Take A Bike Ride And Call Me In The Morning

Lately, there's been a burst of interest in "social prescribing", particularly in the UK.  In fact, the UK plans to implement it nationwide, as part of a strategy to combat loneliness, by 2023.

"Social prescibing" is a loose term of practices that draw upon therapeutic art-, hobby- or exercise-based programs to help patients with a range of issues ranging from dementia to lung conditions.  The idea behind it is that for many patients, particularly the elderly, their physical ailments are exacerbated (if not initiated) by their isolation.  Not surprisingly, depression and anxiety plague many who have outlived friends, family members, colleagues and neighbors and create a vicious cycle in which emotional conditions worsen physical ones--which, of course, make the people who suffer those conditions even more unhappy, and sicker.

As part of "social prescribing", general practitioners and, in some cases, other health care providers can prescribe any number of activities, including museum visits, cooking classes or walking tours for patients. These activities are not meant to replace medical or surgical treatments, though they may well reduce, or even eliminate, the need for medications to treat emotional and other conditions.

Those activities could include bike rides.

The Welsh National Health Service has just announced that doctors at two Cardiff medical centers can now prescribe free six-month prescriptions to a bicycle-rental service.  The intent of the pilot program is to not only improve cardiovascular health, but also to support overall mental well-being.  If successful, the program could be expanded to include other health care professionals in the city, and perhaps even the country.

Under the plan, patients will be given a code that will provide them access to an unlimited number of free 30-minute riding sessions.  These sessions, which will be made available by European bike-share company Nextbike, can cost 10 pounds sterling (about $13 at current exchange rates) per day.  

The announcement of this plan, the first of its kind in the UK, closely follows an NHS report detailing a 15 percent increase in obesity-related hospital admissions in the UK.  That is not surprising when you consider that five years ago, the city of Boston started a "Prescribe-a-Bike" program for low-income patients, in part to combat the obesity that disproportionately affects the poor.  It has since morphed into a discounted BLUEbikes membership program for people who receive government benefits.

Who Is Your Tandem Partner?

The next time you feel your boss is riding you, think about this:

via GIPHY


What are friends for?

via GIPHY

Where It's Really Hard To Get Out Of The Way

I've ridden the block dozens of times.  And walked it at least as often.

It's less than a kilometer from where I grew up.  Relatives, friends and classmates lived along the streets that crossed it.

Unfortunately, for a 16-year-old boy, it's where his life ended. 


Yisroel Schwartz was riding north on 17th Avenue, a narrow thoroughfare that runs through the heart of Borough Park, a neighborhood that is no as riding north on 17th Avenue, a narrow thoroughfare that runs through the heart of Borough Park, a neighborhood that is now home to one of the world's largest yet most cohesive Hasidic Jewish communities.

Although it's called an "avenue," it's narrower than most streets or roads in other American cities.  And because the Hasidim, who have large families, are among the most car-reliant people in New York City, the avenue is often crowded--even when drivers aren't pulled over to pick up or discharge family members, or simply double-parked. 

Those conditions, unfortunately, make getting "doored" a particular hazard.  That was the last lesson Yisroel Schwartz learned in his brief life.



He saw the door opening and swerved.  But he couldn't avoid it, striking the door and falling to the pavement.

But it gets worse:  While prone, he was struck by an Econoline E350 van that was heading in the same direction.  He suffered severe trauma to his head and body, and was pronounced dead soon after arriving at Maimonides Medical Center, about halfway between that block and my old house.

Both drivers--of he car whose door he struck and the van that struck him--remained at the scene of the accident.  The NYPD are investigating. Knowing that stretch of 17th Avenue--which I probably wouldn't ride if I weren't so familiar with it--I am actually inclined to give the van driver at least,  the benefit of the doubt.  No matter your cycling or driving skills, it's really hard to get out of the way on that stretch of the Avenue, between 53rd and 52nd Streets.

If He Flies, It Won't Be A High For Him

When I first became a dedicated cyclist, in the mid-1970s, I eagerly awaited my monthly copy of Bicycling! magazine.  Among the reviews and ads for bikes and equipment I couldn't afford, there was John Rakowski's serialized account of his ride around the world.

To this day, it's one of the most impressive feats I've ever read or heard about. Riding a bicycle around the world!    Over three years, he pedaled through every continent except Antarctica.  

It's such an impressive feat that I simply could not, imagine doing it more than once--until yesterday.  While surfing the web over supper (not a "best practice," I know!) I came across a story about Armando Basile, who hails from Germany.  

He's completed six velocipedic circumnavigations of the globe.  Yes, six.  And he was on his seventh such sojourn (Yes, I plagiarized the Moody Blues!) in Crescent City, California, the other day when the only thing that could have stopped him happened.

