ChiWhoBike #79
I monitor the piping plovers, coming out here once a week, and for two hours I just look at them. And it’s nice, getting to sit here on the pier, and there’s lots of people walking by and people riding their bikes. It feels like I get to meet a lot of people, and it’s a very human thing. I get to enjoy the scenery and I get to listen to the birds. And as somebody who’s recently getting into birding, it feels so exciting when I’m riding home or from wherever and I just hear birds that I’ve been learning about, that’s really neat. And getting to talk to people, about different things in the city, specifically the natural things like the plovers, I feel so much more connected to people.
I wish that drivers were a little bit more respectful. Because I often find that when I’m talking to people who have cars and then they find out that I ride a bike, they’re like, ‘oh, well do you stop at stop signs?’ And my response to that is always, ‘well, do you stop at stop signs?’ And usually there’s a little bit of backpedaling there where they’re like, ‘huh, I guess I don’t really’, which is pretty upsetting. And there’s a lot of distracted drivers on the road. I feel like every time I look up and look in somebody’s windshield, I see that they’re texting or just doing something. And I’m getting a lot of input when I’m riding my bike, and when you’re in this great big car and you’ve got your AC blasting and you’ve got your music and your windows up and they may be tinted, of course you’re not getting as much information about what’s going on around you.” And usually there’s a little bit of backpedaling there where they’re like, ‘huh, I guess I don’t really’, which is pretty upsetting. And there’s a lot of distracted drivers on the road. Every time I look up and look in somebody’s windshield, I see that they’re texting or just doing something. And I’m getting a lot of input when I’m riding my bike, and when you’re in this great big car and you’ve got your AC blasting and you’ve got your music and your windows up and they may be tinted, of course you’re not getting as much information about what’s going on around you.
I’ve never heard an argument against bikes being on the street that doesn’t eventually add up to ‘I don’t like that I have to pay more attention’. And so I don’t know that there’s necessarily anything that the city could do to encourage drivers to pay more attention, but I think that we can share the roads. I think that having more actual dedicated infrastructure would be huge. I think that having like bollards to protect the bike lanes, maybe raised bike lanes, because the paint obviously is great, but it’s not enough. Like a full bike grid, that would be huge.
