be—in it rather than over or across it. Without my walk I feel bereft of time and occasion to see the built and natural landscapes at human speed, from man’s eye-view.

But, more fundamentally, I am firm in my resolve to walk the mile and a half because it matters to me that I know both how the cold feels and what it means, neither of which can be known by my walking eight steps into an already warm car, driving a very short distance, and then walking a few dozen steps from my warm car to my (usually) heated building. To know what the cold feels like I must have the chance to be cold, and then the resolve to be cold, for how the cold feels is known by observation, and observation (as John Muir knew well) is impossible without a willing subjection of the self. I must feel the regions of the skin tighten, the mysterious surfaces harden. I must feel the burn of exposed flesh in the stinging wind. I must feel the hardening even of the soles of my boots, which in such weather as this lose their cushion. I must feel the many ways in which life itself becomes hard.

Even with the hardness of the cold, walking or riding a bicycle as basic transportation is still a higher quality experience than driving for me. But it’s a quality that you won’t come to know unless you allow yourself to make a commitment. After you come to know it, getting in a car becomes something to be avoided — a nasty, brutish experience best saved for when you have no other choice.

Apparently there’s another winter storm headed our way. If I drove to work I might be worried about it just as I might be worried about the price of gas, which I have again forgotten.

I may get the chance to ride today. My daughter is competing in a debate tournament at a local high school — about three miles away. The roads are clear this morning. But I’d have no problem walking that distance either.

I reject the idea that my transportation choice — burning calories instead of carbon — is a more moral or ethical choice than someone’s choice to  drive a car (although I’m happy to point out the moral failings of how some people operate their cars). I mean no such implication. I’ve written before about changing the world by making quality choices for one’s self (re: Robert Pirsig). Far too many people are stuck in circumstances that make driving a necessity. They are stuck partly by their own choices, but those choices were to a large part constrained by our country’s subsidizing and promoting the automobile as the primary mode of transportation.  It’s partly this recognition that prompted the 1-mile Solution (even this simple idea is not possible for some people).

And, finally, there’s no reason to confine walking and riding a bicycle to purposeful movement from point A to point B. Nothing says you can’t get out there and just do it for the simple joy of it — no matter what the weather is doing.

Technorati Tags: 1-mile Solution, bicycle advocacy, bicycle commuting, car culture, commuting, cycling, transportation, utility cycling, walking, weather

I have a 3/4-mile commute because that’s the kind of commute I want — one that makes driving a car a silly choice.

I’m lucky. I had the opportunity to make this choice based on my profession and my socio-economic status. Others are not so lucky. Sadly, most of them are truly stuck.

And, perhaps more sadly, I think it’s possible a lot of people with hellish commutes either don’t think their commutes are hellish or think that hellish is normal — just the price you pay to live in suburbia.

Here’s a video to brighten your day or light a fire under your kiester — whichever.

Technorati Tags: car culture, commuting, transportation