cycling » Ren Thomas

Amsterdam cycling profiled on Spacing Vancouver

Those of you following my blog have seen some of my recent writing about Dutch culture, as I navigate the murky waters of Amsterdam canals as part of my post-doctoral position at the University of Amsterdam. Today my article on Amsterdam cycling, “A reluctant cyclist in Europe’s cycling capital”, is featured on Spacing Vancouver and also on the main Spacing website. For all the cyclists out there, you’ll probably accuse me of complaining about the conditions of paradise*, but for the rest of you it might be funny**. Check it out: Part 1 of the article appears today, and Part 2 will appear next Monday.

*Sample comment: “Take a tram those days if you don’t like the rain or snow – or buck up – I assure you, you are not made of sugar…This article really does sound like an “unexperienced cyclist” moaning about what most people get used to in a single riding season and learn to deal with.”

**Sample comment: “For cycling to be seen as “normal” in Toronto, we need more “normal” people to commute on “normal” bikes.”

Symbiotic exchange

University of Groningen's Zernike campus

Researchers are often accused of working in “ivory towers” separated from the real world. Perhaps planning suffers less from this syndrome since it is firmly rooted in practice. But most universities still retain strong boundaries between academic teaching and learning units. Even in an interdisciplinary field like planning, efforts must be made to exchange ideas and achieve some sort of synergy between different groups. While the Department of Geography, Planning, and International Development at the University of Amsterdam seems to have these internal boundaries between groups, several key efforts have been made to link our work to that of others.

Last week several researchers from our transport planning group joined researchers at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen for a unique exchange. A few years ago, our professors Luca Bertolini and Jos Arts discovered that the two departments had a lot in common, and they decided it would be a great idea for the researchers and students to meet up and discuss their ideas. This week’s exchange was the seventh such workshop between the two groups of transport planners. The workshops are organized by two students, one from each school, twice a year.

From Groningen, Assistant Professor Eva Heinen presented her latest research proposal to study cycling in the Netherlands. PhD student Ori Rubin discussed travel trends among family members visiting each other, concentrating on parents visiting their children, children visiting their parents, and siblings visiting each other. PhD student Niels Heeres encouraged discussion on what makes a focus group or a workshop: is one a data collection technique and the other a learning opportunity? Or are both research methods, one centred on a particular issue and the other seeking to develop knowledge or skills? Masters student Marije Hamersma presented some fascinating insights from her study of people living near highways at two Dutch sites–a surprising 80% of people she surveyed had no problem living in these areas, and about 20% chose the location for proximity to the highway.

University of Groningen's Zernike campus

From Amsterdam, PhD student Els Beukers discussed her research on cost benefit analysis as a tool that is problematic for many planners. Her research sought to bring together planners and evaluators to discuss some of the problems they had with cost benefit analysis; the Dutch government requires cost benefit analysis as the final step in approving land use-transport plans for federal funding. Els, Luca, and several other researchers at the University of Amsterdam are attempting to change the policy planning process through these types of projects: bringing together planners, policy makers and members of other professions to hear about innovative practices, reflect on them and try to develop their own policy and plans in focus group sessions. Can planners stage workshops that act in the same way as public health introduces interventions? Andrew Switzer, who is studying transitions to car use in Zurich and Munich for his PhD, hopes to use insights on this historical shift to learn how to shift current trends towards alternative transport modes. Postdoctoral researcher Lucas Harms has been mining data to explore demographic patterns in cycling in the Netherlands, including what percentages are due to population growth, increased distances, or increased trips. Although cycling has increased in the Netherlands in general, it has changed more rapidly in certain age groups and certain regions of the country.

This exchanged offered us the opportunity to hear what others are working on in planning and mobility issues, discuss methods and approaches, and our connection to planners. While Groningen researchers seem more linked to national agencies and organizations, at Amsterdam we tend to meet with local and regional stakeholders. The mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to explore these issues was also interesting, so much that we decided to devote our next meeting to mixed methods approaches. I only wish we had annual exchanges of this type within our own department–I’d love to know what the economic geographers and international development researchers are working on. But we’ll stick to interuniversity exchanges for now: in January we’ll host researchers from the University of Alborg, Denmark in a similar exchange.

