Epic Commuting

Since starting a new job my morning commute consists of a four-mile bike ride uphill to Overbrook Train Station, where the R5 carries me onward to work at Radnor. That is unless it rains, in which case I take West Chester Pike to the Blue Route.

Rarely does a commute pass without a sense of urgency, by which I mean I'm usually running late. Over time that urgency has combined with my imagination to produce some names for various spots in the commute. The names aspire to the Homeric, and I enjoy them too much not to share them.

On the car route, just into Upper Darby one meets the Three Sisters. The Sisters are three traffic lights spaced very close together with seemingly no coordination as to when they turn red and seemingly no cross traffic ever on the streets they guard. The result is that if one doesn't get you, the other will, and if she doesn't the last will turn her Cyclopean glare on you.

At a similar point in the bike commute one meets Girard: Graveyard of the Proud. The foolhardy biker might meet the gradual incline that starts at Girard with a full head of steam. Were he to do so, the steeper incline he meets after turning onto Lancaster Avenue would surely mean his demise. To escape Girard intact requires humility.

Happy is the traveler who turns onto Lancaster Avenue and is passed by a SEPTA train going east before he reaches 59th Street. This train is called The Harbinger of You're-Probably-Okay. He can relax a bit, for his predecessors have all made it to the Elysian bliss of the 8:26 train.

The very last stretch, the length of 63rd Street between Lancaster and City Avenue, has a dual nature. On good days it is simply the Victory Ramp; on bad days the sudden short incline leading to the railroad bridge is the Tongue of Taunting.


Names like these give me a little extra bump when I am in a hurry in the morning. In the case of the bike ride that's a good thing because it can translate to faster riding. In the car, however, nothing I do makes lights greener or other drivers faster; I feel far more like Sisyphus than Odysseus.

Pedal Downhill

Bikers, please pedal when you are going downhill. In this situation, gravity is on your side. As a result you will find it considerably easier to pedal, and you may be amazed at the speeds you will quickly reach with very little additional effort. As a side benefit, your momentum will carry you speedily up the next hill, making that climb much easier.

Don't just coast down the hill. While you will still reach the bottom, you will do so at a comparative crawl. Worse, when you reach the next uphill, you will have to navigate it completely under your own power. And if I am behind you, I will have to brake and patiently endure the same fate.

Yes, when the going is easy, store up momentum for when the road tilts against your favor. You will expend less effort in the long run. You will reach your destination faster. You will have more fun.

Lastly, I am sure there is a metaphor for life in here somewhere. Thank you.

April Fool

Hop on your bike. Head east on Springfield Ave from 52nd street. Pick up speed as you approach the bottom of the hill. Keep your momentum going uphill.

Now, close your eyes. Inhale. Smell spring pass in the breeze, aromas shifting as you pass each tree.

I hope you don't have bad balance or allergies.

Next Up: Unintended Consequences

Please don't take this away!

"A bike is a legal vehicle with the same rights and duties as a motor vehicle."
"A Guide to Biking in Philly"

That quote defines a broken and inadequate philosophy toward biking which is harmless when tacitly ignored but harmful to society at large when actually enforced. Unfortunately, it looks like there is a new push to enforce this misguided idea, with tickets for $119.50 likely being written to cyclists in Center City as I write these words.

I see only one reason why a bicycle should be governed by the same rules as a car, and it is not a good one: thinking through proper regulations for bikes would require work, maybe even hard work. Applying rules designed for cars is simple, and might make sense to someone unacquainted with actual cycling experience on the city streets. But if carried to its extreme, streets would become unsafe and inefficient for all users of the road while severely hampering cycling in particular.

Cars have four wheels. Pedestrians have zero wheels. Bicycles have two wheels. As a first approximation, it might make sense to treat a bike as something between a car and a pedestrian. I think this idea is a much better starting point than the quote above.

For example, bikes go faster than pedestrians, but not as fast as cars. That means they should ride on the road, but accommodations should be made for the fact that they are slower. A great solution is the bike lane, which unfortunately does not exist in most places and is often obstructed when it does. However, bikes are flexible! They can bend themselves to be more like pedestrians or more like cars in any given circumstance, and this great advantage allows them to cope with most perils the road throws their way.

In my estimation, the crux of the issue lies in the assertion that bikes, like cars, should never be allowed to proceed through red lights or stop signs. To say otherwise would seem a dangerous idea if bikes were just like cars, but looking through the lens of a pedestrian provides a different perspective.

