Will There Be Another Bicycle Man--Or Woman--In Fayetteville?

I don't know at what moment, exactly, I stopped believing in Santa Claus.  I'm guessing that it came when I was about four or five years old and I saw four "Santa Clause"s on the same block of 18th Avenue in Brooklyn.

If my belief held on beyond that moment, it probably would have ended when I realized that Santa Claus would've been centuries old.  At least, he would have been the  Santa who piloted a reindeer-drawn sleigh across the sky and descended chimneys for kids like me was the same one that did those things for my parents, grandparents and other kids who came before them.

On a more serious note, it's hard not to wonder how many programs ,especially the informal ones, that distribute bikes and other things to needy kids survive beyond their founders or volunteers.

Moses Mathis, the Bicycle Man, with a kid whose Christmas he brightened.

That question entered my mind when I saw a news story about such a scheme--one that I'd mentioned in a post five years ago. One day, Moses Mathis asked a little boy in his Fayetteville, North Carolina neighborhood what he got for Christmas. "A raggedy old bicycle," he said.

"Bring it up here and we will fix it."

Word got around and other kids came by. The next thing he knew, the Mathis' garage was full of bikes. 

That's when the idea of a bike giveaway came to Moses. So, thirty-two years ago, Moses Mathis began a beloved holiday tradition  that earned him the moniker "The Bicycle Man." A few days before Christmas, he allowed kids to choose from among the bikes he'd fixed--without any adult, besides him, present.  He continued this holiday ritual every year until he died in 2013.  Ann, his widow, kept her promise to continue his legacy until she couldn't.

Ann Mathis, in blue top and black jacket, with some of "her" kids.

Well, that day has come.  She has announced that this year's bike giveaway will be the last.  When she started working alongside Moses, she was "a young girl," she explained.  "I'm old now."  After many years of service to her community, she wants to spend more time with her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The last day for donations will be the 15th of this month, and kids will be allowed to choose their bikes and helmets on the 17th.  

Will there be another "Bicycle Man" or "Bicycle Woman"--the local version of Santa Claus for three decades--in Fayetteville, North Carolina?

You'll Never Believe Where She Got This Ticket

A decade ago, a driver upbraided me for not riding in a bike lane.  None was present along the avenue where we encountered each other.  I pointed out that out to her. Still, she insisted, I should have been riding in the lane (where nothing but a line of paint separated cyclists from motorists) on a nearby avenue which parallels the one I was riding.

I politely told her I was going someplace on the avenue where we crossed paths. (Pun intended.) "Would you drive along a street that doesn't take you where you want to go?"

She then launched into a lecture about how riding on the path is safer than riding on the street, which revealed that she wasn't a cyclist.  Her claim that she had to go somewhere at that moment revealed that she'd lost the argument.

The reason why that exchange stays with me is that it revealed one of the many misconceptions that guide, not only everyday motorists, but too many planners and policy-makers.

Even in that supposed cycling Nirvana of Portland, Oregon.

On Monday, a police officer pulled over and cited a woman for not riding her bike in a lane.  To be fair, the law she, a daily bike commuter, violated was not specific to the city but, rather, an Oregon state law. ORS 814.420 states that "a person commits the offense of failure to use a bicycle lane or path if the person operates a bicycle on any portion of a roadway that is not a bicycle lane or bicycle path when a bicycle lane or bicycle path is adjacent to or near the roadway."

Photo by Jonathan Maus, Bike Portland

When folks like me don't use the bicycle lanes--including the one that runs right in front of the building where I live--we are accused of being "reckless," "entitled" or worse.  Truth is, sometimes it's more dangerous to ride in the bicycle than in a traffic lane.  Too often, drivers park or pass, or pick up or discharge passengers, in bike lanes.  I've even seen cops munching on their donuts or sandwiches in the cruise cars they parked in a bike lane.

If I am headed northbound on the Crescent Street lane, I am riding against the direction of vehicular traffic. (Crescent is a one-way southbound street.)  If a car, van or truck pulls into the bike lane, for whatever reason, I have two choices. One is to detour onto the sidewalk.  That option, however, is negated when the vehicle in question is from a contractor or utility company and construction or repair work on a building or power line obstructs the sidewalk.  Such a situation leaves one other option:  to veer into the edge of a lane where the traffic is going in the opposite direction.

