How did bicycles get dragged into it

Riding a bicycle was part of the freedom of youth and is now a sweet way to get to work. So why, within its avalanche of incompetence, did our government decide to go to war against bicycles. An excellent bicycle. (Bill Girdner/Courthouse News) Like most kids, I started riding a bicycle when I was just a kid. I rode one to school until my parents bought me a used, dual-carb Corvair that was, as it was accused of being, unsafe at any speed. Those habits — and joys — stick with you. So now I ride my bicycle to work every morning and home at night, wearing a helmet, as urged by my best friend in college who owned a bicycle shop in Portland and saw the dented helmets that saved riders when they crashed. On the bike, I feel the freedom of movement through the work of the body, just as I did when I was in a much newer version of myself. Especially on a beautiful morning, I can feel the fresh air and a light breeze all the better being on a bike, pushing on the pedals with a purpose, to get to work. I regularly go back to my time in Denmark to consider how a generally fair, prosperous and rationally led society can work, while conceding that it is a relatively tiny and homogeneous country compared to the U.S. So in Copenhagen, bike lanes run alongside most major streets. And they carry their own stream of traffic at rush hour. A good friend who moved from Southern California to Copenhagen told me a story just a couple days ago about riding an old-school bicycle to work where you brake by pushing back on the pedals, as opposing to having hand brakes. So the chain came off his bicycle as he rode along. He was going downhill, headed towards an intersection, and unable to brake. Another rider saw his predicament, came up alongside him, put his hand on my friend’s shoulder and gradually brought both bikes to a standstill. I am lucky here in Pasadena that the city has set up two bike lanes that run east-west a block north and a block south of the main drag through town. I use one to go to work and one to get home. I see other riders once or twice on a ride — no way is there someone to help slow me down in the event of what the Tour de France riders call “a mechanical.” But given the amount of time wasted trying to get to and home from work in a car, bike lanes give an alternative. They are also good for — a concept that runs counter to the politically dominant train of thought these days — the environment. So it was with surprise, not really shock, that I read an NPR article about the U.S. Department of Transportation’s war on bicycles. The policy was set through a social media post by the transportation secretary who said the previous administration “used your money for DEI bike lanes and climate change. That’s over.” All grants for bicycle and pedestrian lanes have been stripped from $1.7 billion in DOT discretionary grants. And all mention of bicycles, including safety tips, have been stripped from the DOT websites. A web support staffer for the department told NPR, “Why do you need to take down bicycle safety, of all things? We’re not making the sites better, faster or quicker, you know. It’s asinine.” That is the enemy the folks in government feel they must fight. Bicycles? And while the language of public discourse has become coarse and vulgar led by the internet poster in chief, it still startled me to read the DOT spokesman’s defense of his boss’ battle against the bike. He said it made perfect sense “despite the Left’s belief that everyone should ride a bike to their shoebox-sized apartment to eat crickets to achieve a phony climate agenda.” Offensive to me, who does not eat crickets and loves my bicycle, but also kinda funny. Normally that kind of license is left to the scribes, like Maureen Dowd in the Times, who said “The Odyssey” had portrayed the goddess Circe “like a vindictive feminist hippie making ceramic pots in Vermont.” But I just don’t know how something as innocent and good for you as riding a bicycle got