Surveillance video reportedly shows suspect with Basile's bike.

His Tout Terrain bicycle was stolen.  He called the Crescent City Police Department to say that his mount was taken at the Chevron South on Highway 101 at Elk Valley Road.

"The way it looks, the tour is finished," Basile posted to his Facebook page.  That is, unless someone calls 707-464-2133 with information that could lead to the wheels' whereabouts.

Otherwise, he'll be going from San Francisco to Frankfurt tomorrow--on a plane.  I don't think the best in-flight amenities could make him feel good under such circumstances!

  

Who Needs A Wall? A Fence Will Do The Job.

In other posts, I've pointed out that bike lanes and other bicycle-related infrastructure are not always received warmly by low-income or working-class people, or by people of color.

Bike lanes are often seen as paths to gentrification.  While the income level and hue of a neighborhood may well change after one of those green ribbons winds down a street, we cannot, as at least one of your teachers has said, confuse coincidence with causation. (The same association is often made between art and the ways neighborhoods change:  More than one commentator has referred to artists as the canaries in the coal mine.)  Still, I can understand why someone who's just getting by would feel resentment when he or she sees a cyclist who seems to be having fun--even if said cyclist is riding to work.

Also, that cyclist is, as likely as not, to be white.  Or, if he or she is not, he or she is, as often as not, an educated professional, and young.  That last fact is even more important than one might realize:  Gentrification often pushes out people who have been living in a neighborhood for decades--in some cases, their entire lives--and really have nowhere else to go.  

One more thing:  Nearly all planners and designers involved in building bike infrastructure are like the folks spinning down those lanes:  white, with at least one university degree and from at least the middle class, if not a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder.  Urban and transportation planning, it seems, are a bit like architecture:  a difficult profession to enter if you're not already connected, in some way, to the people who are already in it.  And, of course, it takes financial and other resources to, not only get the education required for such work, but to endure long periods at jobs that don't pay well.  That is why, for example, most of the students in the college in which I teach are preparing to become nurses, dental hygenists and the like, if they're not studying business. 

But today, in taking a slightly different route to work, I found yet another reason why poor, working-class and nonwhite people might fear and hate the arrival of a bike lane in their neighborhood.

As you might have guessed, those tall brick buildings to the left of the bike lane are projects (or what the British call "council flats").  Guess who lives in them?  

If you were one of them, how welcome would you feel on that bike lane?

Oh, and that ferry:  It's nice.  But, even with the location of that dock, one sees hardly a dark face on board.  

By the way, just beyond the end of the lane, a new development is going up. If nothing else, it just might make the bike lane seem welcoming, by comparison anyway, to the folks in the projects. 

Citizens and Business Owners

A motorist once accused me and other cyclists of using "for free" the things he and other non-cyclists pay for.  I pointed out that he pays only one tax that I don't pay:  for gasoline.  Roads and other infrastructure are not, as he and others believe, wholly funded by that levy on fuel.  In fact, in most US states--including New York--most of the money for roads comes from general taxes, whether at the local, state or federal level.

In essence, I was telling that driver that I am as much of a citizen as he is, and that cyclists pay their share as much as anybody does.  If anything, we are taxed more heavily because motorists can often deduct the expenses of owning and operating their vehicles.

Now, if cyclists are citizens, just as motorists are, what does that make bicycle shop owners?

Business owners.  Mostly, small business owners.

That is the point made by several bike emporium proprietors in a letter to Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser.  In it, they point out that their interest in Vision Zero--which, they believe, Bowser's administration has been slow to implement--is for the benefit not only of their customers, but also the community as a whole.  They say a few things about themselves that, really, any conscientious small business owner could say:

Bikeshops are active in their communities. Although we compete for the same customers, we share the same goal: put more people on bikes. More people on bikes helps all of us as business owners and the city where our shops are located.

We provide emergency repairs and some of us provide free tool use to get our customers and neighbors moving again.

We donate to local charities.

We create jobs and train young people that have just started working.

We create positive activity in retail corridors.

We create sales tax revenue for the District.

In other words, they're saying that they are serving, not only cyclists, but the Washington DC community as a whole.  That also reinforces the argument I made with the motorist I mentioned at the beginning of this post:  Cyclists are part of the community, too:  We come from "every Ward and all walks of life," in the words of the letter.  We hold the same kinds of jobs, have the same kinds of families, live in the same kinds of places and have all of the same needs as other members of the community.  One of those needs is safety, and the one major difference between us and motorists, or other citizens is--as the writers of the letter point out--we are more vulnerable on the roads.

