Transportation happenings in Newton

Tuesday the Newton League of Women Voters had a transportation panel discussion.

It was quite interesting and had people who sit on the Transportation Advisory Committee as well as one person from Livable Streets whose presentation was of course my favorite. It was funny to see how new the idea livable streets was to the crowd who oohh'd and ahh'd and laughed over pictures that are my daily meme in the bike blog world as well as Facebook. It's good to get the word out about traffic calming and complete street initiatives elsewhere.

After the panelist spoke there was a Q & A period and the topics ranged all over from transit issues to safety issues and education issues. But two of the threads of conversation that were most interesting to me were of elderly and biking.

One gentleman stood up and said " We drove here because we didn't have any other way to get here." And basically sat down kind of leaving it for the panelist to discuss how to fix that kind of problem. Most of the Newton Transport people kind of stumbled over themselves not saying much and it was the livable streets woman who spoke up and said " Yes, I had the same problem. I live in cambridge and was wondering how to get here." I believe she got here via transport but would have a roommate who was coming this way swing by to pick her up. She then went on to say that if we had better biking infrastructure then it would help more people to ride in the dark in the rain. She also made the point that riding in the rain is quite possible with proper lights and gear etc.

A short while later a woman stood up and complained that the answers she was hearing about how to get around alternatively was to put people on bicycles. She went on to say that the elderly cannot ride bikes and that the baby boomers are only getting older, thus we will have only more elderly and bicycles were not the answer.

Now, no- I wouldn't put every person young or old on a bike. Not every one is going to want to be on a bike. Not everyone CAN be on a bike. However her points that to ride a bike one needed "good eye sight, good reflexes and to be limber" where in my opinion also traits needed to drive ( perhaps not the limber thing).

I wished I had felt like standing up and saying something. I probably would have said that the idea of "putting people on bikes" is a concept shift. We aren't excepting that everyone over 70 jump on a bike, however if we start planning for a highly bike friendly system, then anyone who can be on bikes will. If we put these ideas in place NOW, then there will be a whole generation of elderly who will have already been on bikes and so being on bikes as a 70 year old will be a natural idea rather than an absurd idea.

I also think that if we make this perception shift than vehicles such as electric scooters and electric tricycles could be seen as the norm. Wouldn't it be nice if every octogenarian happily upgraded to a scooter or e-trike to get around rather than white knuckle their steering wheels in fear of loosing indepedance. Or worse loosing one's license and thus having no alternatives to get around. Because less face it- the mass transit system in Boston is in a sad state. It's loosing money, not running well and not going to expand any time soon. But hey if we focus on things we can do like get more people who can be on bikes- who knows, we may shift our economic priorities to make a kick ass mass transit system and beyond work out.

Part of me understands that woman has a shorter range of vision for change. She doesn't have 30 years to wait to be an elderly person reaping the benefit of these zany ideas we are talking about now, however I also think- didn't that generation kinda get us into this mess?