In Philadelphia, pedestrians frequently move through a red light when there is no car traffic coming. This behavior has the dual benefit of first, saving pedestrians time, and second, getting them out of the way so that when the light turns, parallel traffic need not wait for them to cross before turning. At times, pedestrians cross when it is unsafe to do so, but that does not invalidate the fact that jaywalking in general increases efficiency and productivity for everyone.

In this respect, bicycles are a lot more like pedestrians than they are like cars. A cyclist is equally as capable as a pedestrian of riding to the front of an intersection, determining whether it is safe to go through, and proceeding when it is so. In fact, doing so makes things easier for automobiles, since the slower bike is now out of its way and the car is free to go its normal speed.

I do not deny that reckless "jayriding" is hazardous, inefficient, and stupid, but that fact should not be used to condemn safe use of the practice. If bikes are prohibited from jayriding, the result in a city with ever increasing bike traffic will be a pileup of bikes at the light. This result would be inefficient, since not only would the cyclists' commute time be greatly slowed, but cars would also be inconvenienced by the obstacle which multiple cycles present. Given sufficient volume, this situation would also be unsafe, since there is not much space for bicycles to begin with.

How does a city prohibit behaviors like unsafe jayriding while allowing safe and productive use of the practice? This is the kind of challenge which city legislators should take up if they truly wish to make city streets safer and more efficient. Actually condoning moving through a red light for anyone may be hard to swallow at first, but that is only so if one has only experienced the perspective of an automobile.

It is easy to shackle cyclists to all of the limitations of motorists while denying them any of the benefits of the pedestrian side of their nature, but actually doing so almost keeps cycling from being worthwhile. Depending who you are, that may not be a problem. In a society as auto-dominated as ours, most people probably would not care, and many would probably be happy to have streets sanitized of the two-wheeled nuisances.

But any Center City rush hour prominently displays how broken our auto society has become, and any look at obesity statistics shows how sorely many Americans are lacking exercise. Within the city, biking is faster and more efficient than driving, with virtually none of the parking hassle. It is also a great way for people like myself who struggle to get enough exercise to burn calories.

In short, biking is a godsend, working against several social problems at once, and we ought to seek to make even more provision for its use rather than bullying cyclists off the road. There is no question that as use has increased, more regulation has become necessary. Let us hope that we as a city can rise to the challenge of doing so in an intelligent, useful fashion.

You, sir, are not like me.

Today's ride, about 12 miles.

Is it better or is it worse to encounter in your daily life people who are not like you?

I think most would say that it is better to encounter a diversity of people. However, most choose to live around others similar to themselves, which would speak to the contrary. Certainly, auto-dependent and traditionally homogenous suburbs do quite a bit to keep their residents selectively isolated.

One such experience today got me thinking about the question. While on a bike ride, I waited at a light to turn from 12th onto Walnut. As the light changed the other way, an African American biker transitioned from the sidewalk to the road, signaling his way with the "ding ding!' of a bell attached to his handlebars, offering a polite thank-you as he passed.

Within a few blocks I had caught up to him and found myself biking side-by-side. This experience is a pleasing one, for reasons related to physics, and because I feel safer and more relaxed when taking up the whole lane with another rider. (This practice is perfectly legitimate in Center City, where there is no bike lane and the right lane is thus reserved for bikes and for buses.)

Soon we crossed through an intersection, and he alerted some jaywalking pedestrians of our passage again with his bell. "I like your bell," I said.

"Thanks," he replied. "My partner gave it to me."

"It's nice."

"Yeah, I want him to get one for my grandson, too. I know he'd like that," he responded.

"It's useful, too," I added.

"Yeah." We rode a bit more. "I'm heading up Sixteenth Street here, so you have a good day," he said. And we parted ways.

I don't know how many gay African American grandparents I've met before. I don't think that number is very high, but you wouldn't expect it to be for someone like me either. Yet by virtue of using a non-isolated mode of transportation, and by living in a city where many kinds of people reside, we came into contact just by chance.

Though I suspect there is virtue in such experiences, I am not exactly sure what that virtue is. I do think it is helpful just to be reminded that there are ranges of experience drastically different from my own, that the world is a lot bigger than I conceive it to be.

Science on Spokes

Zadrejko stands tall.

Jon majored in biology. I majored in physics. We both went for a bike ride.

At the start we spontaneously took a few revolutions around a cul-de-sac. I remarked what an interesting frame of reference that had been - he stationary in front of me and the rest of the world spinning.

We stopped at an old one-room schoolhouse. He noticed a spider on the handle of an old pump, and we talked about how underrated spiders are.

