Cyclists Today

Here I stand by the Twitter HQ where the 21 Hayes merges onto Market between Tenth and Ninth. Having a bike rider count of 1700 by 4 p.m. was an average good day here in December of 2014. I’ll be interested to take a peek at this counter next week and see what effect the Covid work-from-home diaspora has had on bike trips to downtown. Has the commute decreased dramatically?

Since I know better than to try to change policy or politics about how we get around, I’m coming to believe that–misguided or not–our greening of lower carbon emissions is becoming more of a reality due to the inflation “stick,” and not the do-the-right thing carrot. Although I am full of opinions and preferences about making life easy by staying simple without owning a car, it looks like our country is being pushed towards higher mass transit ridership and biking to work, whether we like it or not.

I can read with amused eyes the latest flip by Elon to repurchase Twitter again–see his willingness to at least talk about something called peace–but my point-of-view is to simply look at the bike count going downtown and see if there are any changes in commute behavior.

It felt so lonely when the crowds were gone driving part-time on the bus during the lockdown. I couldn’t stand it, even though the stress of traffic and the schedule was gone. I guess my sense of purpose was diminished, left with nothing but the blank stares of the few on board, hiding behind the masks.

I just never thought the price of gas would be a motivator to drive less. Whoever blew up the Nord Stream pipeline isn’t too concerned about our environment, but it looks like its just another force to take us away from our huge metal conveyances, and slim down to biking to work, or getting a fast pass. Like the limited use of solar or wind energy–bikes aren’t a good idea on cold rainy days–nor is it fun to wait for a bus in the wind or fog. But giving up the car does save us money and energy.

Take a second to Google Nathan Vass, and his book, The View from Nathan’s Bus, about his journey’s Path to Enlightenment as a bus driver on Rainier Valley’s number 7 bus in King County. He’s done a lot of film work in addition to being a transit operator. I did not know that Adam Douglas Driver, who got to play Nathan in a film attributed to Nathan’s blog, was in a movie screenplay based on this Seattle bus driver. Take a peek at this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFDiiicDcbs&t=374s