Shown below are two videos from the same basic spot on a main road in my suburb city. The first one is a video that the public works director of my city used in a national conference to show the need for making it safer to ride a bike in suburban cities. He is the same public works director, a non-elected city staffer, who said no to this.
This second one is from yesterday, right after the largest July 4th parade in the state of Georgia, when the motor vehicle traffic on that side of the road was not yet open. (This is also the same spot where I was called an asshole on Facebook by a man for riding legally for one minute and eight seconds before making a left into my neighborhood on the only road that goes there — you can read about that Facebook post in my book).
By the way, for a brief moment during the parade, this was normal.
FYI, 52% of all motor vehicle trips are three miles or less (something like 70% are less than five miles). It is a quarter mile in one direction from this spot to Crema, 48th Street Market, and to ice cream and frozen yogurt shops.
It is two miles in the direction these folks are heading to another ice cream shop, two popular burger places, and a slew of other local shops and restaurants.
It is two and half miles to the left to the farmers market, skate park, and concerts.
It is three miles to city hall and the Perimeter Community Improvement District, which includes two MARTA transit stations.
I typically ride ten to twelve miles around this city and often see no other bike riders, and almost never people like this just going places.
Here’s a little something I’d like you to keep in mind:
That is the end of my Ted Talk. Thank you for attending. We will be getting back to our regularly scheduled programming now as Metro Atlanta Bicycle Mayor (link updated to reflect my one-year summary in a two-year term as part of a global consortium of bicycle mayors with the Amsterdam-based social enterprise BYCS).
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 