Hidden Lanes
by Jim McGurn

They were there all the time, but we simply hadn't noticed them. Hundreds of thousands of kilometres of cycle lane giving us direct routes through every city centre and suburb in the world. The problem is that we can't use them yet, because they're hidden under the wheels of millions of parked cars. On-street car parking is an often forgotten disbenefit of our car culture. Roads are meant for movement, not parking, and what are now unsightly linear car parks would make great bike paths. Motor traffic is a problem for cyclists not only when it's on the move, but also when it's doing nothing at all.

Until they invent the collapsible car, which owners can take indoors with them, or non-collapsible politicians who will stand up for alternatives in transport, there is fat chance of us getting our bike lanes. Let's be cynical about it. If the space beneath all those parked cars did become available, it would probably be used for an extra lane of moving traffic, which would pretty soon clog up anyway and become a line of sluggish traffic: best defined as parked ars which move occasionally and keep their engines running.

Restrictions on on-street parking would lead to more parking on pavements (sidewalks). This has been such a problem in some cities that some activists have begun bumping parked cars back onto the road. As a form of protest it's nothing new, but the latest campaigning technique in Munich, Germany, is causing a stir. it's called 'car-walking', and involves pedestrians simply walking right over the top of cars illegally blocking their route. They then continue their perambulations as if nothing had happened. Car-walking is being promoted by pro-pedestrian pressure groups, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as a new hobby pursuit, mainly to attract the attention of the media to the underlying problem. Car-walking is provocative but then so is pavement parking. It's yet another way of reminding the world that our traffic problems are not acceptable simply because they are normal.

We all have our different ways of opening up people's minds to new ways of travelling, of helping to give them fresh eyes to see and understand such wonders as the bicycle. Cycling is a very public act, and so, in a way, we are all 'opinion-formers'. And a single cyclist getting places in the city will always be a far more eloquent animal than a row of parked cars playing dumb.