jhaskin’s Recent Comments

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  Unfortunately...

  ... the video just shows how much further along bike advocacy is in London than in much of the US.  I'm an American who lives in England - not in London - and have had more, closer calls in my daily half-mile commute to work than I ever did in my miles-long bike rides in Portland, OR, where I used to live.  But Portland is unusual for the States - my scariest moment came when bicycling down a quiet, residential road in Cambridge, MA, when an impatient SUV driver couldn't wait the extra hundred yards until the end of the block and instead barreled past me, nearly shoving me into the parked cars lining the too-narrow street and then actually took the time to stick his head out the car window, turn to look back at me and start yelling at me - while still driving.  ::sigh::

  One major aspect to bike advocacy that is often overlooked is the importance of educating bicyclists on safe, responsible bicycling.  I work at a school and have talked with a number of students who, although they bicycle almost everywhere, don't know the most basic rules of the road, nor anything about extra precautions they need to take as cyclists - like having lights on their bikes, etc.  It doesn't help that none of them have their licenses yet, so they don't know how truly invisible bicyclists can be to drivers.  

  Both sides of the issue - drivers and cyclists - seem too often to assume that it's something the "other side" needs to fix.  There needs to be an educational push on both sides, and perhaps a "day in their shoes" event, so that drivers know how scary being a cyclist can be and cyclists know how easy it is to lose track of a cyclist on the road when trying to navigate traffic - even without reaching for one's cell phone!On An insanely clever bike-advocacy ad from the U.K. posted 1 year, 8 months ago 9 Responses

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  Re: Coldly unsupportive

  Were the indifferent animal rights activists actually indifferent?  Or, rather, did they realize that there's only so much any one person can do, and chose to focus on a single cause rather than many?

  I'm not asking in a sarcastic manner, truly.  It is just something that I'm grappling with as I prepare to plunge into the environmental sector.  The "environmental sector" covers such a huge range of individual causes, from animal rights to human rights, from protecting the rainforest to regenerating the grasslands, and onwards, practically ad infinitum.  I am overwhelmed at times by the sheer volume of stuff I'm seemingly supposed to care about before I can count myself as an environmentalist.

  So my solution has been to gradually whittle down the number of causes that I really feel I can sink my teeth into, with the end goal of a single cause I can devote my energies to.  Looked at from one angle, it might appear that I am unsupportive of all those other causes, but it's not the case.  I just feel that I can do a better job overall if I focus my limited time and energies on a single area.  So I was wondering if those animal rights activists might not have been caught in the same dilemma.On Upton Sinclair on downer cows posted 1 year, 9 months ago 20 Responses

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  Weather, etc.

  I used to live in Portland, OR, and intend to move back there in the not-too-distant future.  Portland has a relatively huge percentage of commuters who get to their job by bicycle.  It does have the wonderful upside of wide, well-used and -respected bicycle lanes.  However, it also rains from October to May.  What do Portlanders do?  Get rain gear.  There are also a number of not-insignificant hills in Portland.  What do they do?  Get off the bicycle and push it up the hill if need be, and eventually get to the point where they can cycle up the hills, even if they are going so slowly as to barely maintain their balance (like me).

  I also lived in Boston for a year and a half.  Even though I love bicycling and will willingly cycle through months of rain, I lost my will to cycle when the snow piled up and the temperature dropped below zero.  But that doesn't mean that I chose to go out and get a car.  In a place such as Boston, where the combination of T and bus will get you within a few blocks of pretty much anywhere in the city, it seems somewhat ridiculous to spend thousands of dollars on a car that you'll have trouble parking, have trouble starting, have trouble getting through Boston's [scary] traffic, have trouble keeping shoveled out, have to pay ever-rising gas prices to keep fueled, and which will suffer faster-than-normal wear and tear due to the combination of sea air and road salt.  Why not just pay the few dollars a ride or tens of dollars a month to take public transport and let the MBTA deal with the trouble?  

  There are cities (plenty of them) where public transport really isn't an option, for a variety of reasons.  But if it IS an option, why not use it?  So you end up squashing next to some interesting-smelling people from time to time.  At least it will give you a new appreciation for the joys of deoderant! On A breathless appraisal of Lance's new bicycle mecca and mission posted 1 year, 9 months ago 30 Responses