Bike, City

What if the secret to a better city isn’t policy or infrastructure—but eye contact?

People ride bikes together, walk together, run together, ride motorcycles together, but I have yet to see a group of people driving together for fun. I believe it is because of the car itself. There is no community found in congested traffic, despite other similarities with a bike ride, a group walk, or a run club: humans moving in the same direction at the same speed.

When you're on a bike, you have to look around. Texting & driving is much easier than texting & riding. If you're looking down at your phone, you'll crash. Looking up and around you can, in my opinion, have a tremendous effect on how you see your world.

Looking at other people can have the same effect. Especially when you're not looking through something. How often are we looking at people through windows? When you're in a car, everything except those in your car are viewed through a window. This might contribute to the increased sense of xenophobia and racism and "us-vs-them" mentality we see in mainstream culture.

When you're on a bike, you're looking at human beings through the cars they drive. Between other cyclists and pedestrians, there is no such boundary.

I think there's also a correlation between GMP (gross municipal product?) per capita and average number-of-other-unfiltered-humans-seen-daily per capita. The more you see your fellow humans, the more you recognize them as sentient beings, the more you want to support them and the community. Those desires become actions, and everybody wins. The tide rises.

The opposite is also true.

What, then, of the city planner who drives to work?