Two Wheeler Paradise

New Bike Lane in Avenida Burjassot

I used to daydream about what life would be in a real bike-friendly city, place likes Amsterdam and Copenhagen. I woke up from this daydream to find that Valencia is now one of the best cities for cycling that you could ever hope to find. Our new mayor, Joan Ribó has been radically transforming the bike infrastructure in and around the city to the point of it being unrecognizable from what it was only a few years ago.

Even here in Valencia, there has been considerable opposition to the bike lane boom. I blame it all on a lack of education. Lots of people don’t ride bikes here for a lot of different reasons. I would say the main reason is that people don’t feel safe riding a bike in the city, and for very good reason. Car drivers are basically savages who are willing to put your life at grave risk so they can get to their destination a few seconds sooner.

This asshole from the NYT comments explains a lot as to why Americans don’t ride bikes, or if they do, they don’t have a very safe place to ride them. Meanwhile, Valencia is rapidly catching up with the Northern European bike-friendly cities.

“As the article points out,"cyclists often pay no attention to traffic laws." This whole expansion to bicycles in the city has made the situation of pedestrians less secure. They zoom out of nowhere. It is now a daily occurrence as I cross the street. At least with cars, they are visible if you look, they have lights at night, and once you see them, you can judge whether it's safe. The promotion of bicycles and bike lanes is misguided.

The effort should be on improving public transportation.” -Mark NYC

There are so many things wrong with this comment it’s difficult to know where to begin, and they only reason I would bother to dissect this bit of idiocy is because it beautifully represents the thinking of the right-wing morons.  First of all, how have bikes made the situation pedestrians less secure? How many people were killed or injured by cyclists? “They zoom out of nowhere.” Don’t know what this means. Then he closes by saying that we should do more to improve public transportation, as if this is in direct opposition to creating bike-friendly streets.