Parking still a problem, even when it’s bikes

Bike parking at Amsterdam Centraal Station

Anyone who’s visited Amsterdam could tell you that while it’s “the capital of European biking”, it has serious parking problems. I’m currently teaching a class on metropolitan transport planning at the University of Amsterdam, and two groups of students have chose to study biking issues: one will examine the ever-rising rate of cycling injuries and the other the problem of parking.

A recent article in the New York Times mentioned that the City of Amsterdam plans to spend 120 million euros on cycling infrastructure in the next eight years. And it should, considering that it has 881,000 bicycles for its 780,559 citizens. While car-obsessed countries might be envious, there are some serious drawbacks to cycling’s increasing popularity in a city built on precious reclaimed land: while cycling increased 14% from 2001-2011, the number of cyclists seriously injured in accidents also increased to 56%. And building enough parking spaces for bikes is as much of a problem as it is for cars in the US or Canada.

Amsterdammers treat their bikes like Americans would treat a second-hand beater car with a rusted-out engine. Bikes are left out in the rain on a daily basis, they’re often left unlocked, and as one student told me, “they have little value.” Contrast this with Vancouver, where people go out of their way to rent the few coveted bike storage boxes provided by TransLink to protect them from the rain. In many North American cities it’s not unusual for cyclists to carry their bikes up several flights of stairs rather than leave them outside. Bikes are more expensive in the US (in Amsterdam you can pick one up for as little as 50 euros) they’re also more complicated: you need gears, and derailleur gears don’t respond well to daily rain.

Underground parking at Amsterdam Zuid Station

Another pervasive cultural practice in Amsterdam is owning three or four bikes; most people leave them in various places so they’ll always have access to a bike when they need one. In a city where every square centimeter of land is precious and most housing units are too small to store bikes (either indoors or out), this adds up to overcrowded bike racks, bikes blocking sidewalks, bikes affixed to every possible railing and pole, and bikes left for weeks in one place without being used. While some organizations will remove bikes left overnight (including the University of Amsterdam) this practice is controversial, as most people believe they have the right to park anywhere they want and for as long as they want. Covered bike storage is available for commuters at some places for a fee, but many people will cycle out of their way to park for free, leaving nearby neighbourhoods cluttered with two-wheelers. Shades of The High Cost of Free Parking, anyone?

The City plans to create an additional 38,000 bike parking spots at the rail and transit hubs over the next eight years. But more crucially, they plan to create more bike parking laws and enforce those that already exist, such as ensuring that Amsterdammers don’t leave their bikes for over 14 days in high-demand locations. It seems that the Dutch have discovered that unlimited free parking doesn’t work–even for bikes.

Pro-bike but anti-pedestrian?

Cycling is growing in popularity every year, even in North America, where road engineering standards are often bike-unfriendly. Even in New York City, where residents fought hard against Janette Sadik-Khan’s bike lane proposals six years ago, 66% of residents surveyed by the New York Times now feel that bike lanes are a good idea.

As most of you know, I’ve recently relocated to Amsterdam. Among the red tape and endless legwork that go along with an international move, I’ve had some time to observe the workings of this famously bike-friendly city. In the process of riding my rusted-out beater bike to and from work, I’ve picked up a few tips on cycling in Amsterdam:

Separated bike lanes and dedicated traffic signals make it a lot safer to bike in Amsterdam–that is, you’re unlikely to be hit by a car. Hence no cyclist (including the infant riding in the seat on the front of the bike) wears a helmet.
While you won’t be hit by a car, your odds of getting sideswiped by the scooters and motorcycle driving at 60km/h in your 1.5m-wide bike lane are pretty good. Remember the driving school tip on checking your blind spot before changing lanes in a car? Ditto–you need to look about 6 inches over your shoulder before turning.
There is a code of conduct among Amsterdam cyclists, e.g. occasionally giving a hand signal to indicate left turns, venturing slowly across a road if cars are nearby, timing your entry to a bike lane to merge with the 25 other cyclists.
The code of conduct is very loose; cyclists are often quite aggressive, especially when it comes to allowing pedestrians to cross the street. Most near-collisions I’ve seen have occurred between bikes and scooters or bikes and pedestrians.
It’s clear where the priorities lie–cycling paths are rarely obstructed by parked cars, garbage cans, or planters, but sidewalks often are.
Locking your bike to a rack is optional–more commonly, the back wheel is merely locked to the frame. Bikes generally stand freely in any area of the sidewalk or square, blowing over in daily wind or rainstorms, and blocking sidewalks.
Helpful bike route signs direct cyclists as they move about the city–assuming you know enough of the city’s geography to know you’re supposed to cycle in the direction of Osdorp or Station Zuid or Oosterpark.
The typical Amsterdam bike is black, rusty, and mono-gear with fenders and a chain guard. Bright colours are an advertisement: please steal my bike.
Doubling your boyfriend on the back rack or carrying your large-breed dog in the front (I hesitate to call it a ‘basket’ when ‘milk crate’ would suffice) are commonplace during a weekday commute.
An Amsterdam cyclist can perform any activity while biking: smoking, talking on a cell phone, eating a sandwich, unpacking a messenger bag, dragging a suitcase along beside them.

