Bicycle Power (by Aaron Naparstek)

"This weekend I moderated a panel discussion called "Bicycle Power" at the NYC Eco-Metropolis Conference. Here's a little introduction I wrote to start the conversation:

I've been riding a bicycle since, I don’t know, 1976 or so. But I only started to become a "cyclist" after moving to Cobble Hill, Brooklyn in 1998. Living near Downtown Brooklyn, a few things quickly became clear to me: First, my bicycle was almost always the fastest and most convenient way to get in and out of Manhattan. This was a major revelation to me. Back then, it seemed that no one ever talked about the bike as an ideal form of cheap, clean, convenient transportation in this relatively flat, crowded, and compact city. Once I started riding, it seemed so obvious to me. In addition to being great for commuting into Manahttan, my bike opened up vast new frontiers of Brooklyn to me for running errands, recreation, visiting friends -- the bike made Brooklyn much more accessible to me than it ever had been before. Despite the fact that I had just about every major subway line in the city just a few blocks away, my bike became my primary mode of transportation. It transformed my concept of neighborhood and community.

The second thing that became clear to me once my bike became my transportation was that cycling simply felt good. All of those promises you hear in television car advertisements -- power, speed, control, fun, convenience, exhilaration, happiness -- these were feelings that I got on my bike while riding across the Brooklyn Bridge in the evening, weaving through stalled traffic, or saying "hello" to another cyclist or pedestrian along the way. I certainly never got these car commercial feelings while driving a car in New York City. Quite the contrary. Being in a car in New Yok City brings about feelings of rage, helplessness and confinement to name a few. Biking in New York City wasn’t always great -- it could sometimes be wet, cold, and it’s almost always a little bit dangerous. But my bike was never depressing or life-draining. It was almost always energizing and life-affirming.

Finally, as my cycling grew into more of a habit and, coincidentally, as the traffic congestion, noise and motorist hostility outside my apartment grew increasingly severe, I became aware that New York City cycling is, inherently,
a political act. Sitting astride a bicycle in New York City these days is, in many ways, similar to African-American, college students sitting down at the whites-only Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC in 1960 and saying, "serve us too." Simply by using the bike as transportation in New York City, you are asserting an alternative vision. You are compelling the city to re-examine the inefficient, destructive, and unjust transportation, land-use and energy policies that are today considered to be "normal." You are forcing change just by your very presence. The more of us who do ride, the more true this is.

If at times you feel powerless as an individual to do anything about some the enormous problems that plague us today - global climate change, energy resource wars, an environment that is degraded and made dangerous by too many motor vehicles - well, you don’t have to feel powerless. All you have to do is get on your bike and run an errand, visit a friend, or go to work. By riding your bike in New York City, you’re actively doing something to solve these seemingly intractable problems. Best of all -- on your bike, you’re not complaining or protesting or theorizing -- you’re being the solution."
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