Is San Francisco Catching Up?
Anyone who has travelled to countries in Europe such as Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands, may have noticed the proliferation of bike riders in the city streets. We saw bicycles everywhere. I was amazed by the size of the bicycle parking lot we saw in Amsterdam, where we visited in 2010. It was multi-leveled, and I had to wonder how the owners could find their bikes. One of the problems of living in small city dwellings is where to store your valuable means of transportation. Some bicycles are very expensive. On Google I found that among “The world’s most expensive bikes” the least expensive was priced at $34,425.00, and the most expensive one called “The Butterfly Madonna” can be purchased for just $500,000.00. If this is not in your budget, you might consider Bike Sharing.
I recently visited 24th Street in San Francisco, and I picked up the local newspaper, “The Noe Valley Voice”. Inside was an article, “Bike Share Coming to Noe Valley”, which prompted me to write this story. And then the following day, I read an article in the “San Francisco Chronicle” titled, “Bike Share Set to Wheel into Bay Station”.
Cycling in San Francisco has grown in popularity in recent years, aided by improving the cycling infrastructure. At the end of 2013, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) attempted to count how many bikes there are on the streets, which amounted to 23,225 bikes, about a 96% increase since 2005. As more young people move to San Francisco, the number of bikes seems to grow. But this also creates a challenge. One bike is stolen in our city every three hours, and most of them are never recovered because they’re quickly disassembled in chop shops. When my daughter Tamar lived in Manhattan, her vintage 3 speed bicycles that she used to ride around downtown NYC, were snitched a number of times, only to be replaced with another old one, just to continue the recycling process. Regardless whether you cycle to work or just for pleasure, protect yourself. Enjoy and Share.
P.S. It is always fun to photograph bicycles. I encounter them everywhere. Perhaps one day their images will get into my next books.
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