A few of us at Bug Labs are avid cyclists. We brave the traffic every morning and every evening as we commute to and from work. To us, biking in this city is a joy. We wanted to share our joy and experience with other riders and potential commuters and so we signed up to be marshals for this year's NYC Century Bike Tour.
Yesterday Ken, Melinda, Matt, his wife Cindy, their one year old son, and I made our way up to the top of Central Park at 7:30 in the morning and rode with groups of riders across New York. We were given red vests and our job was to lead groups of people along the ride and to help anyone who was having trouble. Most of the time moral support was all we needed to give. I spoke to a few people during the ride who were on their bikes for the first time in years, or had never been to Brooklyn before, or had never ridden on the streets of Manhattan.
Transportation is an important issue to all Americans. Our "car culture" is fueled, from a historical perspective, by frontierism and a sense of rugged individualism, and, from a contemporary perspective, by cheap oil, war, the automobile lobby, and habit. In a dense city like New York, transportation is an especially important issue. Cars are not sustainable or practical, and, in fact, most city dwellers don't use cars on a daily basis. We are forced to find alternative forms of transportation.
There is an advocacy group here in the city that strives to raise awareness and change the laws to undo the destructive force of a culture dependent on automobiles. The organization is suitably named Transportation Alternatives. Transportation Alternatives runs countless events every year, but one of the city's favorites is the annual NYC Century Bike Tour. This bike tour takes place every September and offers a number of rides for people of all abilities. It gives both out-of-towners and New Yorkers a chance to see the city in the best way many of us can imagine--from a bike. The annual ride also creates awareness among those who don't participate. Taxi drivers, delivery people, and pedestrians out for a Sunday morning stroll all notice the seemingly endless stream of happy faces rolling by on bikes the day of the ride.
At one point in the ride I was at an intersection in Brooklyn, one very near where I live, with a group of riders. When the light turned green I started heading straight, taking the route I normally take on my commute as if I was on auto-pilot. A couple of riders behind me were confused. On the turn-sheet, it indicated that I should have taken a left. We went back to the turn to stay with the turn-sheet, but the moment reminded me that I was sharing something familiar with people for whom it was brand new. Taking a short-cut was not the point. Showing this group how awesome Brooklyn is from a bike was the point. Helping out on the ride was perhaps a tiny, localized step, but it was also part of the greater strides Transportation Alternatives makes with events like the NYC Century Bike Tour.
Last year, Eric Chan, our lead designer, came up with this diagram (left) to help visualize what the market opportunity was for Bug Labs. We loved it so much it's now part of almost any discussion we have on the topic. While I didn't realize it at the time, it's really a reinterpretation of 