Observations on Bikes in New Orleans (Comments: 0)

In early December, I spent a few days in New Orleans. I saw a lot of bikes, which was surprising to me. They have a different mentality about their bikes down there- it was eye-opening.

I saw a lot of trikes with rear baskets. Bright, fun colors. Most of the bikes I saw were cruiser types. People don’t ride around all kitted up. I saw no spandex, no bike jerseys. I didn’t see many helmets and almost no day glo. At night, the streets are so well lit, and wide, that you don’t have to disguise yourself as a Christmas tree to ride around. I was shocked. I kept thinking “that is NOT safe” and my brain threw red flags all over the place. But then I started to realize that all of the defensive measures are not really necessary in The Big Easy. It didn’t seem to me that anybody was going to be hit by a car there.

I saw a lot of really nice bikes locked up in less than perfect ways, but at least reasonable ways, which meant to me that people know how to lock their bikes and are not worried about having their nice bike stolen. This is a far cry from our little town, where people break into your house to steal your beat up piece of crap bike.

A neat thing was the Canal Streetcar. It goes up and down the center of Canal Street. Reasonable public transportation, for sure, but I saw a lot of bikes riding up and down the streetcar lane. I don’t know if it was “legal” but the cops didn’t mind. I thought it was a really clever use of public transportation space.

(Oh, yeah, yay RocBike is back up!)

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