Oh, and we are customers, not only of bike shops, but the other businesses in their vicinity:  greenmarkets, book sellers, hardware stores, haircutters and beauticians, clothing boutiques, coffee shops, supermarkets and eateries of any and all kinds.  If I owned any of those businesses, I would want my customers to remain safe--and alive. 

What's Stopping Them From Biking To Work?

It's rained nonstop, sometimes torrentially, since early Sunday morning. And it's been unseasonably cold.  My friend Millie remarked, "The weather is always nasty on Mother's Day but nice on Father's Day."

I mused that the weather might be a metaphor for a mother's life and a father's life, or a woman's and a man's.  Or, perhaps, it means that God really is a man--and one who hates women, at that.

She, who's enough of a Catholic to believe that if she lives right, she'll join her husband John in Heaven, laughed.

About the weather: That it comes during Bike to Week work seems like a conspiracy.  I used to know someone who believed that the CIA controlled the weather.  I could believe that, at least for the past few days, the clouds and precipitation have been regulated by someone who hates cyclists.

Now, this weather might deter someone who was thinking about riding his or her bike to work or school for the first time.  It doesn't seem to have driven most of the regular bike commuters to the subway or buses.  And, yes, I rode to work, but I haven't done a "fun" ride since Saturday.

While the rain might not be a disincentive for die-hard veteran bike commuters, this could be

You have to admit, though, that there is something ironic about a Department of Transportation vehicle in the approach to the Queensborough Bridge bike lane:

Thank you, Coleman Barton, for the image--and tweet.

He Survived The Un-Survivable

Once, the chair of a department in which I taught asked for lesson plans, assignments and other materials "in case you get hit by a truck."  My father implored me to write a will for the same contingency.

"Getting hit by a truck" has long been a metaphor for spontaneous, sudden, instantaneous death.  And one's demise usually is the result of such an encounter with a multi-ton, many-wheeled vehicle, especially if there's nothing between the person who is struck and the bumper of the truck but a jacket--or the rear wheel of a bicycle.

Donald Graham of Omaha is an exception.

He was riding his bicycle on the shoulder of Highway 75 North when he veered into the traffic lane--and the path of a truck.

According to Police Captain Wayne Hudson, Heyl Trucking driver Danile Forno did everything he could to avoid hitting Graham.  Forno said he saw another vehicle move to another lane to avoid hitting Graham.

Hudson said that Forno will not be charged but Graham, who suffered a broken leg and brain bleed, might be ticketed.  Because he was riding home from the "Forgot Store" bar,  Hudson believes that alcohol "may have played a role" in the crash.

Even with his current woes, I imagine Donald Graham is one of those rare people who survived getting hit by a truck.  I have to wonder how, or whether, he wants to remember--and, given his alcohol consumption, how much he will remember.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

This day is not only a time to honor the woman who gave birth to, raised--and did so much else for--me, but also the other women who have been our inspirations, guides, role models, friends, mentors and companions.

In other words, this is for the women who rock.  And roll!

I've never had children.  But Marlee seems to think I'm her mama.

She Lost Her Parking Space

When people ask you why you ride to work or school, you might say that it saves you money, gives you exercise or simply brings you to your office, shop or classroom in a better mood than you would have been if you'd had to fight traffic or the crowds in the train or bus station.

But, do you remember what got you pedaling to work in the first place?  Was there some specific event that caused you to dust off that bike you hadn't ridden in years and use it as your commuter?

Here in New York, some long-time bicycle commuters got their start during transit workers' strikes.  Here, and in other places, there are people who rode to class or work when they were poor students or low-wage employees and never stopped even after their economic circumstances changed.  Still others simply were trying to regain health and stamina they'd lost--or to gain such qualities after not having them in the first place.

For Amy Graff in San Francisco, the impetus was losing her parking spot at her job.  So, a month ago, she pumped up the tires on her 22-year-old Specialized Stumpjumper and started navigating the city's narrow streets and steep climbs.  She recounts her experiences in a SFGate article, "What I Learned After Riding My Bike For Three Weeks."

Some of the things she learned aren't surprising:  San Francisco is hilly, but biking is often the fastest way to get around the city. That second point could also be made about riding in New York, along with "getting doored is a real thing," "drivers are clueless about cyclists" and "people wear suits, even skirts, while biking."  

But my favorite "lesson" is this:  "the streets are cleaner than the sidewalks."  That's also something I could say about New York:  Even though we have a "pooper scooper" law; I've dodged (and stepped in) more doggie doo, vomit and other vileness left by blameless animals and clueless (or manner-less) drinkers. Let me tell you, those things are really difficult to clean out of your tire treads, which you certainly want to do if you want to bring a bike into a New York or San Francisco apartment!