Broken Record
Most of the time, I consider a 21 mile bike ride a pretty good haul; after yesterday, though, today’s distance was a mere walk—make that ride—in the park.
So, here I am in Bend, and it’s a cute little city; sorta like Santa Fe, complete with the groovy downtown area and the strip mall highway on the other (wrong) side of town.
But here’s what I don’t get and what I’m referring to (as usual) in this piece’s title: why are there so many people in cars here?
I was under the impression that Bend was going to be this kind of groovy retiree meets REI paradise, full of fit seniors zipping around on their mountain bikes. Instead, it strikes me (admittedly at very first impression) as your typical larger small American town, full of car dealerships, fast food outlets, and disaffected teens.
As I rode around town today, treating myself to a perfectly respectable Mexican food lunch washed down by several mid-day beers, I only saw four other people on bikes—and two of them were kids. Conversely, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of cars, including a fairly major traffic jam at a rode construction site that I rode right through, no waiting.
I know it’s fairly spread out here; people probably need their cars to get to their homes on the far side of town; on the other hand, the town itself can’t be more than 10 square miles and it’s plenty flat.
According to a city map I have, there is a Cycle Cab company here; maybe that will be the nexus of bicycle culture; I’ll see.
In his excellent book, Carfree Cities, James Homer Crawford explains how a city the size of Bend could function perfectly with an inner carfree core, surrounded by industrial dropoff sites for goods trucked in.
I’d like to see that, even if it meant giving up these anti-car rants that are beginning to bore even me.
So, here I am in Bend, and it’s a cute little city; sorta like Santa Fe, complete with the groovy downtown area and the strip mall highway on the other (wrong) side of town.
But here’s what I don’t get and what I’m referring to (as usual) in this piece’s title: why are there so many people in cars here?
I was under the impression that Bend was going to be this kind of groovy retiree meets REI paradise, full of fit seniors zipping around on their mountain bikes. Instead, it strikes me (admittedly at very first impression) as your typical larger small American town, full of car dealerships, fast food outlets, and disaffected teens.
As I rode around town today, treating myself to a perfectly respectable Mexican food lunch washed down by several mid-day beers, I only saw four other people on bikes—and two of them were kids. Conversely, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of cars, including a fairly major traffic jam at a rode construction site that I rode right through, no waiting.
I know it’s fairly spread out here; people probably need their cars to get to their homes on the far side of town; on the other hand, the town itself can’t be more than 10 square miles and it’s plenty flat.
According to a city map I have, there is a Cycle Cab company here; maybe that will be the nexus of bicycle culture; I’ll see.
In his excellent book, Carfree Cities, James Homer Crawford explains how a city the size of Bend could function perfectly with an inner carfree core, surrounded by industrial dropoff sites for goods trucked in.
I’d like to see that, even if it meant giving up these anti-car rants that are beginning to bore even me.
posted by Professor Dave at 4:31 PM
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