Description: Baroque Meanderings on Bicycling in Los Angeles and Beyond
A young girl cycling to school alone crossed my path a few mornings ago. The last time I had such a sighting was in The Netherlands, but in the U.S. we have nearly wiped out this species of cyclist, children of any gender and especially girls. I would have been really startled had I seen the girl in Los Angeles, but — alas — this vision appeared to me in Princeton , New Jersey, where I have been spending the past weeks in the company of my girlfriend, who is teaching a short course at the town’s famous univ
That sighting, so unexpected at first, has since been repeated many times. In general, cycling seems to form a bigger, more visible part of transportation here in Princeton than it does in Los Angeles, a city with one-hundred times the population. Princeton enjoys some natural advantages: a small and dense historical district , relatively light traffic, polite drivers, flat terrain, and built-in demand for cycling from students of all ages. It also has something of a “factory town” feel: many university emp
This robust cycling demand has been achieved with hardly any infrastructure. A few streets have bike lanes, and the city boasts a number of short shared-use paths. However, these accommodations all lie well outside the central business district (or they are on campus ) and they are mostly not interconnected. In the downtown area, where much of the cycling I’ve seen happens, and on the immediately adjacent roads that travel through the university campus, Princeton has so far provided sharrows , those much-l