(RE)humanizing our commutes

Yesterday, my best friend Max and I grabbed some old bikes out of our garages, pumped the tires, wiped off the cobwebs, and headed towards downtown Philadelphia. We live about 9 miles from the city center and it can be scary to bike in the city due to lacking bike infrastructure. However, we hopped on Broad Street (Route 611) and rode along the parking/drop off lane.

On a normal Tuesday, Broad Street is in a state of perpetual traffic that spews up heaps of air and noise pollution from the guzzling gas engines. Drivers honk incessantly but are powerless in changing the behavior of the drivers around them.

Due to Pennsylvania's stay-at-home orders, we were able to weave our way through the unusually quiet corridor, hugging the parking lane. We biked all over the city: alongside the river, by the art museum, through communities rich and poor, through parks, between skyscrapers. As the breeze flew past my undersized helmet, I was much more attentive to the world around me. Riding leisurely through the streets, I could say hello or give people a nod. I could see their faces and they, mine.

I have driven down this road more times than I count but this was the first time where I meaningfully engaged with the community I was traveling through. There are thousands of people who hop on Broad Street/Route 611 in the morning as they pull out of their suburban garages. They just see North Philadelphia as a segment of their commute to their downtown white collar jobs. They don't engage with these communities beyond honking at the other suburban commuters, only seeing Broad Street as an avenue to get to and from work. In the past, I have been one of these commuters but yesterday I saw why I should not be.

I guess I better conceptualized the innate worth of all communities and the frequent tendency we have to see them as a stop along the way or a means to an end. When you are in a car, it is so easy to blast your music or your favorite podcast and find your happy place (I am guilty of this and probably will have hearing loss as a result). However, by giving us agency to do as we please, cars shut us out from the world as we ride around in our isolation chambers.

I greeted more Philadelphians in my bike commute yesterday than I have in all my car trips down Broad Street combined. Aside from the enormous environmental and health benefits of biking, I think it allows us to be more social beings. It is no surprise that cities with great public transit such as Amsterdam and Bogota tend to have much happier citizens. Even though the calmness of the streets may be only a temporary effect of COVID-19, I hope that people, government officials, and drivers start to realize the value of building transit systems around people instead of machines. It might save our planet and our mental health :)