Mar 20 '06 - 703 W, 1 I - Vote Good + 6 :: Bad - 9 Don't Hate Me 'cuz I Bicycle
Published March 19, 2006 by DCist
By proud biker and DCist's tech guru, Tom Lee.
You've probably never met me, but odds are that you have a grudge
against me anyway. It's not that I'm a particularly objectionable guy.
I'm generally pretty friendly, and if you and I were to run into each
other I'm sure we could make some pleasant smalltalk about music or
movies or the Redskins. But eventually my horrible secret would be
revealed: you'd figure out that I'm a bicyclist. And if you're like
most people, that's when your eyes would narrow.
It took me a while to understand that this was the order of things. I had always assumed that biking around in my helmet and reflective ankle strap made me an object of derision and/or pity — not hatred. I've only recently realized that bike riders are on every city-dweller's list of pet peeves. They shouldn't be.
It rarely fails: mention biking in the city and folks will either complain about cyclists riding on the sidewalk, cyclists running red lights or both. My favorite example occurred in a recent DCist comment thread: presented with news of a bicyclist being assaulted and robbed, a commenter noted that the crime was terrible but that, on the flip side, bikers really ought to be more careful about obeying traffic laws.
But I can't blame the commenter; for most people, the anti-bike reaction is nearly Pavlovian. In fact, when I told my girlfriend of five years and my best friend of fourteen that I'd be writing this column, both of them immediately began to complain about bikers. To their credit, they eventually backtracked and decided that I was an exception — one of the good ones, so to speak. Thanks, guys.
But the joke's on them. I'm every bit as bad as they imagine. Sure,
I prefer to ride in the street, but when it's impassable, dangerous or
inconvenient, I'll proceed — respectfully, carefully, slowly — among
the pedestrians on the sidewalk. And if there's no traffic coming, I'll
happily pass through red lights that I would patiently wait out in a
car. So long as it's only my own safety that's at risk, I don't see why
others should view it any differently than jaywalking.
Here's the thing: taxonomically messy thought it may be, it doesn't
make sense to treat a bike the same way at all times. When it's moving
in traffic or quickly enough to hurt someone, it ought to be treated
and policed as a vehicle. When it's moving at the pace of a pedestrian,
its rider ought to be treated like one. Neither approach is appropriate
at all times and in all situations.
Some will doubtless say that I'm trying to have it both ways. Perhaps that's true. But the bike-haters' view of the situation is even less coherent. I hear plenty of complaints about riding on the sidewalk; but I also hear plenty of car horns objecting to my presence in the street, no matter how innocuous. It seems that most people wish bicyclists would stick to their designated — but also largely non-existent — bike lanes and paths. The apogee of this attitude may have come in last year's now-infamous Marvin Kalb commentary on WAMU's Metro Connection. In it, Kalb expressed his desire that cyclists stay out of Rock Creek Park, since they make it inconvenient for him to use the park as a shortcut on his drive to work. In Kalb's and many other people's minds, there really is no acceptable place for bicyclists.
But I'm afraid that until the unlikely arrival of adequate bike lanes and paths, you lot are stuck with us. So allow me to gently, politely ask that the next time you're irritated by the Great Bicycle Menace, you consider whether your safety has really been endangered. If it has, the biker unquestionably ought to be ticketed or otherwise punished. But if you've merely been startled or annoyed, consider bearing it in good humor. After all, a means of transport as clean, efficient and healthy as biking deserves more support than censure, don't you think?
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