this month, our challenge partner is ModeShift, an organization devoted to advocating for bicycling in the motor city, and the project has had me thinking about my personal methods of transportation.

i have avoided owning a car for the last seven years, vehemently denouncing car ownership and vowing never to own one myself. i masochistically love the challenge associated with having to get myself somewhere using my own two legs. i also hate things like pollution, congestion, buying gas, and having to park.

moreover, i love riding my fixed gear. when your butt’s on that seat and your legs, pedals, and wheels are one, it’s like a pure, joyous song. in college, i was an avid cyclist since everything i needed was within a 2 mile radius. when the roads got too covered in snow to navigate, i walked or took a reliable bus ride. it was simply more trouble to have a car than to not.

then i moved to detroit – a place with a lot of square footage and a history so entwined with that of the automobile industry, it’s impossible to untangle the two. i had a full-time, corporate job and a plethora of evening activities to attend. when my boyfriend and i split and i found myself car-less, i didn’t bike the 3.5 miles to work in the morning, i took a taxi. something about dress clothes and not wanting to make the effort.

when i finally bought a car, i immediately fell in love. it’s quick and easy and i have an independence that i’ve never experienced before. i’m shielded from the elements and can transport more than what fits in a backpack. i drive everywhere.

so i venerate cycling yet i’m avoiding it like the plague. let me explain the contradiction:

now, i am fundamentally against riding on the sidewalk. it’s slow, there are tons of obstacles, including unpredictable pedestrians, and it’s simply annoying. but road conditions here are miserable. avoiding a pothole takes you into traffic and it’s uncomfortable to ride over bumps and worry about popping a tire. poorly-lit streets make getting anywhere after dark dangerous and terrifying.

furthermore, there isn’t any bike infrastructure. i know of one bike lane in the entire city and you sure can’t count on there being a bike rack near your destination.

in this city, where the government has inadequacies of funding or standstills of bureaucracy, private entities step in to provide public services because it ultimately improves their bottom line. the cogs of realization are turning, but businesses could really benefit from investing in making detroit bikeable.

together with ModeShift, Challenge Detroit is developing the framework for implementable parking, safety awareness, and route mapping programs for cyclists to foster a more hospitable environment on the roads of detroit.