The city is built for reluctant cyclists like me: as one British expat told us, “The Dutch just bike to get around. They don’t necessarily enjoy it.” In a city that seems custom-built for bikes, it’s definitely the quickest and easiest way to commute, provided you have the guts to battle the scooters and motorbikes and the ability to duck quickly under an awning during sudden rain showers–as the Dutch do. Amsterdam cyclists don’t bike for fitness (smoking while biking?) As a Polish expat noted, “When I first came here and saw people biking in suits, and the women in high heels, it was as if they were going to the gym in a suit or heels. At home, biking is only associated with fitness.” With very good bus and tram service in the city (although the Dutch would disagree on this point), I suspect the major appeal of cycling in the Netherlands is its cost-effectiveness…it’s a thrifty culture!

A ‘sea-change’ in transportation planning

In the past ten days, US policymakers seem to have achieved the impossible. On March 11, 2010, US Secretary of Transportation Ray Lahood pronounced the end of favouring motorized transportation over non-motorized transportation. And on March 21, 2010, the US finally passed its health care legislation. Aren’t these the first signs of the apocalypse?

Lahood, at this year’s National Bike Summit, announced his new Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations. Key recommendations for state DOTs and communities include treating walking and cycling as equal transportation modes, ensuring convenient accessibility for all ages and abilities, going beyond minimum design standards, collecting data on walking and cycling trips, setting a mode share target for walking and cycling, protecting sidewalks and paths in the same way roads are protected, and improving non-motorized facilities during maintenance projects. At this point of course, it’s a Policy Statement; it’s not law. But it marks the profound shift that is occurring in North America away from car-dominated discourse and policy.

On the health care front, the health care bill passed in the House December 24, 2009 served as the basis for HR 4872, the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010. HR 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve 2009, as I reported in an earlier post. Its main measures, taking effect six months after its passage, prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, prevents increased rates for children with pre-existing conditions, forces insurance policies to cover preventative care without co-pays, allows children to remain on parents’ plans until the age of 26, and bans lifetime monetary caps on insurance policies. In the future (by 2014), it will prevent insurers from charging higher rates for those with pre-existing conditions, expand Medicaid eligibility, offer tax credits to small businesses (fewer than 25 employees) who offer insurance, impose tax penalties on businesses with over 50 employees who do not offer insurance, impose a fine on individuals who do not have insurance, give tax credits to individuals who have heath insurance, and offer a state-controlled insurance option. However, it differed significantly from the bill passed in the House, HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, particularly in terms of financing and subsidies. Because they were so different, President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced the reconciliation bill. HR4872 was passed in the House of Representatives March 21, 2010, in a close 219-212 vote (216 votes were need to pass the bill). Not a single Republican supported its passage, but it doesn’t matter: the bill will be signed into law by the president as early as tomorrow.

Canada has also had a few firsts lately, although they are small potatoes compared to these major American policy shifts. One was the announcement that woonerfs are coming to Toronto. A West Donlands neighbourhood, currently under development, would include these Dutch streets, narrow, mixed-use affairs without curbs, which are thought to encourage pedestrian and cyclists while discouraging cars. Dutch woonerfs include traffic-calming measures like speed bumps and planter “bump-outs,” and the streets are more like outdoor urban social spaces than thoroughfares. The other was the announcement that Canada had opened the first school to ever require students to use non-motorized transportation to get to school. The Halton Public School Board just opened a new school, P.L. Robertson Elementary in Milton, where the students who live within 1.6 km (1 mile) of the school are required to get there on their own two feet, and parents are forbidden from driving their kids. 98% of the 700 students walk, bike, skateboard or ride scooters to school, while the remainder, who live more than 1.6km away, are bused. The school board is running the pilot project for one year, and hope to expand it to other schools soon. If it is a success, project manager Jennifer Jenkins knows that other schools will rapidly jump on board; the wealth of research on this topic shows how much is at stake with increases in childhood obesity and diabetes.

