commuting snippets
Three facts about Bologna:
#1 The terrain is largely flat.
#2 It is a university town.
#3 Infrastructure is centered around pedestrians and micromobility, such as bikes and e-scooters.
It was fun to walk around and observe all the ways people get around without cars:
A young man on his bike. No helmet. Riding along with his hands in his jacket pockets, perfectly balanced. I could never.
Various people cycling with a friend perched on the rear rack.
A young woman rollerblading. She was wearing a long floral spring dress that flowed as she glided along. Oh, and she was eating a snack too.
A person on an e-scooter with two bottles of wine hugged to their chest with one arm.
A guy riding his bike, talking on his phone, and smoking.
A person on a skateboard with a dog on a leash.
It was a delight to observe such widespread micro-mobility and all the ways it played out.
Here in my hometown, car culture prevails. I do get around as much as I can on my e-bike, but the lack of safe bike lines is a limiting factor. Around the nearby university, however, cars are more secondary, which offers students, faculty, and staff the option to get around on foot or two wheels. Four wheels when you factor in skateboards.
What is the transportation culture in your town?
Alas, same town, same culture. However, I grew up in a large- geographically spread out- University town: Davis California, UCD. It’s flat. Very flat. And as kids and teens growing up with a single working -outside of the home- mother my brother and I were required, rain , shine, 110 degrees or 40
Degrees (Fahrenheit) to ride our bicycles to school, jobs, lessons, appointments- everything. And Davis has greenbelts and wide, well marked bike lanes, and bike cops, and helmet laws and bicycle illumination laws.