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No 51, March 2007
Editor: Jennifer Gilmore
Production: Gary Somers
The views expressed in Chain Mail articles are those of the authors only and do not necessarily represent either the common views shared by a majority of Bike North members, or Bike North policy as formulated by the Bike North Executive Committee.
M2: The Sad Story
Once upon a time...
... there was a big and busy city where millions of people lived and worked. The city had many wonderful features but like so many others around the world it was fast becoming choked with cars. In the north of the city was a special road, which had been built, not by the government, but by some Hill-billies who thought they could make money by charging other people a toll to use it. These people didn't make enough money so they sold the road to some people from the land of Transurbania.
The idea of building a private road and charging other people to use it quickly spread, and a special tunnel was built under the city so that the motor traffic did not spoil the views. The owners of this road tunnel also didn't make enough money and they went broke. Never-the-less the idea became ever more popular and another longer road tunnel was built to connect the special road in the north to the city. This too would be a road which made money for the people who owned it. The government realised that when this tunnel opened it would be quite popular, and even more cars would use it every day. This would create more choking traffic at the end of the tunnel near the special road in the north, and spoil even more views, so the government asked the Transurbanians to make some more room on the road.
The Transurbanians thought this was a grand idea. The tunnel was soon to open and the government wanted the extra room on the road to be available very soon, so Transurbanians talked to each other. They decided it was very easy to make some more room on the road if they could use the part of the road which was for cars that had stopped working, and for people who liked to ride their bikes on the road. They decided that they could put up a few signs to tell the people who like to ride bikes where to go. No-one was quite sure what they could do with cars that stopped working, so they decided to put in some more cameras so at least they could see them when they stopped working and come and tow them away.
The people who liked to ride bikes were usually very
happy people, but now they were sad. The special road
in the north was the best place to ride a bike, and now
it could be used only by people who liked to drive cars,
and they already had lots of good places to drive.
The people who liked to ride bikes and Transurbanians
had a meeting, and some people from the government
went along as well. The meeting went for a very long
time. The people who liked to ride bikes had written
down all their ideas about the problem, and drawn
pictures to make it easy for Transurbanians to
understand why they were sad. The government people
and the Transurbanians were very surprised and were
not sure what to say or do next, so they went away to
talk about the things they had been shown.
The people who liked to ride bikes realised that the
government people would make sure the extra room
was made on the special road in the north. They also
decided that the signs the Transurbanians were going to
put up were all going to be in silly places, so they
worked out much better places to put the signs, so they
could still ride their bikes.
A few weeks later the people who liked to ride bikes and the Transurbanians had another meeting to talk
about all the ideas that the people who liked to ride bikes had come up with. The Transurbanians had no ideas of their own. No firm decisions were made about any of the ideas that the people who liked to ride bikes had presented, but in general Transurbanians did not like other people's ideas.