“We are, when on our bikes, timeless kids crawling fast; experiencing what we had (and lost) when the conscious mind began to impede us.” – Robert Seidler
At the end of my essay Which Cycling Politics: Doom or Possibility? I presented two stories for cyclists to live by. One in which we see ourselves as vulnerable, pleading to the government to give us a place to ride; the other in which we present ourselves as confident equals, fully entitled and capable of using the existing roadway system.
Stories can have great power. For thousands of years people have told stories – myths – to illuminate how we should move forward toward fulfillment. While the word “myth” often has negative connotations in our culture, often disparaged as “somebody else’s religion,” or something foolish or untrue, the late mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that one of the key purposes of mythology is to psychologically carry us through the stages of life; from the dependency of childhood to the responsibility of adulthood. With a truly mythological perspective, one doesn’t worry about “facts” (not that they are unimportant) as much as a universal truth.
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Posted in
Culture,
Traffic Skills
“Don’t we have a deal with the pigeons?”
“Of course we have a deal. They get out of the way of our cars, we look the other way on the statue defecation.”
- George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld
The tyranny of speed rules over nearly every road in this great nation. Florida is perhaps the tyrant’s most resolute stronghold. It’s as if gravity or latitude or the warm climate (or perhaps the convergence of the three) have funneled that power into our peninsula from all across the land. Hemmed in by the Everglades, the tyrant’s power concentrates even more as one moves into Broward and Miami-Dade counties. It then squirts out along US 1, the Overseas Highway that runs from Key Largo to Key West. The Highway is now mostly overwhelmed by the tyrant; its miles of ugly strip commercial development making it look like nearly any other four-lane highway. If it weren’t for the palms and tropically-themed signs you might think you were outside Atlanta along some stretches.
N. Roosevelt: sidepath on the left side; destinations on the right.
One-hundred and two miles down the highway you enter the Conch Republic, aka Key West. It’s the end of the road. The tyranny of speed has pushed its invading wedge westward into the island along US 1, and its commercial minions — fast-food purveyors, big box retailers… — have come in behind to claim territory. At its ironic intersection with Eisenhower Drive, it loses nearly all its power as it changes names from N. Roosevelt Boulevard to Truman Avenue and becomes a narrow, two-lane street.
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Posted in
Bikeways,
Culture,
Politics,
Safety,
Traffic Law,
Transportation Cycling
At the end of my essay Which Cycling Politics: Doom or Possibility? I presented two stories for cyclists to live by. One in which we see ourselves as vulnerable, pleading to the government to give us a place to ride; the other in which we present ourselves as confident equals, fully entitled and capable of using the existing roadway system.