any history you have to offer would be welcomed!!!

aloha

We, as a community, have allowed on-street parking to take precedence over bike lanes. As a consequence, we have prioritized the sustainability of capitalism ahead of the sustainability of our health and our planet. Bike lanes would make it safer to bicycle in and around town. They would provide us with the potential to reduce traffic congestion, reduce pollution from motor vehicles, increase fitness which in turn would improve our health, and most likely increase the quality of our lives in the process. But we don’t have any bike lanes in Princeton since we prefer to drive around looking for spots that will allow us the absolute shortest distance to our destination, likely whichever business that might be.

So why are we so shortsighted? Aren’t we supposed to be smarter than that in Princeton? Or is it because we are just plain lazy? Are there too many of us that simply would not take advantage of bike lanes? I do in fact know many in Princeton that would not fall in that category. Additionally, I’ve helped to run surveys that have indicated that a majority of Princeton residents would like to make our streets safer for bicycling. In one survey, run through Littlebrook school in 2003 (I believe) we asked the question directly. It went something like: Would you approve of bike lanes on a given street, even if it meant the removal of parking spaces? The response was over 70 percent in favor.

Although I can sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street ethos, I’m glad to see that locally, there are some folks that have tied it in with a Critical Mass theme. I believe that getting more people to use bicycles for transportation should be a key aspect in our fight against pollution and global warming, as well as a contributing solution to other world problems such as our over-dependence of foreign oil, which in turn makes the fat cats in the one percent fatter still.