Bikes / a lane of one's own

In 1982 China, cars were scarce and bicycles ruled the roadways. Some 40 years later in NYC, after a spate of rider fatalities, a bike swarm took over downtown streets to demand safer riding conditions and protections against being doored or crushed by multi-ton machines.

In the war between cars and bikes, horsepower is the clear winner. US cities devote more than half their real estate to motorized vehicles, including millions of parking spaces.

City garaging can cost more per annum than many unbanites earned that same year.

Suburbanites build whole houses just for their cars.

Country bike riders navigate narrow, ill-kept shoulders speckled with potholes and beer bottles. And now in Vermont, flooding rivers have carved out deep gullies that turn roads into treacherous mazes.

Too bad that public policy promotes self-driving and electric cars as our environmentally friendly future rather than creating public transportation and safe bicycling options.