I Couldn't Do It for The Lorax

I spent some quality time at The Biggest Picture, RVA's annual environmental film fest, today but I didn't see Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax." I had seen it at last year's festival and 9:40 was just too early this morning (or maybe last night was just too late).

What I did see was "Return of the Scorcher," director Ted White's documentary from 17 years ago about bike culture, which was interesting, if a bit dated. White also took questions after the film and had generally good things to say about Richmond as a biking town after spending yesterday and last night riding all over the place. His main point seemed to be that bikers can't wait for biking improvements and policy to take to the streets. According to him, the more bikers on the road, the faster change will come.

The second film I saw was "Contested Streets," a film with some amazing archival footage from NYC's streets at the turn of the last century. Between the congestion of the horses, carts, people and dung, it looked like an altogether unpleasant place to be. The hope at the time was that cars would improve the situation and, of course, they only exacerbated it, minus the horse poop. The film grabbed me with its images from Amsterdam particularly because they have been so successful in creating a biking citizenry. This country could take some major lessons from their 40-year development of a human-focused road system. Baby steps, people, but we know it can be done. And I, for one, would like to get started.