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Welcome back.
Undoing decades of car-dependent infrastructure is a big lift, but the more of us that embrace the many benefits of better bike and public transportation infrastructure, the better…for the climate, our lungs, our mental health, and more.
Please enjoy today’s essay and ode to biking by guest writer Weslie Lechner.
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The Road to Healing Is Paved With Good Bike Infrastructure
By Weslie Lechner
Weslie Lechner is a freelance writer, storyteller, and cycling enthusiast that enjoys spinning her existential dread into stories about how to take action.
While I admit that infrastructure is not the sexiest of topics to bring up at a party, I still find myself doing it a lot these days.
One margarita in and you can find me posted up by the pool talking your ear off about how auto lobbyists and policymakers allowed cars to take over our streets to the detriment of the rest of us.
For example, did you know that in the 1970s, the U.S. passed the “Gas Guzzler Tax” to penalize carmakers for vehicles that didn’t meet the minimum fuel efficiency standard of 22.5 mpg BUT exempted trucks and SUVs, incentivizing automakers to push the sale of larger vehicles which today make up four out of ever five new cars sold in the U.S.?!
Larger cars led to larger roads and more of them, which led to induced demand, putting even more cars on the roads, so if you think about it, in this “if you give a mouse an SUV” scenario, cycling is kind of a radical act, right?!
If by this point, you haven’t politely excused yourself to swim to the other side of the pool and enjoy your margarita in peace, I’d like to invite you to consider partaking in this radical act of micro-mobility with me.
But first, I’ll tell you why I think it’s so important.
You see, I live in Southern California, a place known for its sunshine, palm trees, and long love affair with the car.
This love affair was not something I spent a whole lot of time thinking about until I took up cycling myself. After all, who am I to tell a city what form of transportation to love?
And anyway, I’d grown up in L.A.’s suburbs. Cars as the main form of transportation was the norm. My grandmother used to drive fifteen minutes to our house every morning just to drive my sister and me to school five minutes away.
While I’d love to say the time spent with my grandmother was priceless, these kinds of short car trips have quite a hefty price tag.
In the U.S. alone, car trips under a mile make up around 10 billion driving miles per year, adding up to an estimated 4 million metric tons of CO2 per year.
The walk to school would’ve taken fifteen minutes.
Still, if you live in the U.S., I’m sure you can understand why cycling-as-transportation wasn’t really on my radar. It wasn’t safe, efficient, or really possible where I lived.