On the way back a flock of geese suddenly passed overhead. Jon was surprised at how low they flew, and how large the flock was.

Soon after, I waxed poetic about the mystery of riding bikes with friends. Again, the frame of reference struck me. Riders are all moving, often at a pretty good clip, yet in each other's eyes they remain still. This exclusively shared frame of reference is a great source of bonding.

It was fun to see our disciplines come out in our observations.

Developments Explained

Red: My home. Purple: My favorite bike route. Yellow: Housing developments.
Made using Google Earth. Click to enlarge.

A lot changes in 18 years.

That's how long I've lived at 63 Ruth Avenue in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In the scheme of things, that's no time at all. And yet, look at all of the yellow circles above.

Those circles mark housing developments which have gone up in the time I've lived here. You can see these four all within two miles of my home, with one just beyond my backyard. By convention, these places are named after that which they supplant: "Kimberton Meadows;" "Brimful Farms;" "Foxfield;" "Heritage Place." They are also known as "what's wrong with America."

My ears bristled at the sharp criticism that my friend leighcia, with some help from Jane Jacobs, leveled against the suburbs. Simulating nature? That's not what I learned from all of those bike rides growing up, or from the tall maples and soft moss in my front yard.

I think what leighcia was really addressing, as clarified in the comments section and by her husband Matthew, is not what lies along the purple bike path, but what lies within the yellow circles. Here we are on the same page.

Two questions surround these developments. First, why would anyone build these houses? Second, why would anyone want to live in them?

The explanation to the first question is simple, if unsatisfactory: economies of scale. It's much easier and cheaper for one company to build a lot of nearly identical houses all at once than if each house were to be built to order by its future inhabitants. While that makes economic sense (often the only sense something needs to make for it to happen), it leaves out much of what should go into making a home.

I believe the central flaw lies in that the people designing and building the homes are not, in general, the people who will be living in them. Design ingenuity centers on modularity and ease of construction rather than on quality of final product.

From the point of view of construction workers, since the homes are to be built and never seen again, why take pride in them? Why make anything sturdy, or unique, or (dare I suggest) beautiful? Certainly not for personal credit - that will go to Toll Brothers. It becomes a job to complete, not one to do well.

Blame cannot rest entirely on the builders. They are only in one sense giving people what they want. Going back to my second question then, why would anyone want to live in these houses? I present a hypothesis.

First, the homes are generally expensive, which makes them symbols of status. They carry characteristics that give the appearance of wealth, such as high ceilings and large square footage. This is true regardless of how ugly they are.

So young couples looking to start a family go right for the houses which broadcast that they are already successes. They may not be able to afford them, but is success really something you can afford not to buy?

Since the houses are built at the same time, lots of young couples at the same stage of life flock in at the same time. They bring vehicles which broadcast success and drive around their children who broadcast success. The homogeneity of the neighborhoods becomes homogeneity of the neighbors.

The removal of many differences between people in these developments might sound like a recipe for a close-knit community, but I don't think that is what usually develops. Community breathes through interdependence, but this vision of success is built on independence.

Instead of community then, residents find an individualist conformity. Since everyone pursues the same vision simultaneously, the way to be most successful is to deviate the least from that vision.

This is exemplified in the classic suburb exercise, mowing the lawn. Because of builder demands for house density and buyer demands for near-mansions, few development houses have yards to speak of. Regardless, on Saturdays everyone mows their postage stamps at the same time.

We see then why people build and live in droves of hideous houses. People will take success in whatever package they are told contains it. None of the success signals outlined above require houses to be of any aesthetic quality. So they aren't.

My description of the mentality of those who live in these developments may sound a bit extreme. While I would be reluctant to apply it to individuals whom I know and love, I do think in the aggregate these ideas go a long way toward explaining the four yellow circles around my house.

Budding Hope

Spring is great.

They're doing it again.

There's a way the light hits the trees in April that you don't see the rest of the year. I can't describe it except to say that the trees seem to resonate. Newly budded leaves rejoice in their first sunlight.

The beginning of spring smacks you in the face if you're trying to be miserable. You realize you're a fool. The entire natural world is singing with delight at new life, and there you are, pretending like life isn't good.

I love whizzing through the streets on my bicycle and catching whiffs of flowers.

And if life isn't good, and you're not pretending? Then spring brings something even more beautiful:

"Come, you hopeless! Find hope, for just as this creation was barren and now bursts forth, so too can your life. Come, see the nature of my abundance!"

Shout on, pray on, we're gaining ground - glory, hallelujah!

Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.
John 16:22

I have never felt the joy of being a Christian more fully than on this Easter day.

A dozen things already today highlight the full abundance that life with Jesus promises. Really, he promises it.

1. I rode my bike downtown for Tenth Presbyterian Church's sunrise service. Headed due east on my iron steed, the city was filled with the glory of the rising sun, and I delighted to ride farther into it. My hands just about fell off from the morning air.
   
   
2. During the service I was thinking to myself, "Man, I wish I had somewhere to go for pancakes." The pastor announced, "Please join us for pancakes in the fellowship hall after the service."
   
   
3. After the service I ran into two newlywed friends.
   
   
4. At the breakfast I saw a friend I haven't spoken to in a year and a half, and heard from him about the marriage of a freshman year acquaintance to the girlfriend he had been striving to love wholly and purely.
   
   
5. At the table I caught the eye of a baby boy, and we played a nodding game.
   
   
6. Also at the table were the baby's parents, a young doctor and his wife getting ready to move to Niger to heal the sick and bring hope to the brokenhearted.
   
   
7. Between he and I was Dr. Joan Caddell, who graduated from medical school at Penn in 1952 as one of three women in her class. I heard of her own incredible experiences in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. "I wasn't just sitting underneath the banana tree."
   
   
8. I biked straight down a nearly empty Broad Street in the still-clear and still-early sunlight to Jonathan's house and shared in Easter morning with him, before heading back to church with his three lovely sisters and his lovely Stefanie.
   
   
9. The church was so full that we had to sit in the basement and watch the service on TV. The people down there were a bit sheepish on singing the hymns but, not to be deterred on so grand an occasion, Jon's sister Mary-Robin and I sang out. Folks joined in.
   
   
10. The service boldly proclaimed the resurrection in about five ways, which I'll spare you.
    
    
11. Afterwards, spurning the crowded Geno's Steaks, Jon and I found a great cheesesteak and a pot of begonias in a Mexican shop that made me smile.
    
    
12. Biking back, I passed quickly from a Mexican neighborhood to a Vietnamese one to an African American one. That's three continents!

All of these moments are glimpses of the eternal kingdom to come.

The baby and Dr. Caddell and I will sit again at the same table, this time without inadequacies of youth or infirmities of old age, and declare the works of the risen Lord, whom we shall see face to face and with our own eyes. The Kreamer sisters will still walk arm in arm, but now through the city of God, where all nations will dwell together and

They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.
Revelation 22:5

I can't wait.

Personal Media Player Purchase - Philosophical Analysis

A couple of other concerns nagged at me about whether or not to buy an mp3 player.

It’s the earbuds.

iPod is actually a great name, because the device enables each person to disconnect him or herself from the rest of the world. Because of the portability and the sheer amount of songs you can fit on one of those things, it’s common for people to listen at any time in which conversation is not required.

Instead of listening to the sounds offered by his or her environment, an mp3 player gives its owner the option of piping in more agreeable or more stimulating or less confrontational media. Surroundings become muted. Anything that wants to get attention must fight through the chosen tunes.

So mp3 players encourage the impulse, part of human nature, to withdraw from the rest of the world into a universe in which we are the center. I’ve been part of at least one conversation in which I was competing with an iPod for attention, and it isn’t a good feeling.

To summarize, iPod --> solipsism --> uncomfortable Nick.

I went on a bike ride today, from my house out to a nearby track for a one mile run,* and I took my Sansa View. I was delighted to be accompanied by enjoyable music – it really is magical to have clear and beautiful music delivered by tiny buds which you hardly feel.

By my third lap around the track, the novelty had worn off. Rides are when the silence and the slowly changing landscape help me listen to God, away from the warring stimuli that usually block him out. I realized the last thing I wanted to do was take the stimuli with me during one of the few times I’m actively seeking to hear his voice.

All of that said, weighing all of these concerns I still decided to buy the View, and I really do like the nifty little thing. The experience of brushing my teeth was much improved by listening to The Grateful Dead, and earbuds beat laptop speakers by leaps and bounds.

In general, it’s great to be able to fill boring or half-occupied times with good listening. I just think there’s plenty about these innocuous seeming things to be cautious about.

*Run. Lumbering, panting jog. Same thing.

P.S. Another minor concern was the continuing trend toward more convenient but lower quality music. i.e. live performance --> vinyl --> compact disc --> mp3. But it's hard to argue with a format which allows such a variety of music with such portability. And you have to really listen for the difference at a reasonable bitrate.