All I can say is where is our national policy on transportation? Where is our Ray Lahood? And more importantly, where is our Obama?

Lessons from Vancouver 2010

Robson Square, redesigned and reopened for the Olympics

Spectators arriving at Aberdeen station, preparing for a 20-minute walk to the Richmond Olympic Oval

After all the media hype and local anti-Olympic sentiment, Vancouver is enjoying a rare opportunity during the 2010 Games. Not only does the city get to experience a real urban vibe as tens of thousands of tourists have flooded the streets, but it’s also experiencing another rare phenomenon: very little car traffic and extra service on transit routes. These changes have created a very different feeling as the city celebrates Canadian and international achievements in sport.

TransLink staff, as well as City of Vancouver staff and the folks at Metro Vancouver have been busy planning transportation alternatives for tourists, spectators, media and athletes for many years, all in preparation for the 16-day Olympic and 10-day Paralympic Games. Some of the big-ticket items are well-known: the Canada Line from downtown to the airport and the Bombardier demonstration streetcar linking Granville Island and the Olympic Village.

Olympic line streetcar at Granville Island

The Canada Line, which was saw ridership of 100,000 per day before the Games, saw 200,000 riders last Sunday. TransLink’s overall ridership has already reached 1.5 million per day: not bad for a region that normally has 1.8 million residents.

But there are also lots of lesser-known initiatives that have gone a long way towards making this a very sustainable Games: increased transit service on routes serving the venues, no parking at most venues, and bike sharing at some venues like the Richmond Olympic Oval.

Free bikes provided by Heineken Holland House at Aberdeen Station

Streets adjacent to most venues were closed to all vehicular traffic, including Wesbrook Mall on the UBC campus, which is hosting women’s hockey at Thunderbird Arena.

Spectators leaving Thunderbird Arena walking two blocks to the bus loop. No parking was provided at the venue.

There are special “Olympic lanes” on city streets dedicated to transit and vehicles transporting athletes, media, and officials. Robson Street was initially closed between Howe and Granville, but this was extended to Bute and Beatty Streets; Granville Street is closed between Smithe and Cordova Streets. The energy of the crowds in these main downtown streets is amazing, and there is a lot of added pedestrian interest, including a lantern display on Granville Street. The number of cars entering the downtown peninsula has dropped 30% since the beginning of the Games on February 12th, while over 4,000 cyclists per day cross the Cambie, Burrard and Granville Bridges into downtown.

In addition to this, Cultural Olympiad concerts and events have been happening all over the region, from Our Lady Peace playing a free concert at Richmond’s O-Zone to a 24-hour outdoor art gallery at the Surrey 2010 Celebration Site. These events were planned to begin in January until the end of the Paralympic Games on March 21, 2010. Because there’s so much going on in each municipality, local residents can actually get involved in the Olympics and its related events without making the trek downtown.

Richmond City Hall, with exhibits and big-screen coverage of the events, at the entrance to the O-Zone

Richmond City Hall at the entrance to the O-Zone, with exhibits and big-screen coverage of the events

Many Vancouverites, anticipating intense crowds and traffic, actually left the city during the Games. This likely means that there are more non-residents than residents in the City of Vancouver at the moment. In addition to this, some workplaces are closed, and UBC and SFU both have a two-week Reading Week to cover the Games period. The absence of this regular commuting traffic has likely contributed to higher transit ridership and much faster travel times. I took the #44 express bus from UBC to downtown on Friday at rush hour, and was at Robson Square in 15 minutes, a trip that normally takes half an hour.

The question is, why can’t we do this year-round? Keep the Olympic lanes as transit-only lanes; decrease parking in the downtown core, along our main streets and at key destinations; and increase transit service. Most locals would love to see pedestrianized zones on Robson and Granville in the core area of downtown. Of course, the vast number of tourists in the city and the energy that comes along with such a major sporting event will not persist past February 28th (Olympics) and March 21, 2010 (Paralympics). It’s been a fantastic 16-day party, truly a defining moment for Vancouver and for Canada.

