My first thought was that it was very bizarre that the recommendations of AASHTO are not based on rigorous and up-to-date research. It’s like there’s some secret conspiracy behind why they want us to stay off of bikes? Like why wouldn’t they be doing their job and actually trying to promote people to partake in a greener and healthier method of transportation…? Anyways, I think the topic of bicycle riding in America is a really interesting one and I’m surprised we haven’t spoken more about in class. It’s pretty embarrassing to see how little bicycling our country does in comparison to places like the Netherlands, where 27% of all trips are via bike. The benefits of bicycling are dispersed throughout a variety of areas like mental health, physical health, less fuel emissions from cars leading to a greener environment, and so forth. With all that in mind, it’s puzzling why biking isn’t more heavily promoted.
In New York in particular I can kind of see why people are so hesitant about bicycling. The city streets are constantly packed with cars and bicyclists are often seen as a nuisance rather than people who are making smart decisions regarding their methods of transportation. I can’t find statistics on the increase of bikers with the implementation of Citi Bike, but I would imagine it being fairly high considering the amount of people I regularly see on those logo’d blue bikes. I don’t want to just be a hypocrite preaching about the greatness of bike riding when really…it’s not my primary mode of transportation. If you’d ask me before reading this article why I don’t ride my bike I’d probably say that I don’t feel safe. After reading that apparently there’s only a 2.3% crash rate, I realize I can’t use that as a valid answer so I change my reasoning to laziness and convenience I guess. Like I could bike to a good amount of places I choose to take the train to because I can nap on the train and I don’t have to do anything on it and it just takes me where I need to be. Reading this article made me want to hunt down my helmet and consider taking my bike out.
P.S. Thanks for the punny title idea from your poster project
