KUFO - I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

I live in one of the most Eco-Conscious cities in the United States. According to the Office of Sustainable Development, 63% of Portlanders recycle. They are even trying to raise that number up to 75% by 2015. This is shocking to a girl who comes from a state where people still burn broken cars and bury the metal carcasses. (That is neither an exaggeration nor a joke...) But sometimes the green living of Portlanders gets on my nerves. Entire grocery stores dedicated to food grown by Ecuadorian farmers who split profits 50/50 who carry tomatoes one by one in hand woven slings. Or some other nonsense. I can't justify paying $4 for a bell pepper. I just can't. It's not like I hate the environment, I'm just poor. Poor people can't be Eco-Conscious. Unless they are FREEGAN (don't get me started on them... hippie dumpster divers)

But what really bugs me about Portland is the bike riders. We are regarded as the most "bike friendly" city in the US, boasting 170 miles of bike lanes. Everyone from the Midnight Zoobombers on Burnside, to the crazy Clown House on Alberta is OBSESSED with their bikes. And that is fine. I am all for alternative modes of transportation. Hell, I own a bike.

What I don't understand though, is how many bike lanes we have and how many bicyclists REFUSE to use them. If there is a bike lane on 16th Ave, why the fuck are you riding down 15th where there is ten times more traffic and NO BIKE LANE? Couple that with the fact that bicyclists rarely adhere to traffic signals. I am perpetually shocked how many riders I see ignoring stop signs, going thru red lights and generally riding like a bunch of assholes. I know if I was in a car and pulled half of the shit I see from bikers, I would be pulled over in a hot second. If bikers are going to ride on streets without bike lanes, then they need to act like cars.

Not long after I moved to Portland, one of the local newspapers had a 8ish page story about a biker who had been hit by a car on Prescott Street, not far from where I live. The biker was a staff member at the paper, so the piece could only be read as opinion rather then fact. Even the author seemed unclear whether the car clipped her, or she ran into the car, but it was SO OBVIOUSLY the driver's fault. She was riding on a street with no bike lane and was saddled up along side of a car on a one lane street. It's completely absurd. You don't see a car trying to sneak in side by side on a one lane.

I drive down Prescott every day, which has a limited number of stop signs, and had bikers fly out of a cross street without slowing down, much less stopping at the stop sign. I nearly hit two teenagers who did this around 9ish one night driving home. I slammed on the breaks and swerved to avoid them and they stopped dead in the middle of the street. I promptly got out of the car and bitched them out for 1) running a stop sign and 2) not wearing helmets and 3) not having lights on their bikes. They would have been fucking toast if it was raining or later at night.

Even my friends and one of my roommates are victims of this above the law type attitude. A group of us were biking to lunch last Sunday and 4 of the 7 of us fully ran a stop sign on the ride there. When we got to the pub, I was bitching at them and they were acting like I was blowing it way out of proportion.

If I have to live in a city where everyone and their dog gets around on two wheels, the least I ask is that laws are abided. Next time you're at Trader Joes and filling your burlap bag with all natural almond butter, make sure you stop at the 4-way for the chick in the Subaru drinking a Starbucks latte.