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Cycling to a better place

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In honour of International Women’s Day, a cycling group organized a bike ride on 8 March. I joined in, and again discovered the sensation of surprise at how small the city is when I am traveling by bicycle. Distances that normally take 40 minutes to an hour or more by car are easily traversed in less than half the time by bicycle, even (or especially) in rush hour traffic. During one of the stops, I saw a severely malnourished infant. The streets are blocked with cars and SUVs, making it nearly impossible to move safely or conveniently by other modes; enormous amounts are spent on private transport while public transport is neglected. And with the billions of dollars going into cars, fuel, and infrastructure to support them, there is no money to ensure that nobody in the population need live in desperate poverty. On the bright side, the ride was fairly well attended and the number of women willing to defy convention and cycle in Dhaka is growing; the number of cyclists overall is also growing as people grow increasingly frustrated with the congestion. Bicycles of course can’t solve all the problems in Dhaka, but they could reduce a number of them to the point where much that is impossible could become manageable, freeing energy and resources to deal with everything else.