or
"One way - or Another - We're Gonna Getcha."

People talk a lot about how Portland is a model bicycle community. Through aggressuve engineering and forsightful land use they've managed to create a city that is easy for the everyman or everywoman to bike in. Last year they were recognised as the first major American city to earn the "Platinum" level bicycle friendly community designation from the League of American Bicyclists. Jeff Mapes devotes an entire chapter of his book "Pedalling Revolution" to Portland. Recession notwithstanding, Portland has managed to prosper and has the "creative class" emigrating there in droves. That's the sunny, happy model of bicycle adoption.

But there's another, darker, model. Detroit has shrunk so much, that there's more than enough infrastructure left for bicycles and drivers to "share the road". As a result, some residents are hailing it as a bicycling utopia-in-waiting.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country hangs in a balance between the two visions. As oil prices continue to rachet back up, will we respond by quickly adopting the Portland model, and prospering? Or will we collapse like Detroit, and all have to ride bicycles because that's what we can afford. The rest of the country is poised on the top of the oil bubble, not sure yet if they'll fall left or right. The only way they don't go either left or right is if the automotive energy crisis is solved - Good luck with that!