Originally Posted by
Roody
The last thing in the world I want to do is leave Lansing. I love Lansing.
And it's a decent place to be carfree, although there's much room for improvement. We have a 13 mile (soon to be 18 mile) bike trail with zero car contact. We have an award winning bus system that does 11 million trips a year. Most of the city is bikeable, and somewhat walkable. We do have three high schools in the city. They're all on bus lines and no kid would have to go more than a couple miles to school.
I think it's more of an American problem than a Lansing problem. Even in the Portland video there are a lot more cars than bikes whizzing by.
I think it's also the mindset of what counts as 'bikeable'. To me, anything that isn't a closed highway is bikeable. To people at work who hear about my current and previous bike routes, they're all like "You're crazy, it's not safe to bike on those roads", and 7 years ago, I would have agreed with them. I started out on sidewalks, and babystepped my way onto more and more streets. And now I'm king of my domain! Or just comfortable on a bike. Meanwhile my wife won't bike with me to a friends 4 miles away, because of the route. So, basically just get everyone you can on a bike and soon everyone will think everything is bikeable. It's just crazy enough to work.