Changing Ideals

After a life changing accident with a bicycle two years ago I finally found the courage to get back up on a bicycle and ride. First though, I had to buy a new bike as I had sold my previous bike immediately after the accident. With the soaring price of gas, overcoming my fear to get back on a bicycle was becoming a necessity. For years now people have had the notion that gas would always be cheap. Foresight is never as good as hindsight is it? Problem is, getting over that culturally ingrained notion is easier said than done. Even with gas costing more than four dollars a gallon now, many Americans seem bound and determined to continue driving gas guzzling vehicles. Sadly, many U.S. cities were built to accommodate cars, not pedestrians, and work can often be twenty or more miles away from home. It does seem though that cyclists and pedestrians may once again rival the number of cars on the road, and that makes it extremely important to restructure cities to be more accommodating to greener forms of transportation. “Two cars in every garage” is no longer a sustainable lifestyle, and perhaps no longer the American ideal.