No Cars, No Worries

This article in the NY Times today really caught my attention. Imagine living in a car-free environment where there's only electric tram and everybody bikes everywhere. And if you need to use a car, you can buy a parking space in a municipal garage situated at the edge of the city or you can carpool using the shared-cars fleet.

As a year-round cyclist it'd be my dream to live in a place where I can ride my bike anywhere. The closest place to it is the city of Madison, Wisconsin where I had lived for two years and where even the mayor rides his bike to work though not during the winter season. But is it possible to create a car-free city in the US, much less in developing countries like Malaysia and Indonesia? I know Jakarta has a car-free day every Sunday afternoon for its two main boulevards, Jl. Thamrin and Jl. Sudirman, but I'm not sure if the program is still in effect. A friend of mine, Yosef, used to ride his beat-up bicycle from his house in south Jakarta to his office in the city center and had brushes with death every single day in his commute! I have a lot of respect for his courage to be an urban cyclist in the mad city of Jakarta but then Yosef has spent many years studying in the US, so his Indonesian (in)sensibility is pretty screwed up!

Truth be told I do like the convenience of having a car. I did own a car in Madison and though I didn't drive very often it was still good to know that I had a car if I ever needed to use one. I guess the issue boils down to the age-old debate of individual rights to choose vs the collective good of the society. Americans are known to be fiercely individualistic (in some sense it's actually a good trait to have) and their individual rights are irrevocably enshrined in the first ten amendments of the US constitution. To ask the American people to significantly give up their right to drive a car is like telling them that they cannot own guns anymore, especially when driving a car, like gun ownership, is part and parcel of its culture. It's simply not going to happen. This is after all the country that used to own more than 90 percent of all the cars in the world when Ford Model T first came off the production line in early 1900s. Americans' love affair with automobiles is well known and well documented.

What about Malaysia, or specifically, Kuala Lumpur? I used to ride my late grandpa's bicycle around KL all the time when I was younger and later my mountain bike before it was tragically stolen at a video game arcade. Admittedly back then KL wasn't as busy as it is nowadays but the bike rides were still pretty treacherous. Now I would think twice about taking my bicycle out for a spin in the city unless if I have a death wish! Some people mentioned that I can always ride on the sidewalk but I believe that sidewalk should be reserved for pedestrians only.

But you know what, I actually do enjoy riding my bike in a bustling city. I guess you can call it my secret pleasure although it's not exactly a secret when it's being done out in the open. I did have a lot of fun riding my bike in major American cities like Chicago, Washington DC, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco and others. Maybe one of these days I should try biking in Jakarta or KL just for the heck of it...that is, right after I have my will prepared!

Note: Above is a pic of my bike in Madison parked at the Sentry supermarket in Hilldale. Gosh, I miss my bike very much!