Just Too Dangerous

I will be trying my first triathlon here in less than 5 weeks, the old Eppie's great race, and I'm hardly prepared. I can barely run, I can hardly paddle, but I can ride a bike, so 33% will have to do, and it will have to be enough to get me to the finish line.

I can bike because I do it all the time to and from work along Franklin Blvd, my blog's namesake. I started doing it to keep the diabetes in check, but discovered how I could also replace the use of a car with the bike. That is, I don't just drive the car with the bike in the back 60 miles up to Volcano and do a recreational ride on the hillside. I bike on the flat earth of Franklin.

Biking along Franklin Blvd. would be considered "just too dangerous" for the vast majority of our motoring-only citizens. Hell, walking along Franklin Blvd. would also be considered "just too dangerous" for the vast majority of our motoring-only citizens. I should say that I've never once, in thirteen years, never once have I ever seen a neighbor of mine embark on a utilitarian trip on/in something other than a motorized vehicle.

Never once have I seen someone where I live walk home from the store with a carton of eggs or cigarettes. Never once have I ever seen anyone bike home from the store with a carton of orange juice or a carton of buttermilk. Admittedly, biking to the store is something even I rarely do, because of the hassles of stores that don't have bike racks, of stores that have them but are well off the storefront, and the concern of having my panniers stolen. We aren't geared up for storing in anything other than a fucking car, so stores don't provide any real security. In another world I envision rentable bike lockers that cost nothing to use (bring your own lock) that are subsidized by the store (take just eight parking spaces and create enough bike lockers for 25 bikes) so you can go in and get your stuff and have no real concerns about theft.

But!

That's in another world, nowhere near the world I live in here in Elk Grove. That couldn't happen even with $12 gasoline in Elk Grove because the store is required by code to carry a prescribed set of on-site parking stalls determined by its square footage, and to remove just eight of them to create bike lockers would upset that requirement and the county or the city or the grassroots Concerned Citizens For Ample Parking would sue because there aren't enough or some shit like that. Or, because there's bicycle parking in too close proximity to vehicular parking, lane striping, concrete anti-ram pillars, handicap accessible ramps/lanes and additional mercury vapor lighting requirements would make the whole affair just too expensive.

Not to mention, Franklin would still be "just too dangerous." T-ball moms would never allow themselves to ride their bike to the store let alone their kids. Elk Grovian men would never want to be seen riding in anything other than their Yukons with $6,200 rims 'cause even they don't feel safe in anything else. You'd think that they could just circumvent Franklin all together and just take alternate routes down some shady tree lined residential streets, but there's no way to do that with our suburban collector road layout. One way or another, to get to the nearest store requires some traveling on Franklin. Like it or not.

And along with my neighbors, our whole Elk Grovian population has no concept, none at all, of traveling in anything other than a private automobile. They have no idea that it can even be done. "It's too far." "It's windy outside." "I can't drink my latte while riding." So, we don't. And even as we migrate to electrics or to hydrogen or wind powered rigs or to whatever, no matter how expensive, no matter how environmentally damaging...it's still always going to be a car.