We’re Not Bad For Business. Really!

 

In 1979, I rode in New York City’s Five Boro Bike Tour for the first time.  It was the third edition of what became an annual event and marked the first time the Triboro (now known as RFK Memorial) Bridge was closed to auto traffic.

I took the ride with two fellow students from Rutgers. We were among the few-thousand cyclists who participated; it had not yet become the sort of event that gets listed in TimeOut. It also didn’t have the $125 entry fee—a sum I never could have afforded as a university—of this year’s Tour.

I would participate in 19 more 5BBTs—two as a marshal—before deciding that it had become something people “did” rather than rode. (Plus, I had long since decided I would not pay to ride in my hometown.) But a recent news story reminded me of something I experienced on that 1979 ride.

In preparation for being one the World Cup host cities, Mexico City built a 24 kilometer (15 mile) protected bike lane from the city center to the main World Cup stadium. As expected, there were complaints and protests. Were city officials concerned about snow removal? Did business owners worry about parking? Are drivers irate over losing one of “their” lanes to cyclists?

I am sure that those common objections—save, perhaps, for snow removal—were voiced in regards to the Gran Ciclovía Tenochtittlán. But GCT upset another group of people who, as far as I know, have never before been involved in a bike lane controversy:  sex workers.

GCT’s route includes part of Avenida Tlalpan, where sex work has flourished for decades. (I don’t know this information firsthand: I have my sources!☺️)  Before the bike lane came (no pun intended—really!) in, pleasure providers would stand by the outermost traffic lanes. This allowed potential clients to slow down, stop and negotiate.

GCT has “taken” that outermost lane. So the World Cup—which, one assumes, would have been good for business—has instead all but destroyed not only a potential bonanza, but also their future prospects.

Before I make the connection with my 5BBT experience, I have to mention something else that occurs to me:  I have heard of one instance in which someone solicited from a bicycle.  When I was living in Park Slope, Brooklyn during the 1990s, the area under the nearby Gowanus Expressway was known to be an active prostitution area at least since World War II. One raid—which took place around the time then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was “cleaning up” Times Square—resulted from a would-be “John” soliciting an undercover cop from his bicycle.  I heard that when he was arrested, his bike was impounded.

The route of the 1979 5BBT, like that of every edition since, included a long stretch along the Brooklyn waterfront. Not far from where that two-wheeled terror met his end years later, there was a checkpoint. Gentrification and hipsters were years into the future for Williamsburg and Red Hook; those then-largely-industrial areas were all but abandoned on weekends.

Note that I said “all but.” At the checkpoint, while we were getting our cards stamped, some of us were greeted, shall we say, by folks wanting to do business. Being a broke student was just one reason why I didn’t. (In case you were wondering:  I have never paid, at least monetarily or with goods or other services, for sex.) I wonder, though, whether any other 5BBT riders did—and, if so, whether it’s proof cyclists aren’t bad for business.

Bikes And Bombs?

 As bad as I am at math, my freshman year of university showed me that I could actually be worse in another subject: economics.  I took one course and have told people, only half-jokingly, that I passed it (with a “D”) only because I promised the professor I would never again disgrace his discipline by taking another course in it.

Although I understood nothing, I remember a couple of things about the class. One is that the professor would exclaim, “MR=MC Always,” while pounding the podium.  And I recall something about “guns and butter.” I think it was about choosing between the two.

Well, years later I saw a poster that read, Bikes Not Bombs.” I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, not only because I love cycling:  I believe that the only htrue advance the human race can make is by ending war, now and forever.  But I am enough of a realist to see that it probably won’t happen, especially in the current political climate.

It seems, however, that more than one politician has flipped the “Bikes Not Bombs” slogan.   

Here in the US, we might expect a right-wing politician to make the argument that money spent on bike lanes and other cycling-related infrastructure and programs would come at the expense of the defense budget. (They have been making the same sort claim about arts and healthcare-for-all vs the military for decades.) But, interestingly, in the UK, Wes Streeting, a Labour politician who sought the party’s leadership made exactly that sort of false equivalence.  What’s even more astonishing is that as a former Health Secretary, he should know about the health benefits of cycling.

What made the parliamentary debate even more bizarre was not that Andrew Murrison, a Member of Parliament and a Navy veteran agreed, more or less.  It’s that another veteran and Member of Parliament, Al Pinkerton, shot down (no pun intended) their argument. “I am perfectly happy to spend money on both cycleways and defence,” he announced. 

Hmm..bikes and bombs? I guess that isn’t so far-fetched when you consider that one of earliest British bicycle manufacturers—and, for a long time, the most respected maker of bicycle components—was Birmingham Small Arms Ltd.

At What Age?

 

After Saturday’s ride to Point Lookout, I was very tired. I thought it might’ve had to do with my age, but I realized that as beautiful as the day was, the direct sunlight was draining me. So was the wind I pedaled into for most of my way back. 

I got to thinking about age again today, after riding to a few errands—and to vote in the primary.  The election workers were great.  One, a sweet-faced Black lady a decade or so younger than me (or so I guessed), was impressed that I pedaled to the polling place: a nearby high school gymnasium.

Only one other person who wasn’t a poll worker was in that room at the same time I was.  I wondered what he was doing there. On our way out, we exchanged greetings. “I apologize if I was looking at you too long.  But you look very young.”

“I’m 22. But people tell me I look 16.”

“That’s exactly how old I thought you were,”

We laughed. Somehow I knew then he was mature beyond his years. “Perhaps we’ll meet again.”

“That would be nice,” I said.

Later, I thought about how looking so young must complicate some things for him.  He’s old enough to vote, drive and drink, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets passed over for dates, jobs or other opportunities, or if he’s simply not included in some circles because of assumptions people make about him.

When I was his age—and when I was 16, for that matter—people thought I looked older.  Now I am one of the youngest residents of my senior citizens’ building, and people tell me I look younger.

Actually, I’ve been thinking about age a fair amount lately, ever since I had a dream about a high-school classmate, only to find her name on the “In Memoriam” list of my class’s round-number reunion page. While some, like me, looked older and others seemed younger, nearly all of us were just to one side or the other of 18 years old on the day we graduated. I was one of the ones who hadn’t reached that milestone and was therefore not considered an adult in New Jersey (where I graduated) or most other places.  On the other hand, those who got to the big one-eight could join the military, open a bank account, sign a lease or do a myriad of other things without their parents’ or guardians’ permission.  And, of course, they could vote.

What’s even stranger is that those of us who went to college or university were perceived as adults, more or less, even if we had yet to turn 18.  Even on the day I first set foot on the Rutgers campus, I knew I wasn’t a very, if at all, different person from the one I was a couple of months earlier, when I received my high school diploma. That fact became more obvious as the years went by.

In recalling my encounter with the young man at the polling place, I can’t help but to think that the standards we use, especially ones like age, to confer one kind of status or another on someone, are so arbitrary. I can only imagine what the young man I met today experiences because of his very boyish appearance.