Shifting the balance of horsepower – An Irishman’s Diary about cycling in the city

In a small square off Dublin’s South Great George’s Street, recent renovations have included a mural commemorating the Easter Rising and, directly underneath, two new bicycle racks in the shape of cars. The juxtaposition was accidental, I think. Even so, it’s apt.

There is a revolution coming to the city, soon, in which the traditional underclass – in this case bike users – will rise and overthrow their colonial oppressors, cars. I make the prediction as a member of one of the rebel organisations, the ICA (Irish Cyclists Army), which already drills daily and openly among the four-wheeled traffic, albeit at risk of our lives.

But not for much longer, I hope. Having patiently perfected our discipline, etc, we are ready to strike. And when we do, we will be supported, or at least shown the way to go, by gallant allies in Europe, especially Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Oslo (which is banning all fossil-fuelled cars from its centre by 2019).

Insurgency

Mind you, I also predict this insurgency as someone who has been on the other side, and still is, sometimes. It’s only two years ago since I unwittingly retired from car ownership, mainly, at first, because my car had retired on me.

Then, pending the purchase of a new one, I realised how little excuse there was for someone who lives near a city centre and doesn’t need to commute to have a car full-time. So now instead, whenever necessary, I rent one by the hour (as you can do in Dublin and most big cities), or the day.

The new system is both cost-efficient and environmentally sound. But it also means that, for the first time in my life, I am ahead of a curve, because it is becoming ever-more clear that cars as we know them are going the way of the dinosaur.

Or if not the dinosaur, the horse.

Not for nothing are some of the new bike racks car-shaped. Often, they replace a parking space – at least temporarily – and in accommodating 10 bikes instead, make a point.

In leaving the outline shape, however, like that of a body at a crime scene, they also suggest a future when these machines will have vanished from city centres, at least in the form we currently know them.

The science fiction writers were wrong about flying cars. But if the Financial Times columnist Simon Kuper (a Dutchman, naturally) is right, car ownership will soon be as much a luxury as private planes are now. In the meantime, self-driving vehicles will be on the streets of European cities within five years, then gradually become the norm.

The results will include far fewer accidents and, among those who still need to commute, more time morning and evening to do valuable things, such as reading or sleeping.

Not being privately owned, most cars will be more like taxis, dropping you off and then picking up others elsewhere.

Since these autonomous machines can be constantly moving, they will not spend most of their days doing what the typical car does now – nothing. Nor will they drive around endlessly looking for parking spaces. On the contrary, among their many advantages will be the freeing up of acres of valuable street-side property now uselessly occupied.

It won't be all good, as Kuper warns. There will be enormous job losses among both drivers and, probably, traditional car manufacturers, as the likes of Google move in instead. But if anyone doubts it's coming, look around you at the vast numbers of people (including some drivers) now staring at smart phones and ask yourself where that technology was 10 years ago. Or, getting back to my two-wheeled rising, look at the spread of free city bike rentals, something also unthinkable a decade ago.

Fierce resistance

Speaking of gallant allies, I happened to be in Paris back during the heady summer of 2007, when the Velib bike scheme was introduced, and I even helped to storm the Place de la Bastille, despite fierce resistance from the retreating cars.

The city's Veliberation has since spawned similar movements all across Europe, including Dublin, where the clunky bikes are helping train a new generation of insurgent pedallers.

For the moment, we co-exist awkwardly with noisy, polluting, and dangerous cars and trucks.

We also have a troubled relationship with their imperialist urban designs, including traffic lights and one-way systems, which are solutions to problems they caused, not us.

But the city will be ours soon.

The trick, until that glorious day, is to stay alive.