Robson Street nightlife during the Olympics

The trials of the Burrard Bridge

July 13th, 2009 was a long-awaited day for cycling advocates in Vancouver. The Burrard Bridge, one of three bridges connecting the Lower Mainland to downtown Vancouver, officially began its six-month lane re-allocation trial.

Pedestrians on the sidewalk and cyclists in their own lane on the southbound side

One of the three southbound lanes was divided off by a concrete median for exclusive use of cyclists. Pedestrians finally get exclusive use of the narrow sidewalk on the south side, while the northbound sidewalk functions as a bike lane. You can see by the pavement markings above that each sidewalk used to be shared between pedestrians and cyclists. While the trial is far from ideal (pedestrians have to cross to the west side at busy intersections at each end), it is the culmination of more than a decade of efforts by sustainable transportation advocates.

About half of the 8,000-9,000 cars that drive over the bridge each day are single-occupant vehicles, a number that the City of Vancouver wants to decrease. Safety has also been a major issue: because of the narrow sidewalks, shared between commuting cyclists and walkers, and the lack of protective elements between the sidewalk and roadway, there have been many accidents in which cyclists have narrowly escaped death. As you can see in the pictures, the sidewalks comfortably fit three people across, which is why cyclists had to move fairly slowly (15km/h) to avoid injuring pedestrians.

The last time the Burrard Bridge closed off a lane for cyclists, back in 1996, the trial lasted only a week before angry motorists forced it to close. However, the number of cyclists using the bridge during the short trial increased by 39% while drivers decreased by 9%. Traffic delays of 20 minutes the first day decreased to only a few minutes by the end of the week. City Council admitted that it hadn’t done enough to prepare people for the trial, including advertising and new signage. This time around, the long delay in getting the trial approved meant that there was plenty of publicity, new signage and traffic police on hand at each end of the bridge to help direct people to the correct side of the bridge. Of the $1.45 million budget for the project, $250,000 was spent on public education.

Banner advertising the Burrard Bridge Lane Re-allocation

Council has been considering closing two lanes of the bridge (one northbound and one southbound) for many years. Four consecutive councils have considered over 30 different proposals for the Burrard Bridge, and Vision Vancouver’s discussion of the bike lane trial in 2005 was thought to be a deciding factor in that year’s municipal election, in which Sam Sullivan (Non-Partisan Association) defeated Larry Campbell (Vision Vancouver). During Sullivan’s term in office (2005-2008), Council members decided against the proposal.

This time around, Mayor Gregor Robertson and Council debated three options:

Closing two lanes for bike travel (one northbound and one southbound), leaving both sidewalks for pedestrians
Closing one lane for bike travel (southbound), leaving the southbound sidewalk for pedestrians and the northbound sidewalk as shared between cyclists and pedestrians
Closing one lane for bike travel (southbound), leaving the southbound sidewalk for pedestrians and the northbound sidewalk for cyclists only

Gil Penalosa, Executive Director of Walk and Bike for Life, was one of the speakers at the May 5, 2009 meeting that decided the fate of the bridge. Penalosa is the former Commissioner of Parks, Sport and Recreation for the City of Bogata, Columbia, where he helped introduce 91 km of car-free roads on Sundays (Ciclovia). 1.5 million people use the Ciclovia weekly.

The usual opponent in this storyline, the business community (such as the Downtown Business Improvement Association), opposed the lane closure. They apparently still believe the 1950s fallacy that only cars can bring people into business districts. Try telling that to Vancouverites, who successfully fought a series of highway projects that would have destroyed downtown neighbourhoods back in the 1970s. At that time, businesses supported highways that they saw as bringing suburban residents into the city, a strategy that failed miserably in many cities across North America.

