A Leak In The Safe

There are barriers on the street corners waiting to be dragged out to block off the streets. At 9:30 the bags are already over the parking meters proclaiming that anyone there after 2 p.m. will be towed. It must be another stupid downtown event!

The politicians and organizers whose self-aggrandizement is served by these shindigs will tell you they are good for downtown businesses. The people who actually own the business will testify to the opposite. Think about it – you block off the major downtown arteries, you do away with all street parking – how can that be helpful? Sure, there are people downtown, but they are milling around IN THE STREET looking at the old cars, or watching the runners or whatever lame thing is being presented to their dull gaze, rather than going into any stores.

One of the dumbest of these events was last night. I think it’s called the Mayor’s Green Fair, or something like that. It’s supposed to be sort of about being green or ecology but, like many things in Ann Arbor, it’s more about advertizing the participants’ virtue and helping them feel good about themselves than actually accomplishing anything. There are some booths about composting or electric cars, but nothing that you couldn’t find on the internet in a second.

And there are a lot of bicycles. Liberty is a major east to west artery here, but last night it was blocked off, only inhabited by a line of orange traffic cones running down the middle. One guy on a tandem with his kid was tentatively weaving his way around them with noone watching as I passed. Great use of space, guys!

Sad to say nature was none too kind to her green friends last night, unleashing a rain storm during the first part of it. It let up by the time I left work, but still there were only about a hundred of people strolling around, no more than you’d get on a usual Friday night. The main attraction seemed to be a circular seven-seat bicycle that was careening around narrowly missing people to scattered applause. But despite that there was prominent and glowing Ann Arbor News coverage of a bustling and well attended event of the same name that must have taken place in a parallel universe. At the same time the Kerrytown Bookfest which draws about two hundred times more people and is actually fun, informative and good business doesn’t merit a mention.

The kicker is that yesterday we also learned that there’s going to be a pro-am bicycle race circling downtown on Sunday, September 7^th, the same day as the Bookfest. Unlike some of the brain trust, I don’t think it’s that catastrophic, but it isn’t going to help general traffic and congestion problems, and you can bet it’s going to drain every ounce of publicity. You know, you think that when you get out of school that the athletic crowd won’t elbow everybody else aside any more, and generally these days the Bill Gates types of set the priorities, but still every so often we’re all supposed to step aside and make way for the sweat soaked super beings. Hey, I’ll yield to a Super Bowl parade or any of the other incredible athletes of the pro sports world, but when it comes to weekend mini-marathon runners or pro am cyclists I feel like they’re in my way.

Bicycle people are funny – they really think they are morally superior to the rest of us, which gives them the right to ride on the sidewalk, street or wherever else they want and always have the right of way, their green rectitude enabling them to blow through stop signs or barrel over pedestrians at will. It really burns me when I hear one of those handlebar bells informing me that I’d better flatten myself against the nearest store front so the sacred bike can have a clear path. In my book children ride on the sidewalk and grown-ups ride in the street, and in fact when I lived in Minneapolis adult bikers weren’t allowed on the sidewalk. I remember this biography I read where the subject, a Rhodes scholar, was mortified because a Life photographer posed him in his cap and gown riding his bike to class in Cambridge on the sidewalk, because over there it just wasn’t done. But that doesn’t stop the domestic version from trying to commit vehicular homicide on me. The ironic part is that I walk to work everyday, so in fact on the green scale I’m morally superior to them, not being responsible for using the resources necessary to manufacture a hideously expensive bike.

I’m not against bikes at all. If you’re going a certain distance it is much more responsible to bike than to drive and kudos to anyone who uses that form of transportation. And, let’s face it, bike riding is fun. But somehow, in our benighted times, fun isn’t fun anymore. You have to be deadly serious about it. You can’t just get on a bike and go for a ride, you have to put on a array of ridiculous gear, fill a bottle with an approved beverage, grit your teeth, and go out to do some serious distance. Even people who walk now do it with swinging arms, a determined expression and a maniacal pace.

Bicycle types aren’t really jocks. In high school they were more like wanna be jocks, who one day when they were older finally found a sport where you could define yourself by what you bought. Get a clownish jersey, some of those laugh out loud padded butt shorts, a pair of shoes you can’t walk in, goofy ass gloves, a dorky helmet and sit on a car priced bike and noone will know you’re really a wimp, the way they did when you struck out in Little League. There’s no coach, no competition, just you and your credit card, and if you lay down enough you can convince yourself that you’re Lance Armstrong. Like too many things in contemporary society identity seems to have come down to the consumer choices made rather than who you are or the actions you perform. Kind of like the Mayor’s Green Fair.