"It’s very easy for an L.A. driver to think that our city is as choked with humanity as Manhattan. From the driver’s point of view, that’s increasingly true—there are more and more evenings when every major street is stopped dead, and going a few miles can take hours. At work the next day, people grimly shake their heads and lament what’s becoming of the city. Not only has riding my bike enabled me to glide past all this gridlock (in fact, I’m often not even aware it’s happening), but it has made me realize that it’s an illusion. The city itself is not gridlocked—merely the narrow asphalt ribbons onto which we squeeze all our single-occupant cars. On the back streets I now take, everything is quiet and serene. The main roads may mimic Times Square on New Year’s Eve, but the areas between L.A.’s clogged arteries comprise mile after square mile of low-density, low-stress residential bliss (the same is true, I suspect, of most American cities)."

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
- George Santayana

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