Bicycles

I might be dating myself here, but remember when you were young, and all your friends would get together to ride bikes? It was really a lot of fun and helped make a neighborhood feel like home. We used to have several different routes in my neighborhood where we would race our bikes. Some of the best talks I ever had with friends were while we were riding our bikes.
How can bikes make us happier, and our world a better place? Did you know that Americans have the highest rate of car ownership in the world? Talk about carbon emissions. In some cities in Europe they are going back to bikes, due to traffic congestion and air pollution. Paris has established a city bicycle rental program. According to the book Plan B 3.0 by Lester R Brown, they now have 20,600 bikes in the city with over 1450 docking stations. You can access the bikes with a credit card and rent for a day, a week, or a month. So far the bikes are very popular. Brown quotes one biker when asked about the program, "We are no longer alone in our cars, we are sharing. It's really changed the atmosphere here; people chat at the stations and even at traffic lights."
It seems we really have built our world around cars. It is time to begin rebuilding around people. If feeling like a part of something larger then ourselves can make us happy, I think bringing more bike trails and programs into the cities can only help. Perhaps we can finally get to know our neighbors again, and at the same time help our environment. I say bring on the bikes!