Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/259813
ILLUSTRATION BY DANIEL O'LEARY T he biking craze has hit Boston—hard. In the past 10 years our city has been invaded with speeding bicyclists on roads already jammed with cars. This being Boston, this high-minded civic experiment—designed to foster energy conservation and physical fitness—is also encouraging even more road rage than what's already in our short-fused DNA. It's not just that rogue bikers cut off motorists; they also lecture them on the evils of gas guzzling. The nerve! Yet the City of Boston has catered to the inf lux of bikers by building a maze of bike paths— 65 miles of them since 2007. And when the Hubway program rolls out again this spring, Bostonians don't even have to own their own bikes; the city provides more than 1,100 shareable bikes at 130 depots, available to any self-righteous vegan fitness fanatic who pays a subscription fee. This would be a fine thing in peace-loving, pantywaist San Francisco, but it makes me worry if the mean streets of Boston will become even more of a war zone. Think I'm being alarmist? Did you see that viral video of a local bicyclist banging his fist on a car that had edged too far into a snowy bike lane? The incident spurred an argument between the driver and the biker, and yet another argument among people who watched the video clip: Who was at fault—the driver or the biker? In other words, Boston has one-upped our time-honored tradition of in-your-face, on-the- street road rage with digital, postmodern, meta road rage. And yet, as biking becomes more popular in Boston, the rogues and scoff laws who made up the original contingent of bicyclists are being joined in the bike lanes by more cool-headed folk, who actually stop at stop signs and politely yield to pedestrians. These timid, conscientious souls believe in a thing called "bike etiquette," even though it f lies in the face of our in-your-face culture. Lest you think I'm anti-bike, I must share that I am actually one of this new breed of bike nerds, and I wear so much protective gear I look like a spaceman: big round helmet, bright yellow jacket that glows in the dark, and Velcro straps around my ankles to keep my pants from getting covered with bike grease. Should I forget to remove my bulbous helmet and ankle straps, I'd look like a UN peacekeeper patrolling the streets of Boston. The light on my handlebars is powerful enough to see 300 yards in pitch dark—for what? In case I ride down the shaft of a coal mine? It seems like overkill (or underkill, as the case may be) and makes me nostalgic for biking around Boston as a kid. If there were rules for biking during the 1960s and '70s, nobody I knew paid attention. Cruising up on sidewalks and down one-way streets we'd go—often with another kid sitting on the crossbar. And a bike helmet was unheard of. If motorcycle gangs and the Boston Bruins didn't have to wear helmets, why would a kid on a bike? Occasionally my true Bostonian soul overtakes me—I ignore newfangled "bike etiquette" and revert to my childhood biking (non)standards. The last time this happened I was late for a meet- ing, stuck between a red light and a double-parked SUV, so I gleefully jumped the sidewalk, cutting off a young mother pushing a stroller and yelling at them for being in the way. The toddler yelled back, "No bikes on the sidewalk, a--hole!"—a surprising riposte from such a sweet-looking tot. But that's how we raise our children here. No matter how many bike paths Boston installs, some things about our city will never, ever change. Viva la road rage. BC Mean Streets AS THE BICYCLE HUBWAY PROGRAM HITS THE ROAD THIS SPRING, WILL NOUVEAU BIKE ETIQUETTE TRIUMPH OVER BOSTON'S HARDWIRED ROAD RAGE? BY JIMMY TINGLE 128 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM P arting Shot 128_BC_BOB_PartingShot_Spring14.indd 128 2/6/14 4:22 PM