Could Detroit be a bicycle utopia... or is it one already?
Excerpt:
A bike gives you the chance to soak up what’s left, hidden
neighborhoods like Indian Village with its dappled lanes and old
eclectic mansions. Out near the fabled Eight Mile Road you can cruise
past an almost forgotten but now happily restored Frank Lloyd Wright
house. Downtown, you can circle the ruins of the old Michigan Central
Depot.
Our abandoned landscape suggests an opportunity that
alternative-transportation proponents should consider: instead of
raging against their cities’ internal combustion machines, they might
consider a tactical retreat to the city that cars have pretty much
abandoned.
Despite the press, survival here isn’t so hard.
Businesses like the Wheelhouse and the Hub have already shown how well
Detroit can work as a new business hothouse. With the legendarily
affordable real estate and without needing to pay for car payments, gas
or insurance, bicyclists could rebuild Detroit into a model of a
two-wheeled economy. They could pass laws promoting bikes over cars and
designate entire avenues motor-free zones, which, given the state of
many of them now, wouldn’t be so much of a stretch.
Read the entire article
here.
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