The 70's Cycling Boom and the Future

May is national bike month, so it moves me to muse on bicycles, motorists, and their interactions.  Like what I suspect is pretty darn close to 100 percent of all cyclists, I am also a motorist.  But this post will not be about cyclist rights or motorist rights.  Instead I'd like to reminisce a bit about an earlier time.  I learned to ride without training wheels in 1972, and shortly after got a brand new Schwinn Stingray.  I immediately began riding it everywhere.  I wasn't unusual.  Every kid in town had a bike and also rode everywhere.  In the town of 25,000 people, there were no roads in town with more than two lanes.  There were no traffic jams of any kind.  The schools had row upon row of bike rack filled with bikes.  The entrances to the city parks were filled with bicycles, with the parks themselves filled with kids of all ages in unsupervised play. That is of course an entirely different topic.  I rode my bike in that town until I left for college.  In all of that time I don't remember a single example of car-on-bike or bike-on-car aggression.  I don't remember any controversy of any kind about whether or not cyclists should be on the road.  I don't remember any motorist ever once complaining that a cyclist was slowing him down in any way.

The 70's were one of the documented cycling booms, and it hit Austin, Minnesota with full strength.  Perhaps it's nostalgia, but something ugly has happened to this country in the ensuing 40 years.  The number of miles we drive has skyrocketed.  Our roads have become gridlocked with traffic.  Our main streets have mostly deteriorated and big box stores with 40 acre parking lots milling with herds of SUV's on the outskirts of town have taken their place.  In an attempt to accommodate all of the motor vehicles, our roads have expanded to four, six, and even eight lane boulevards.  But as soon as these boulevards are built, they immediately become gridlocked.  And so we build more, and they too become clogged.  These boulevards are ugly, loud, and unpleasant places for everybody, but especially for cyclists.  People sit in their cars, stuck behind thousands of other cars.  As a participant in our society, I have spent many many hours sitting with them in my cars.  Many of the people in those cars, for whatever reason, become absolutely unglued by the sight of a cyclist.  Not the thousands of cars jammed onto the same road they are, causing them to require 30 minutes to travel 4 miles.  No, it's the one cyclist that gets them unhinged.

At times I have despaired at these changes.  But lately, I have renewed hope that it has all only been temporary, and we are beginning to regain our senses and returning to a more civil society.  Seeing ordinary people out on bicycles lifts my spirits.