Remarkable how out-of-the-mainstream utilitarian cycling seems to be in my neighborhood. Strong car-centric culture in Southern California, for sure. (yes, I was, until recently, part of that). 🤔
@ai6yr we are a species where people will drive to the gym, push a button and wait for the rear hatch to open, take out a gym bag, go work out, come back push a button and wait for the rear hatch to open, put the gym bag in, and drive away.
I think if you understand that you understand everything.
@John@ai6yr Even before I became a bicycling advocate, I felt I should cycle to the gym rather than drive there and use a cycling machine. That's just - ridiculous.
Places which could have a lot more people bicycling or walking:
Local grocery stores. People drive to the grocery store even if it would be the same amount of time to walk or drive, because it's just what people do. (and there's a giant parking lot there).
Schools. Lots of parents queue up in line to pick up their kids from school, even though it would be FASTER to bicycle there with the kids and back home--this is because of the "walking/bicycling to school is scary/not safe" culture which has arose in the last 30 years.
In all fairness, even my own family thinks I am being weird by cycling places. ("just use your car!") -- it's so ingrained into the culture here... we are very social animals, and we do what everyone else does around us.
@markmevans Interesting, that neighborhood is changing quite a bit... Not visible in frame but a lot of the homes on that block are now apartments off behind and to the left. #geolocation#movie#lastory
@ai6yr I think the pandemic really showed me that people are more "monkey see, monkey do" than I had ever suspected.
People really do look around to determine what "the majority" or whoever's got the most social capital is doing, then follow that. Rather than make their minds up based on evidence and ethics.
@jmccyoung@meganL Yes, very much social here... There was a tipping point towards masking ("Oh, look, so many people are wearing masks! I'll wear a mask too!") and away from masking ("Oh, people aren't wearing masks anymore, I guess I won't either")
Since deciding to make the effort, I have come up with a fairly detailed "mental flowchart" for choosing my modes of transportation.
There's no practical public transport here, so that's that.
Weather, distance, purpose, all sorts of things factor in and are weighted to me personally.
I think fewer people would make short drives of they did the same calculations, even though I'm sure many would still find my choices odd as the result of the personal weights assigned to factors.
@autumn@ai6yr We'd LOVE to have more kids walking & biking up here, but Seattle & much of Western Washington never bothered with sidewalks beyond a certain point. Many of our roads from schools out to neighborhoods were once old logging roads - windy, hilly, no shoulder, flat out dangerous for kids to walk or bike on. ☹️
@ai6yr my local primary schools have an increasing number of parents cycling there with their children, some with bike trailers.
The traffic at the school's entrance is generally a mind bending nightmare that makes it by far the most dangerous part of our journey. We are far from the School Streets that are picking up steam on the continent. Despite this the number of cyclists is increasing so it makes me think that the number of parents cycling to school would be much higher if it was safer and better thought through by the local authorities.
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