I love a bit of vision. I mean proper vision. I’m not talking ‘the faculty or state of being able to see‘, but rather ‘the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom‘. Let’s think about two words here.
Imagination.
Wisdom.
I think I see both in the video above. I think I see a concrete jungle of high rise buildings and wide boulevards and heavy traffic and increasing population. I think I see the vision to move beyond the accepted norm. I think I see the ability to plan out structured and safe routes that use available space with imagination.
I know I see wisdom.
Tell me that you don’t feel NYC is barely recognisable. Having been there a couple of times – and once, memorably, to run the marathon – it is not a city that I would have associated with well planned cycle lanes and spaces that are gradually morphing into people-centric. Its when I see videos like this that I feel the sharp blade of a very double edged sword; pleasure in seeing cycling success (and vision, imagination, wisdom), tempered with frustration that a city like mine regularly misses opportunities to aspire to the same. To my mind success stories in the truly big cities succeed in exposing the failings in cities with perhaps more freedom to act. So come on Cardiff, you beautiful, glorious, largely flat, undeniably tiny little city – let’s get cracking with infrastructure that is safe to use, beautiful to look at, putting cyclists on our roads and pedestrians back on our streets .
Because that’s what safer city spaces encourage. Use by all.
Images via momentum magazine
CycleStuff 
Reblogged this on PedalWORKS.
Reblogged this on Kitesurf Bike rambling and commented:
This realisation that things aren’t right with infrastructure and that change with proper insight is needed throughout the UK ….
Completely agree.