Bicycling
with Mark Parman Thoughts turn to Italy, Oprah and mom's driving their kids around  I'm thinking of moving to Italy – land of Campagnolo and Bianchi, espresso and
pasta primavera and an endless supply of Rode Super Blue, one of my favorite kick waxes. I'd live up in the northern part of the country in Lombardy or the Piedmont, maybe in Milan or Turin. This way I'd be close enough to the mountains to ski, yet close enough to the valleys so I could ride in the warm Mediterranean sun. The best of both worlds.
Two things are pushing me towards Italy, towards jumping aboard a plane and
turning expatriate. First, I read over the Internet that the Oprah Winfrey juggernaut of stupidity is considering filming a show calling for a ban on bicycles in metropolitan areas. Perhaps the queen of American pop culture was cut off by a bicycle messenger on her way to a favorite all-you-can-eat buffet or perhaps she can't stand the sight off all those fit bodies in Lycra zipping by her limo as it sits stuck in traffic and smog, the road rage smoldering just under the surface.
Italy, on the other hand, is progressively moving in the other direction, and acting very un-American I might add. Italy has started banning cars from certain cities on Sundays. The Italians call these car-free days, and even though it may only be a token gesture, it's a step in the right direction.
On Sunday, February 6, 150 Italian cities and towns banned all private internal combustion vehicles from
their streets; public transportation was excluded from the bans. In other words, people had to walk, peddle a bike or ride the bus if they wanted to move around. Italians couldn't drive their private cars in the cities that volunteered to hold the ban, including Rome, Milan, Naples, Genoa and Florence. This is saying a lot considering Italy is also the land of Ferrari and Alfa Romeo.
Environmental Minister Edo Ronchi, who zipped around the streets of Rome's Piazza Venezia on an electric bicycle (something an American politician would never stoop to do) with his two-year-old son Nicolo, campaigned for the ban, but still let individual cities decide for themselves if they would drive or park their cars. Several cities didn't participate: Venice, Messina and Taranto. Palermo went furthest, as the Sicilians
in that city will close off their metropolitan area for the first 17 Sundays of the year, until the end of May.
Last September, Ronchi also organized a car-free day, but only 92 towns and cities participated. March 5, April 9 and May 7 are also slated as car-free and Ronchi hopes the ban will continue to grow beyond 150 villages and cities. He feels these four Sundays "will mark a turning point in urban transport and win over skeptics."
But even a country as progressive as Italy has its skeptics. Ivo Allegrini, head of the air pollution department at the NRC (National Research Center) felt that the carless Sundays would only reduce pollution by two percent, merely a token gesture. Bans on a weekday would reduce pollution seven percent, but Allegrini claimed that would not drastically improve air quality, from which the country suffers. Cities in or around the
mountains, Milan and Turin, like Denver or Los Angeles, suffer severe smog, particularly in winter and on humid days.
At least the Italians are trying. We, on the other hand, are moving in the opposite direction, blindly following our pop icons, like Miss Oprah. We simply tune in our TVs, and Oprah will tell us exactly how to think. She's simply playing to the masses, telling them what they want to hear, tickling itching ears. We really want
to drive as much as we possibly can, and the everyday American motorist would feel much better if bikes were banned completely – after all, they're not only dangerous but also a nuisance, just like pedestrians.
Car-free days are unthinkable in this country for several reasons. First of all, gas is relatively cheap. The price at the pump has steadily risen lately, and as I write this is at an all-time high, but it still hasn't bitten us
to the point where we've begun to limit our driving. We simply have too much disposable income. I'm seeing the same old traffic jams, the endless rush hour procession of one driver per car.
We've built our culture and structured our society around the automobile. Driving is an entitlement, and mobility and convenience take priority in our culture. We think nothing of commuting 30 miles one way to
work. As silent sporters, we think nothing of driving 300 miles to find snow or mountain bike trails. I'm hoping the recently canceled American Birkebeiner gets us to thinking about global warming and all the CO2 we're spewing into the atmosphere.
Our love affair with the auto has led us to design our communities around this technology. New neighborhoods go up without sidewalks – who needs them anyway? We can drive. We can no longer
bicycle or walk to shopping areas. When is the last time you saw someone walk or ride a bike to Wal-Mart, Shopko or Kmart? Those stores and their gargantuan parking lots are designed for mobile shoppers, for the automobile.
We shun mass transit. The buses where I live in Wausau, Wis., rarely carry more than two or three passengers. They're so empty I wonder how the line stays in business. Kids old enough to drive rarely take
the bus to school anymore, which is free. A handful ride or walk. Mom drives the bulk of them.
Mass transit and bicycles are there for the unfortunates in our society. The affluent, the beautiful people, they couldn't possibly stoop to using such transportation. Only the young and the old, the outcasts and the freethinkers use alternative transportation. These days most people even consider their God-given legs as alternative transportation. What? You want me to walk?
Let's face it, we're downright lazy. Not only physically, but mentally. That's why we drive so much. We can't even think of alternatives anymore.
These aren't uplifting thoughts for my first column of the new millennium, but until we see $3 gas or we're literally choking on smog, maybe then we'll think about bicycles. Maybe then we'll look to the Italians for advice. Until then, I'll continue to dream of living there, in a country without Oprah.
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