Cars, Bikes, and a Need for Change

Two bits to process in thinking about our needed transition to transportation that's not based on fossil fuels:

A talk by Macalester professor Chris Wells on how the U.S. became a "car country."

A short post by Janne Filstrand, a Minneapolis bicyclist and bike advocate, on the unreasoning outrage that many car drivers seem to feel against bicyclists. As she put it,

To test my anti-bike-bias-theory, I try a substituting example. Standing at a bus stop with a random person carrying a pile of text books would it be OK to start talking: "College students are drunk 24 hours a day. I hate college students. They should be kicked out of school if they drink."

Try your own favorite disliked group.

"________s are always doing _____________. I hate ___________s. _____________s should be forced to _________."

....it happens all the time that people vent to ME about ill-behaved riders. Apparently, people riding bikes are so hated by the general public that it's socially acceptable to state it out loud to any random bike-riding person, subtly threatening them.

The comments that follow her post are enlightening as well, and in line with an earlier gathering of these types of comments that I noted here last year.