I Hope This Doesn’t Give Us A New Group Of Adversaries

 Sometimes I think urban planners are infected with Trump-itis. Like the former (forever, I hope) President, they seem to have a penchant for pitting one group of people against another.

Now, to be fair, that might not be the intention of traffic engineers and bike lane designers. But I don’t think I’m being paranoid or hyperbolic when I say that I can feel more hostility from drivers, pedestrians and other non-cyclists every time a piece of municipal “bicycle infrastructure “ is unveiled. 

Some of that ire comes from an attitude that most people (I include myself) have at least some of the time:  The world is a zero-sum game.  In other words, if I get something that benefits me in even the smallest way, it must have come at their expense.  For example, any time a jurisdiction passes an ordinance that allows redress for people like me if we’re attacked or denied housing or employment because of who we are—or if we specify which pronouns we use (I know straight cisgender people who do so)—we are taking away the rights of people who never had to think about exercising them until we got them.

And so it is when the city in which I live, and others, build bike lanes.  Some span a couple of bike widths between the curb and the parking lane, which is in turn separated from the bike lane by a “neutral” strip.  In theory, it allows drivers or passengers to enter or exit their vehicles without “dooring” cyclists.

Some complain about having to look both ways, as if they’re crossing an intersection. But for the most part, that system works.

Notice that I said “most of the time.”  Some folks in Washington DC claim that a lane impedes their access to, or their ability to alight from, their vehicles.

They are handicapped, and a suit on their behalf is being brought against the District of Columbia.  They say the impediment to entering or leaving their vehicles is a violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Photo by Keith Lane for the Washington Posr

I’ m not a lawyer, so I won’t comment on their suit.  But I am in sympathy with their complaints.  The Crescent Street bike lane, which passes in front of the building where I live, also passes an entrance of the Mount Sinai-Queens hospital. Vehicles frequently pull into the lane to pick up or discharge patients and visitors. I often encounter people in wheelchairs or who use canes or walkers. Ironically, they are the only ones who apologize for entering the lane.  

I won’t say that my own interactions with disabled people during bike rides are emblematic of the relationship between cyclists and people who use ambulatory devices. But I hope that suit I  Washington DC isn’t a harbinger of hostilities to come.

Balancing Their Needs

 A week ago, I wrote about the measure l'Assemblee Nationale approved.  It would give a 2500 Euro (almost 3000 USD) grant for an electric bicycle to anyone who turns in an old, highy-polluting car, which would be used for scrap.  

Although I dream, to this day, of people giving up, not only two wheels for four, but also petrol power for muscle juice, I understand why some people can't or won't ride bicycles that require their own input in order to move.  Some are elderly and frail; others have illnesses and disabilities--including balance issues.

Of course, that last problem is also a reason why someone wouldn't ride an electric or otherwise-assisted bicycle.  Jiaming Xiong and his colleagues at China's Beijing University recognized as much.  So, they created what they describe as a self-balancing electric bicycle.

What look like training wheels are attached to the rear stay.  It also looks like they're mounted just above ground level so that one of them touches when the bike wobbles, or is turned.

More important, and revolutionary, though are the gyroscopic sensors. They detect when the bike starts to lean and trigger it to steer into the direction of the potential fall in order to stabilize the bike.  

Another benefit I can see is that it's less cumbersome than an adult tricycle. (Are there electric or motorized adult trikes?)  It would take up less space and, perhaps most important, would probably be more maneuverable and visible in traffic.

If there are positive side-effects to the pandemic, one of them just might be efforts to make bicycling, in whatever form, more inclusive and practical for more people.  This self-balancing electric bike, like the French scheme, are two examples of that.