Cyclists present challenge to to Auto-Dependent Lifestyle

Press Action posted an interesting interview with Ken Coughlin, of Transportation Alternatives, last month.

Here’s a sentence you don’t expect to read on the CNN website: “As gas prices climb to record highs, more Americans seem to be abandoning their cars and biking to work to save money at the pump.” Thus, in the same way Mad Cow fears spurred new interest in vegetarianism, the current gas crisis may inadvertently deliver something else the planet really needs: less cars, more bikes. But bikers beware: this is an uphill battle.

Ken Coughlin, a board member of Transportation Alternatives (TA), a 5,500-member NYC-area non-profit citizens group working for “better bicycling, walking and public transit, and fewer cars,” says: “New York’s streets and most streets elsewhere in the country are ruled by the automobile, and bikes are at best an afterthought. Everyone knows this—drivers, cyclists, pedestrians.”

Seems the organization has its sights on Central Park in New York:

Coughlin and TA are part of a growing movement that is challenging the auto-dependent lifestyle. One example is their high profile effort to create a “car-free Central Park,” which has mobilized a broad coalition in the Big Apple. Coughlin calls that campaign, “the most perfect symbol of our society’s totally skewed transportation policies.”

Read the whole thing here ( Just ignore the whining about the cops picking on Critical Mass. ).

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