It’s A Bike-Friendly City—As Long As You Can Keep Your Bike

 I have lived in New York City for most of my life.  I love it, including the cycling it offers, but I’ll admit that there are times when I was tempted, however briefly, to leave.

One of those occasions came during a long fall weekend, which included a lot of cycling, in Vermont. I’d take an overnight Amtrak train from Penn Station to Burlington.  I cycled there, and in the surrounding countryside, and slep in the state ski dorm—which served as a hostel during the off-season—near Stowe.

Much of the temptation to move came from seeing the most vibrant colors of the Green Mountain State’s Fall Foliage season. But I knew that if I were to continue the car-free life I’d been living, my relocation would take me to Burlington which, decades before cities were talking the “bike friendly” talk, seemed be spinning their pedals in that direction.  In other words, it was a kind of proto-Portland, if smaller.

Now Vermont’s largest city—which has about a third as many people as Astoria, where I live—is acknowledged as one of the nation’s most “bike friendly “ cities.  But, as in other velo havens, there is a dark side: bike theft.

As an article in today’s New York Times points out, although bikes are commonly stolen by professional thieves who know what they’re looking for, many others—and, it seems, many of the bikes swiped in Burlington—are taken, sometimes for fun, other times for profit, by drug addicts.

Some blame the very open-minded, welcoming atmosphere that attracted them to the city.  (Ironically, they are in agreement with outsiders, many with right-wing politics.)  This is the city that launched Bernie Sanders’ political career when it elected him as its Socialist mayor.  It’s also where latter-day hippies went to continue their lives away from the clatter and clamor of cities and corporations. Among such refugees were a couple of guys who started one of the world’s best-loved ice cream brands.  Such folks have long felt grateful to the place that welcomed them and pride themselves on welcoming newcomers like themselves.

But as in larger “bike friendly” cities like Portland and “liberal” enclaves like San Francisco, some arrive with no connections or prospects.  Also, those who come and manage to start businesses and careers, or attend the university, make it more difficult for those who were born and raised there but who can’t or didn’t go to college and who can’t get the kinds of jobs their parents had but don’t exist anymore.

The latter group of people are more or less like the kinds of people would-be gentrifiers encounter in cities like mine and are called “remnants,” “leftovers” or other less flattering names.  They, and the young people who get off the Greyhound buses from the Rust Belt or Deep South are vulnerable to addiction and their circumstances—often as residents of encampments or park benches—make them easy to be recruited as bike thieves or simply to steal bikes on their own.

Now, to be fair, some steal bikes for transportation.  That, of course, doesn’t change the fact that they are stealing. But, as one outreach worker pointed out, the “high” crystal meth users lead some to steal things—including bikes—for the thrill of it.

So, while being a “bike friendly” city didn’t cause Burlington’s problems, it caused those problems to manifest in a way that isn’t friendly to bike owners.

Sticking Its Neck Out

 Go to any bike parking facility.  Among the many bikes chained and locked to the bars and post, there's always one that stands out.

Stealing, And Recovering, A Memory Of Him

Yesterday I wrote about Kevin Hebert, the disabled US Air Force veteran whose specially-made bike was stolen--and, thankfully, recovered. In telling about his ordeal, I paraphrased Tom Cuthbertson, who wrote that stealing a bike from someone is one of the lowest things one human can do to another.

That got me to thinking about the question of whether some bike thefts and thieves are more depraved than others.  Almost anyone who rides a bike loves or depends on it--or both.  But some bikes, victims and methods of stealing provoke more disgust and outrage than others.

I'm thinking now about--are you ready for this?--the swiping of a "ghost" bike.  If you ride in almost any city, you've seen one:  painted entirely in white, usually with a sign commemorating a cyclist killed by a driver attached to it.  Of course, they're almost always locked to a signpost or other immobile object.  Even so, they aren't invulnerable to pilferage.  

Such a fate befell the "ghost bike" left at the corner of 134th Street and Pacific Avenue in Parkland, Washington.  Nearby, at 134th and State Route 7, 13-year-old Michael Weilert was crossing on his bicycle in July when a someone drove into the crosswalk and struck him.

As if losing her child weren't bad enough, Amber Weilert  went by the intersection, as she often does, and "was shocked to see it wasn't here" after someone cut the locks and absconded with the memorial to her son.

Fortunately for her, and her family and community, an employee at a local scrap yard recognized the bike and returned it to Weilert's family.

So...while stealing one bike might or might not be worse than stealing another, it's hard to think of a more morally bankrupt bike theft than that of a disabled veteran's wheels--or a "ghost" bike.