Also, I've ridden along too many lanes that make it more dangerous for a cyclist to cross an intersection than crossing from a traffic lane would.  To make matters worse, some folks like to end their evening revelries by smashing their booze bottles, or dumping other debris, onto the lane.  And some lanes are hazardous simply because they're poorly constructed or maintained.

As I have never been in Portland, I don't know about the bike lane the ticketed woman was "supposed" to ride.  But, because she has commuted by bicycle on that same route for eight years, I don't doubt that she has encountered some or all of the hazards I have described, and possibly others.  If only the police in Portland--that supposed Mecca for cyclists--and Oregon lawmakers understood what that woman, or I, encounter regularly, they might finally understand that simply building a bike lane is not enough to ensure the safety of cyclists--or motorists.

Bike Banks: A Solution To A "Hidden Poverty?"

I haven't been to the Netherlands in a while.  So my firsthand memories of it aren't as clear as they are of countries I've seen more recently. But an impression I formed during my time there has been reinforced in all sorts of ways:  It is a country of contradictions and paradoxes.  You can see it in the art:  Few countries can claim as many renowned artists, in proportion to its population. Those artists include Rembrandt and Mondrian; Vermeer and Van Gogh (though the French love to claim Vincent as their own, as he lived and did his best work in Arles).  

Another paradox is that it's the country that, some historians and economists argue, created modern capitalism--or, at any rate, exported it to the world. Yet it was one of the first nations to institute a comprehensive--or, if you like, socialist-- safety net for all of its citizens.  

That system, which includes single-payer healthcare, is one reason why Dutch society isn't as socially stratified as the US.  While there are some very rich people, few (if any) approach the level of affluence seen in the wealthiest Americans, Russians or the economic elite in other countries.  Yet, there is still a stigma attached to a particular kind of poverty or hardship: the kind in which parents have difficulty providing for their children.  Even in a time or near-record inflation, including energy costs that have doubled, people are expected to "just shut up and get a job and don't complain," as one person put it. 

Some Dutch people and families, like their counterparts in other countries, have to make difficult choices.  So one of the things that might be sacrificed is--even in nation where it's said, only half-jokingly, kids learn how to pedal before they learn how to talk--a bike for a kid. Not having a bike, for a young person, can result in taunts and bullying--and make a commute to school even longer and more arduous.

That is where Dutch "bike banks" come in. Think of them as a cross between a program like Recycle-A-Bicycle and a food bank.  They Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB has created a scheme in which volunteers train people, including teenagers who have dropped out of schools, to make second-hand and discarded bikes ride-worthy.  Those bikes are then distributed to kids in need.  

The biggest problem is that even in the Netherlands, where bikes outnumber humans at roughly the same ratio that guns outnumber people in the USA, there aren't enough bikes to meet the demand. One bike bank in Amsterdam has received 1200 applications for 400 bikes.

The "bike banks," some of which are found in low-income neighborhoods of cities like Amsterdam and the Hague, not only spare kids from taunting and parents from shame.  Bicycles are ingrained in Dutch life in ways that few Americans can understand. "In Holland, you need a bicycle to join in," said Inge Veliscek of ANWB.  A bicycle is necessary "to go to your football, or to your friends or the school of your choice," she explained.  

Photo by Anna Holligan for the BBC.

As an example, a girl named Sanna picked up a sky-blue cruiser. "It's pretty," she exclaimed.  But even more important, according to her mother, it will allow her to ride to a better school in a better neighborhood. Knowing that, it's easy to imagine that having a reliable bicycle can result in a better job or living situation--or to have a job at all if paying transit fares every day is too much of a strain on the budget.

A bike "makes your world bigger," Ms. Veliscek said.  Not having one is a "hidden poverty."

Perhaps understanding that last phrase is key to creating, not only a bike culture that does more than fetishize accessories, but a transportation system in which bicycles are a key component.  Such an endeavor seems anathematic to "law and order" American politicians, but completely logical  to the Dutch, who prize order as much as anyone in the world.