109. Smug

With a face as smug as any look Gingrich or Santorum could come up with, he paused as I passed, walking my new bike up a very steep hill a few blocks from home and said, "don't do hills, huh?"

You know, that guy walking a dog about the size of a loaf of bread, with his wife and daughter dutifully walking a few steps behind.

No, I replied, glancing at my back tire, I don't do flats.  Oh

My stolen bike from last year?--that was the one I had put all the work into with super tough inner tubes and liners.  So that process will start again; at least I have don't have to repeat all the work in finding out the best tube/tire.  I like the tire on my new bike, so just need the tube.  Don't care if it weighs more or costs more.  Flats are a bummer

108. Civic Pride

Seattle ended up as #10 in the top 50 cities for bicycles published by bicycle magazine.  Portland is #1 with Seattle outranked by the likes of NYC, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Boulder.

Hey, do any of those cities have 100% of their public busses with fold-down bicycle racks?

Must admit, though,  I am impressed by Portland's enthusiasm, Minneapolis' dedicated bikeways, Washington's rent-a-bike system (soon to be joined by NYC), and most of all, by NYC's bicycle traffic lights.

107. "We Have the Best *** in the World"

Go ahead, plug in "healthcare," or "education," or "military," or "political system" or whatever, and most Americans will say, yes we do.  Which means of course that we can't look overseas for suggestions about how to improve our whatever, because that would imply that we may not be the best after all.

But if it's public transportation that is the issue at hand, I think even the most fervent patriot would pause. Consider the world-wide "bus rapid transit" systems (BRT) throughout the world which include the following characteristics that I have seen in Guatemala City, Quito, Guayaquil, and Lima:

1. Designated (bus-only) lanes
2. Off-bus fare collection
3. Level boarding
4. Designated, bus-only lanes.
5. Express stops

A handful of U.S. cities are trying various parts of BRT, but not to the scale seen overseas. "Yes we can" ... learn from others.