Living Car Free - "Because you have a bike.."

That's the kind of peer pressure that works on the UW-Madison campus. A large number of the professors and staff bike to work (and they don't all stop in winter). Even the most senior prof can't get a parking spot... there are few lots, and the convenient spaces are reserved for the disabled.

So keep on leading by example. Small changes do matter.

I think this is a good point. I used to live in Madison and parking was a pain in the rear downtown. It was expensive and hard to find. It forced me to walk to downtown or take a bus if I needed to get anywhere. Last year I used to work in a convention center and you had to pay to park there. I said screw that, and just rode my bike all the time.

Cutting down on cheap, available parking is a great initiative to get people to use alternate forms of transportation.

We are the lucky ones. We have broken the chains of slavery and headed north. For some, those chains are a lot harder to break. I really sense that from gwd's original and subsequent posts. I find it interesting that gwd's co-workers are asking, almost with a bit of subterfuge, about how they too can start using a bike for transportation. I think they realize that there's something very unnatural about driving three thousand pounds of steel and plastic around in circles looking for a place to park. They just don't know any other way.

Example. Someone said to me that he would like to commute by bike, as his job wasn't that far from his house, but he was afraid that he might get creamed by some crazy driver.

I asked him what route he would take. The one he outlined was, indeed, one that used some of the busiest streets (especially in rush hour), including that it would take him right past a freeway offramp's mouth. As an experienced transportational cyclist, I'd be nervous taking that route during high-traffic times.

I showed him, thought, a route that would get him there by taking secondary roads, alleys, etc. that was actually shorter than the one he was thinking of, and would avoid heavy traffic. Because he was so automobile-centered in his thinking, even when he was thinking of using something other than a motorcar, routes unsuitable for a car just did not exist for him.

And he is only one of millions.