Bicyclists: Second-Class Citizens?

At the institution where I work, much lip service is paid to alternate forms of transportation, including biking. Then - guess what? - whenever they do construction, they are careful to make sure cars still have a viable route to work, but pedestrians and bicycles? Whatever. For example, yesterday a coworker and I got off the bus (a supposedly favored transportation mode, and to be fair, the institution does provide free bus passes), but as we walked up the hill, we came to a spot where the sidewalk was torn up and a bunch of construction workers shooed us into the middle of the street. Certainly an ideal place for a pedestrian! A sign that said: "Please use other side" had this phrase scratched out, since there is no sidewalk on the other side. This would just strike me as the usual thoughtlessness towards "inferior" types of transportation so prevalent in our society, but in the case of our institution it seems like exquisite irony. Get out of your car to get to work! You might even arrive in one piece!

Last week as I was biking to work on what is known as a "heavily utilized bicycling corridor," I was suddenly impeded from making any forward progress by an enormous conclave of children and soccer moms and some guy dressed like a pirate. Apparently the rights of spoiled suburban kids to participate in swim meets supercede the rights of working-class stiffs to get to their jobs in a timely manner. Can you imagine a major DRIVING thoroughfare being blocked off for a swim meet??? And if roads have to be blocked, we get weeks of warning, but no sign had ever been posted saying that on such-and-such a date the bike path will be blocked. A woman with an Australian accent thanked me for obligingly walking my bike, and she seemed sufficiently sympathetic, so at that point I was only mildly annoyed. Once past the whole mess, the woman ahead of me climbed back onto her bike, so I followed suit. Only some soccer mom yelled at me (but not her) that I had to walk my bike. I said I had, but this was well past the crowd. She said I still had to walk the bike, so I said I would if she would write a note excusing me for being late to work. When she refused, I called her an impolite name (all it means, technically, is female dog), and her reaction made the whole thing worth it: she gasped as if I had shot her child in front of her and said in disbelief to nobody in particular, "She called me a [bad word]!" (When I went to confession and said I was sorry for not being sorry, but I couldn't work up any real contrition, not only did the priest grant me absolution anyway, he actually laughed when I told the story!)

The final bit of evidence that this institution does not hold biking in such high regard as they would like you to believe is that this morning, as I was biking to work, I was nearly run down by two men in one of our institutional vehicles. When I hollered, "I have the right of way!" which is just a statement of fact - no bad words, no middle fingers - they hollered something back about bicycles. Probably that bicycles NEVER have the right of way. It would seem that this is the actual official policy of this institution, never mind what they say. Perhaps someday they will see the light... Meanwhile, I will just have to dodge obstacles, find new routes, and avoid being run down by institutional vehicles as I continue to refuse to drive to work.

Famous Hat, Reformed Piano Tuner
(Just say no to Equal Temperament)