I know it's unusual for a 55-year-old, but I bicycle the five miles from my home to UM-St. Louis. I like it. It's better for me and for the world in general. Besides I enjoy it.
One reason I enjoy it is except for crossing Olive Boulevard, St. Charles Rock Road and Hanley Road, I don't have to fight traffic. I take back streets and cut through one alley, so It's actually relaxing.
I get two kinds of reactions. Some people see me and say, "I'll bet you get good gas mileage." Sometimes I tell them that the bike cost about $300, that's about 10 tanks full of gas at today's prices. Some drivers react like I don't belong on the road. I have to watch out for them.
When I was a teenager, back in the days before cell phones, video games and cable television, I made the decision to drive as little as possible. I knew what cars did to cities.
Cars are the biggest environmental problem in the world.
What about global warming? Car exhausts may be the leading cause.
Air pollution? Car exhausts. Water pollution? One of the largest contributors to water pollution is runoff from streets-oil, antifreeze and other fluids from cars.
You could make an argument that cars caused the flood of 1993. Because cars need paved roads and parking lots, close to half the earth in cities is paved. When I was a reporter for the now-defunct West Countian, longtime residents told me that the creeks out there-Fishpot, Grand Glaize, Kiefer-didn't overflow during heavy rains before the area was developed. The ground and the plants covering it would absorb the water. As developers paved streets for new subdivisions and shopping centers with big parking lots and the government widened roads, heavy rains turned creeks into raging, overflowing rivers. What happened in 1993 was a bigger version of Grand Glaize Creek in a heavy rain.
Cars separate people. In the early 1980s, I lived in a Kansas City neighborhood where most of my friends didn't have cars. We'd see each other walking or biking pretty regularly and stop to chat. Do that in the street while in your car, and the cars stacking up behind you will start honking their horns and tempers start to flare. It's not nice.
Bicycling just seems saner to me.
Bicyclists need pavement, but nowhere near as much as cars. The only pollution I can think of that we produce is the little bit of synthetic rubber we wear out when we ride, a drop or two of lubricant that drips when I grease my bike and the batteries I use up powering my light when I ride at night.
Plus there are benefits. My wife tells me that as much as I eat, I'd be as big as a house if I didn't ride.
There is a big correlation between how much I ride and how much I weigh.
I discovered a bigger health bonus when I was diagnosed with arthritis. My rheumatologist looked at my x-rays and said that she was amazed that I could walk without difficulty. The only reason, she said, was that I ride my bike so much. That gives me even more motivation to ride.
So think about it. I don't need a parking permit. I save money. I pollute less. I'm healthier. After all, if a 55-year-old arthritic can do it, maybe you should try it as well. Oh, and you can take your bike on MetroLink or on the bus.
If you do decide to ride to UM-St. Louis, you should know some routes: the new bicycle trail connecting the campus to downtown Ferguson will keep you out of traffic, going south and west, cross Natural Bridge at one of the lights and look for Ridgeview. That will take you to an alley that will take you to a street to cross Hanley; going southeast take a left on Belleview Drive and look for the gate in the fence that will take you through.
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