Amidst the current national drama of the economy, health care, and beer fueled racial dialogue, comes the stimulus inspired marketing bonanza of “Cash for Clunkers,” the (apparently poorly planned out) government rebate for trading in your less than 25 year old gas guzzler.  Hooray, salvation, now we can finally abandon that environmentally damaging gas burner for something that...still burns gas.  Okay, slightly less gas, but if the problem is oil dependence and environmental damage then isn’t spending money on something that uses less oil rather than cuts out the process entirely sort of like splashing on a bit of cologne after a week of not bathing?  Culturally speaking, as an American and proud materialist, I think that once again we may be missing the point.

One possible alternative to limiting our dependence on oil, not to mention whipping the overweight 2/3’s of our population into shape, is the bicycle.  Yet in most of the country this highly efficient, century old contraption has been met with nothing but resistance.  Los Angeles, where I lived for six years, has weather that is conducive to bicycling year round, yet if ever there was a city more hostile to the bicycle, I haven’t found it.  L.A. has a roadway network that extends over 6500 miles, only 174 miles of which are devoted to bike ways or paths, and most of these are in parks or along waterways, not major commuter hubs.  In 1974, then Mayor Tom Bradley made a host of promises to cyclists, including the creation of the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (B.A.C.)  Bike lanes and parking were promised, not to mention education and incentives towards bicycle commuting.  To date, almost zero of those promises have been fulfilled, and the Bicycle Advisor Council has proven as ineffective as the Department of Transportation is uncaring.  

35 years after the creation of the B.A.C., and riding a bicycle in Los Angeles is still one of the most frightening things that I have ever done.  (Just for a frame of reference here, I have jumped off 40 ft. cliffs into the ocean in Hawaii, surfed triple overhead waves in Central California, and taken corners at over 100 mph on a motorcycle with my knee dragging on the ground, and bicycling in L.A. is still scarier.)  While the Federal Government is offering up billions of dollars to encourage people to keep driving, alternatives like bicycling are continually pushed to the fringes.  Advocate groups that surf the proper bureaucratic channels do exist in L.A., but they are continually stymied, which has lead to an emergence of guerrilla activism (known for acts like rush hour bicycle freeway invasions and illegal D.I.Y. bike lanes).  In a city where bicyclists and motorists don’t exactly get along, guerrilla activism has an unfortunate potential for deep polarization.  Even the laws on the books tend to piss off drivers.  CVC 21202 in California states the bicyclists should remain as far to the right as possible, although there is a stipulation that says if moving to the right is unsafe, cyclists need not do so.  This often leads to cyclists occupying the middle of the right lane--known as taking a lane--which, though legal, is the single biggest cause of motorist discord, mainly because drivers don’t realize that it is legal.

The problem really then lies in education and social acceptance.  Cyclists remain on the fringes because, as a culture, we are far too dependent on the automobile.  Forty years ago, the average number of cars per household was one, and we got along just fine.  Today the number of cars per household exceeds the number of licensed drivers.  (Although if you are capable of driving two cars at once, I’ll admit that I’m impressed.)  Rather than look for solutions and alternatives, we look for band-aids to the problem.  We look for cash for clunkers gimmicks and hybrids that still burn petrol and remain largely out of financial reach for the average wage earning American.  Rather than stamping out the need for oil, we just find different ways to use it.  Until Americans as a culture decide to take a stand and make real change, I can’t imagine things, at least environmentally and economically, will get much better.  I’m not advocating that we get rid of cars, in much of our lives they are still a necessity, I’m just saying that maybe we could stop relying on them so heavily.