Let's talk about money. The marginal cost of a bike commute is barely anything and the marginal costs of other forms of commuting (driving, public transport, Uber) are comparatively higher. Some people commute by bike to save money and others commute by bike because they don't have any money to spend. Some don't commute by bike for other reasons (they like to read or they enjoy driving or they live 40 miles away from work or they don't want to show up at work sweaty), but there are some people who don't commute to work by bike, and otherwise would, because the conditions in their area feel unsafe for bicycling and since more or less everyone has the same primary interest in remaining safe and whole, they have to forego bicycling to work even though they would want to otherwise. I don't know how many people fall into this camp, the would-but-for-fear would-be bike commuters, but it's more than zero people.
And here's where that ties into money: these people are being extorted. Instead of getting to spend marginally no money on their commute, they're forced into bus fare or paying for parking or taking a cab or whatever. Because things have been built in such a way that biking isn't safe. Isn't that messed up? How many people are spending how much on driving bikeable distances because those distances have been made completely inhospitable to biking? Sure, some people can (and do) put aside their fears and get on the bike and get to work that way mostly irrespective of the conditions and some set of that set is probably pretty happy that they've done so. But to have built our society in such a way that a virtually free form of transportation comes with the trade-off that it might be scary as fuck and completely unaccommodated? That's messed up.
Friday was a really nice day weather-wise and I took the Brompton. I stopped for coffee on the way in and groceries on the way home. Circle of life.
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