Changing Our Commutes

A few days ago, while biking to work, I found myself in a bit of a traffic jam. However, I didn’t mind this one. That’s because, instead of cars, the road was clogged with bikes. What’s more, despite a few who blew carelessly through red lights and weaved through traffic, everybody was incredibly respectful and safe.

I couldn’t help but smile. It was a beautiful morning: a slight autumnal chill had set in, but the sun was quickly cutting through it. Birds sang merrily among the lightly rustling leaves while bike bells all around announced the fluidity of cyclists’ movements around each other.

Then, as I entered the downtown area, I braced myself for the abrupt end to the pleasantries: no more trees, songbirds or bells. Just concrete, car horns and dangerous motorists blatantly disregarding the wellbeing of everybody outside their metallic shell. There’s some semblance of defense in the fact that DC’s road system is atrocious, both in quality and layout. It’s impossible that it won’t overwhelm you and bring out the worst in you. But instead of accepting higher anxiety and aggression levels as a given in life, can’t this just indicate a dire need for drastic change?

The question answered itself once I crossed the 14th street bridge and got onto the Mount Vernon Trail towards Alexandria. Riding close to the GW Parkway, I pitied the drivers stuck staring at concrete and metal, time and money evaporating from their idling tailpipes.

This is NON-rush hour traffic

On the trail, “active commuters,” as the term goes, moved freely. Though the Parkway is visible from, and sometimes right next to, the path, most of the ride consists of a lush canopy of trees, flowers and benches to rest along the way. The Potomac River borders the other side, and riders can feel the sun glitter from its surface. Which commute sounds better?

Replacing cars with bikes is good for everybody. And the more cyclists, the more benefits for the community as a whole. It’s far more cost-effective and immensely beneficial to public health. Even better, with more cyclists comes better infrastructure, and therefore more cyclists. It’s all a truly positive reinforcement cycle.

 On a personal level, it opens up even more of your city to you than you could expect. A slow cruise down the road brings the sights sounds and smells right to you, helping you discover those places you may have sped past so many times before.

Those tiny details that stand out from the noise that are only apparent when you slow down

Of course motor vehicles are necessary in myriad situations and some people can only get around as such. However, the vast majority of us would benefit incredibly from getting out of our steel shells (there’s a metaphor in this!). It would help appreciate your area even more, and make it that much better in the process. Not to mention, your legs will look damn good very quickly.

The "Real World"

I moved back to DC about two weeks ago. Between getting myself together and jumping right back into the chaos of Bike and Roll has kept me from writing much of anything. But here’s what’s gone through my mind as I rediscover a city I thought I knew so well.

Jumping back into the working world is even more disorienting and distracting than the travel world. Many people sardonically had welcomed me “back to the real world” upon my return. But I can hardly accept this phrase, since what’s so real about running yourself down in pursuit of money? Don’t get me wrong; I do love working at Bike and Roll and helping people discover DC. But the way many of us approach work-life balance fails to take in the world (and therefore reality) around us.

After only a week I’m already trying to ward off aggression during my commute (though I maintain that taxis deserve all the hostility they receive) and exhausted apathy at all other hours. There’s even a sense of defeat as I pinch pennies in an effort to responsibly rebuild my worn-out bank account, despite the fact that it’s so I can fully engage in traveling later. Though I still resist the validity of calling this the real world, if it is, it’s harsher than I remember.

However, I won’t let it get me down. I’m experiencing DC from a new perspective, living in a far more exciting neighborhood than AU’s residential surroundings. And now that I’m not indulging (as much) in exciting beer and food, I’m actually quite fit (yes, I ate and drank so much that I was still somewhat pudgy after biking/walking through Europe). I also have the chance to explore the many questions and half-thoughts that filled my notebook over the past year. And I’m reading way more than I have in awhile (alternating between Robinson Crusoe and The Genius of Dogs, a fascinating study about canine cognition).

Most importantly, returning to this city, and therefore relearning it is giving me a new approach to that starry-eyed idealism that I talk so much about: a harsh (and all-too-true) reality that I observe every day is that of crushing poverty and homelessness. DC has a huge issue with this, even right next to the White House. Yet, despite being directly visible from the president’s windows, we never hear anything about it.

Many folks line up for an overnight shelter transport in front of our shop at the central library (which is effectively a daytime shelter) and therefore loiter about during the day. Because what else can you do if you have mental issues for which there is little to no support or motivation to help? Though there are some bad eggs, the vast majority of the guys (it’s all men, as far as I’ve noticed) are subdued, simply wanting somewhere to go and trying to figure a way out.

With such a dire situation in front of me, it’s impossible to avoid thinking about it. How can I find the world so beautiful, life so wonderful, when such huge problems exist? How can I relish jumping from place to place when so many people just want a roof and a bed of their own? How can I be critical of bland office work, long hours, or any other soul-crushing aspect of our working world when the guy twenty feet from me is excited to make five dollars selling Gatorade from a plastic bag?

Over the past few days I’ve alternated between fear and defeat while pondering the situation. Vee, my coworker, has had the same impression. We realize how easily we, too, could end up on that same curb with nowhere to go. As cogs in a very large machine, what can we do to lessen the suffering of others, around the world or right in front of us? As I interact with this other side of life, directly and indirectly, for the next few months, I suspect many of these questions will keep me up at night.

I do think there’s hope, though. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived a privileged life, but I believe in mankind. Systems, usually unintentionally, put us down and bring out the worst in us. But we’ve evolved to help each other. In the Genius of Dogs book I mentioned, the author mentions that our species has been so successful because of our ability to cooperate. It’s through this that so many great things have come to creation. As time goes on, life does improve. With every generation we get better at humanity. It takes a long time, and there’s no quick fix. But we can do it.

So this real real world is harsh, but it’s hopeful as well. We have a lot to work on, but we’ve come a long way. And while it feels impossible at times. In the end, though, paying attention to our world and learning about it will keep us going in the right direction.