But let me tell you something from Austin, which has had record 3-digit temperatures this summer: You can make as many bicycle-friendly lanes as you want, but only the heartiest twenty-somethings can get around that away, and even then SOAKED in sweat when they arrive at their destination (very professional, that - god forbid it's a job interview!). this is true whether it's at work or anywhere else (groceries, the bank, etc.).
One pet peeve of mine are folks who insist biking itself is a solution to reliance on cars, when it clearly isn't, except, *possibly*, for strapping young, early twenty-somethings. The elderly, the infirm, the otherwise-unhealthy -- asking them to bicycle around Texas in the summer is one of the most sadistic plans I could imagine. It is a preposterous solution in Texas and in much of the Sun Belt.
Right now, fossil-fueled mass transit is the only alternative I can see being somewhat succesful. Asking that the very ill, the elderly, and etc., bicycle around in 105 degree weather in Austin for miles & miles is just ludicrous. Additionally, the urban sprawl-ization of the DFW megalopolis is hard to see suddenly becoming a haven for bicyclists -- or even, in many cases, riders of that town's paltry mass transit. Cat needs the vet at 2:00 AM because of an emergency at that time? Let me check the bus schedule! Oh -- the bus doesn't start for another 4 hours, and then I have to make transfers totaling 2+ hours. 3 hours later I might get to the vet, with the corpse of a cat.
"Denser cities" describes Austin -- right now. You don't have to go far to get what you need. Thank God. That is changing almost weekly as the place becomes trendier, though. But asking someone in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex to adopt a transportation lifestyle like that in Eugene, Oregon, for example, should be met with laughter.
-B.
Max B. Sawicky wrote:
"I'm for more social transit, rail, bus, bicycle lanes, denser cities, the whole bit."