Counting Cars

For the past two days I have volunteered for the Ada County Highway District (ACHD) counting bikes at two different intersections here in Boise. I thought it sounded fun and it was, but it was also enlightening.

The first day found me sitting at Americana/Latah/Emerald relaxing in the shade of the big trees on the edge of Morris Hill Cemetery. It was a lovely way to spend 2 hours watching for cyclists and inevitably counting more than bikes. (I started counting people on cell phones and lost track very quickly.)

Today I was at Vista/Overland and my gosh, what a difference. Cars, cars, cars and hardly any peds or bikes. Here's a photo of the view from my bench:
You can see the biker there...one of the very few that I saw at this intersection. The photo makes it look nice, but I want to share with you what I ended up thinking about this particular place.

It seems to me that this particular intersection represented a socioeconomic difference from wherever I had been before. There were the obvious people coming from the airport in some amazing cars, but mostly there were a lot of work vehicles, junky cars and loose hubcaps. So many cars went by with jangling bits and I started to really look at the driver...are they deaf? Is this some sort of music to them?

Obviously we live in a car centric society. Nothing could be more obvious when you count the cars at the stoplight as 9, see 10 occupants in these vehicles and can count 48 available seats! Ok, I'm not kidding, 48 seats. That really opened my eyes and I got to thinking, what if we were all on bikes or walking? We would then hear the wind in the trees instead of seeing the wind blowing. We would hear the birds sing...I saw/heard not a one at this intersection.

It was also obvious that it is much more efficient to ride a bike. You can really move. You can go places cars cannot. I watched bikes take different routes than I would have thought and it made me want to explore this city on my bike. Where can't I go? (there are places I won't go for sure)

An interesting observation at one point leads me to believe that the louder the stereo, the crappier the car. At one point there were 3 dudes at the stoplight with their windows down and stereos competing for best bass line. All were loud and sounded clean...all cars were crap. All were young men. Can we draw any conclusions here? I'm sure you might have one or two.

What this counting experience made me realize is the my belief in a car free existence is becoming solid. There are more and more bikes out there and more cars too. When you are on the bike, there's nothing like it. The wind in your face, the cool of the morning and heat of the afternoon. There's the subtle nod from fellow commuters...yes, I know how you feel they seem to say and Good Job for doing it anyway. The view from the bike is great. I've seen deer where I never knew there were any and all sorts of interesting things.

I encourage you, reader and potential rider, to get on your bike one time next week and ride to work. It may change your life.

Until we ride again, Ciao!