"if the bicyclist would have just waited in traffic like everybody else, we would all be talking about something else right now...traffic was stopped or just about stopped, so not really moving in the travel lane. Sounds like a good old fashioned rush hour traffic jam to me." - JD71, Newton Tab comments, referencing the May 27 run-over cyclist on Comm Ave.
It is amazing and disconcerting what degradations in our quality of life we are trained to accept. Bicyclists see the looks of resignation every day in Newton gridlock. The car commercials sell us on the idea of cars as freedom; yet we willingly enslave ourselves, addicted to convenience and unsafe, risky, and unsustainable fossil energy.
Gridlock in the garden city is an unstated assumption in many Tab comments and blog posts: Given gridlock, cyclists should also get in line and subject themselves to the gridlock. No thanks. Let's think instead how we can reduce Gridlock in the Garden City. Lets show some civic duty, some patriotism, some real freedom, in our energy choices.
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1 comment:
Classic false dichotomy.
Other options: if the driver hadn't turned impulsively and suddenly, if the driver had signaled, if there hadn't been so much car traffic in the first place (if people had taken the T or were able to take a bus), if there had been a clearly marked bike lane, if the biker had been moving more slowly and cautiously, if more of those drivers were on bikes, if more of our traffic signals were replaced with roundabouts to improve traffic flow, if people actually valued safety equally with convenience...
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