Some suggest that there the Burrard Bridge lane re-allocation trial is not as politically risky as it might have been in the 1990s. There has been a considerable shift in sustainable transportation policy and programming since 1996. In the Greater Vancouver Regional District, TransLink was created in 1997 and ridership has increased substantially. In the City of Vancouver, cycling trips have tripled while driving trips decreased substantially. The City has decided to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by 30%. Experts like Penalosa, UBC’s Larry Frank, and SFU’s Gordon Price, a former Vancouver City Councillor, support alternative transportation options and argue that increased cycling, walking, and transit infrastructure discourages driving. The final nail in this coffin might have been the vocal support of Gregor Robertson, a regular bike commuter; his opponent in the 2008 election was Peter Ladner, who also regularly commutes by bike.

Both sides are waiting to see how the trial lane allocation goes; it has been approved for six months but will probably be re-evaluated in September when traffic volumes resume. If you live in Vancouver, check out Vancouver Public Space, which has a list of ways, including old-school phone numbers and email addresses, plus blogs, Facebook and Twitter sites where you can voice your support of the trial. And go to the fun cycling-oriented events that have been planned along with the trial run (see below).

Bike-in movie at Vanier Park on the opening day of the Burrard Bridge trial

Now it’s really over: Margaret Wente says the car-free culture is here to stay

I wrote recently about the end of GM, and noted that many advocates of sustainable transportation were looking forward to a new era of cycling, walking, transit, and reduced car use. While I count myself among these, I also acknowledge the difficulty of this transition for most North Americans considering our economic dependence on oil and the car-dominated spatial patterns of our cities. But when Margaret Wente says the love affair is over (“Object of desire or necessary evil?”, Globe and Mail, Saturday, June 6, 2009), the times they are a-changin’.

Let me explain. Wente is conservative, irreverent, controversial. She’s stirred up so much anger the Globe won’t even allow her column to be read online anymore. She writes from a white, upper middle-class perspective, and often comments on current affairs, politics, social issues, and lifestyles. Her attitude towards people of different cultures came under fire last October when she agreed with IOC Dick Pound’s controversial comment that Canada was a country of “savages” a few hundred years ago. Many of her columns show an insensitivity to the variety of ethnic cultures and religions that make up mainstream Canadian cities. An American and naturalized Canadian, Wente once called Newfoundland “the most vast and scenic welfare ghetto in the world.” As far as social trends go, Wente is regularly surprised by lifesyles of younger people, including Facebook addiction and commitment to environmentalism. She became a climate change convert at the same time as Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in September of 2006: very late in the game, when it became a sign of insanity to deny it any longer. Most environmentalists, democrats, and transportation advocates consider her laughable, a symbol of the type of conservative boomer culture that keeps Canada from achieving any real success in enviromental protection, alternative transportation, race relations or tolerance.

Today’s column is a case in point. Wente begins her article profiling people she finds truly unusual: young 20- and 30-somethings who live and work in the city and do not own cars. While this is news to none of us living in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and a growing number of other cities, Wente still finds the lifestyle surprising decades after the terms yuppie (young upwardly-mobile professionals) and dink (double income no kids) were coined. She then moves on to profiling several of these other oddball car-free types closer to her own age: “Fifteen years ago, it was almost unimaginable for a middle-aged, middle-class family man not to own a car. Such a person would have been regarded as mildly eccentric. Now I seem to be surrounded by them.” She writes about the average $8,000 it costs to run an average car each year (the Toronto Transit Commission has been advertising this info on posters for over a decade), the growing popularity of cycling and car sharing (which she feels the need to define) and of course the death of the automotive companies. But halfway through her article, there is a change in tone: Wente, that conservative bastion of right-wing ideology, concedes that “Maybe our love affair with cars is over.” In response to a man who confesses there is freedom in being car-free, she asks, “Isn’t freedom the very thing that cars used to stand for?” Halfway through the article she writes “For most of us, cars aren’t much of a status marker anymore…It’s really just a very big, very costly appliance with cup-holder.” She characterizes cars as shifting from “the wheeled embodiment of outsize ego and swattering masculinity…the product of the American empire at its peak” to representing “arrogance, deliberate disregard for the enviroment, and wretched excess.” While she confesses she still believes cars have the potential for personal liberation, progress and opportunity, “these days there are fewer and fewer who agree with me.”

Perhaps most advocates of alternative transportation would not see much hope in Wente’s article: she’ll probably continue driving until the steering wheel is pried out of her cold dead hands. But considering her personality, socio-economic profile, and personal beliefs, just admitting the times are changing indicates that, indeed, they are. They’d have to be for her to notice.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)