The growing bicycling culture – transporting us to a safer daily use and to a healthier, more sustainable future

by Laura Borrelli and Thomas McNulty

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      I (Laura) was never interested in “politics.” I accepted early on that politics was a category of things-- people, policies, laws, bills, procedures -- that just went over my head. I assumed there was an underdeveloped part of my brain, making it impossible for me to comprehend, keep up with, or even care about anything regarding what people were calling “political conversations.” It wasn't until my mid-20s, while dating a self-described “politically-charged” person, that we got in a heated conversation about a social issue and he said to me, "You realize, Laura, that you're talking about politics right now? This is what politics is."

      Fast forward almost 10 years. It was September 1, I was getting ready for the new school year at the local high school where I teach Advanced Placement Biology. Running errands, I was riding my bicycle on Beacon Street in Somerville, MA, when suddenly my path was blocked by a car door. I hit the door, flipped over the handlebars, and landed on my shoulder and hands. I ended up with some scrapes and bruises and ruined a dress I was wearing for the first time. The driver gave me a ride to the bike shop, where he paid for my repairs.

      I was lucky. Extremely lucky. My story is trivial, while many others are deadly. In June of that school year, less than a half-mile from my crash, 27-year-old Amanda Phillips swerved to avoid getting "doored" and instead was hit by a truck passing her too closely. That bicycle ride ended up being her last, as she died a short time later. A neighbor of mine heard Amanda’s bloodcurdling scream as she met her unexpected death, and that neighbor was so struck by the sound of that scream, and shaken at the thought of her own children riding bikes on those same streets one day, that she got herself involved in bike advocacy right then and there and helped organize the Ghost Bike Memorial Ceremony for Amanda. Ghost bikes, which can be found around the world, are roadside memorials involving stripped-down bikes painted white, erected in memory of cyclists killed while cycling. They are usually located at the location of the cyclists’ crash.

      By the time of Amanda Phillips' death, I had already immersed myself into the bicycle advocacy community, driven by my own, less serious, dooring incident. I found myself welcomed with open arms into a multi-layered community of brilliant, passionate cyclists who prioritize safety on the streets. The bike advocacy community of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville includes groups ranging from a few members, such as the Ghost Bike Planning Committee, to a few thousand, like MassBike Coalition. Some groups, like the Somerville Bike Committee and the Cambridge Bike Safety Group, focus on influencing city decisions such as making road infrastructure changes, while other groups, like the Boston Bike Party Community, organize massive costumed bike rides around town. At the start of that school year, fueled by my crash, I started up a bike advocacy student group, the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School  Student Bike Advocates, and managed to gather a small group of students interested in promoting bicycle safety throughout the school where, we discovered, over 300 students rode their bikes to school throughout the year.

      While I (Thomas) have been lucky enough not to have been in a serious crash, there have been multiple times in my life where I have been incredibly close to experiencing what a lot of City bikers classify as right of passage experiences. Things like being doored, having cars drive far too close to me, having to brake at an intersection when I have the right of way, and more, are things that bikers accept as normal, when in reality they are far from it. There's a blatant lack of respect for bikers by some motorists likely because of an entitlement that they feel for owning a car, and having places to be which, in their minds, supersede others. 

     There are a wide range of organizations advocating for safer streets not only in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area but in various cities in the nation. Many bike advocates share similar human-centric practical reasons for their ethical decision-making to ride a bike and promote safe bicycling in their communities. But when it comes to Earth-centered ethical decision-making, there's a powerful argument for prioritizing biking as well!

     How does cycling affect the world in the long run? By converting a small number of people who drive cars to cycling we prevent the emissions of  tonnes of carbon dioxide/yr. Such a conversion means theoretically that millions of gallons of fossil fuel are kept out of the amosphere depending on how many people convert to cycling. Cars and trucks account for much of the USA emissions.  Clearly, by cutting down on the amount of people driving and the number of hours people drive, we can greatly reduce the damage we are doing to the biosphere. It’s projected  that, worldwide, motorists will account for ⅓ of carbon emissions by 2050.