The virtuous cycle of non-excluded people blazing the trail
Traffic is scary, for everyone. In my home region, Emilia-Romagna, we have a strong cycling tradition – it is unusually flat for Italy, and that helps. When I moved to Milano in 2001, I found cycling much more difficult because of a deadly combination of cobblestones, tram tracks and just sheer traffic nastyness. Bicycle lanes where almost absent. As a consequence, only “extreme cycling” happened: young, fit men who wore tactical backpacks, army boots and yelled at drivers, and even kicked at their cars. I could just about cope: my (Swedish) wife refused to cycle, saying it was too dangerous. Extreme bikers did things like this:
But over the years those extreme people have become sort of cool. A company called Urban Bike Messengers established a bicycle-based delivery service. They cultivated an image of green, cool and a bit scary. Rumour was that, to become a messenger, you had to pass a near-impossible test of crossing the city only in minutes. This encouraged more people to go out and bike. This, in turn, made biking a little safer for everyone, because drivers learned to be a little more attentive. So even more people got out. By the time I left the city, the Decathlon shop in Cairoli was selling 50 to 100 bicycles a day. Eventually, the city council started to take cyclists a bit more seriously; traffic was restricted in the center, some slightly better bike lanes appeared.
What this story has to teach is that, perhaps, if you want to make life better for paraplegics you have to start from the urban sport enthusiasts. Which is, after all, the same old story of finding a group of early adopters that pave the way (literally, in this case) for everyone else.