The Fundamentals of Biking
- spencerjames
- Sep 5, 2017
- 1 min read
What is the future for bicycles? Here in the United States and throughout the world, a piled up highway is a commonplace. Most all of these drivers are single occupants in 5 person vehicles. Why do we travel everywhere in these metal buckets? Nostalgia? A symbol of power?
In a Ted Talk, Anthony Desnick speaks on both the health and practical benefits of riding a bike for daily travel. We take cars to get to the gym when we could get exercise on the journey there. Pollution, unused passenger space, obesity - automobiles are interwoven in the society of excess.
An example of where alternative transportation is thriving, is in the city of Amsterdam where bicycle paths are now more populated than cars on roadways. From the viewpoint atop a bike you get to experience so much more of a city in your daily commute; the smells, the bumps in the sidewalks, getting to know the city not through a glass window. It is no wonder that the Netherlands ranks among the happiest places to live.
A question that this raises in design, lies in the organization of today's urban spaces. In what way will designers break from traditions of large cars towards singular vehicles? Transportation design is very much on the forefront of innovation, as it affects most everyone.
For meaningful change, will Americans have to first adopt the commuting ideology of the Netherlands? I believe it is up to designers and urban communities to pave the smarter way of transportation and go to town.
Comments