Today the word 'psychogeography' came back to me via the radio, and it's timely, because there's definitely a psychogeography for each mode of travel. Cycling puts you in curious netherworld between pedestrians and drivers. Neither pavements nor roads are particularly well-suited to cycling, and the best way to negotiate a city by bike is to use bits of both. You can plod around with and between pedestrians, or put your foot down and keep up with the belching traffic. You have to be on high alert. There is always a risk that drivers won't make allowances for you, but a much greater tendency for pedestrians not to notice you and walk out in front of you, so you have to do all the noticing. More specifically, you learn a new knowledge of your city based on which gear to be in for which gradient, which streets to avoid because they're too steep to climb, where the dropped kerbs are, where the potentially capsizing potholes are, which traffic lights to approach slowly and which to hurtle towards at full tilt, and so on. Gradually you realise that you carry different mental maps of the same place, depending on the mode of travel you happen to be using at the time.
Today's really interesting experience has been going back to walking for a day, after several days of cycling. Suddenly it dawns on you that while walking is mode of travel, it is also a way of living - in a way that no other mode can really live up to - because only when you're walking can you really notice the world around you as space, rather than as route. You can observe, for example, how the demolition of a building has opened up a new vista of a street, and let a little extra light into that part of the city. That sets you off wondering what will happen to the demolition site. The law of averages suggests that within a few months there'll be a building of even less architectural merit than its predecessor and with at least as much skill at cutting out views and light. What if it were remodelled as a public space? What would the space be used for? How would the city make such a space an economically viable proposition? Would it make the city a better, more civilised place, or would it become a haven for shabby fellows contemplating their fate with a bottle of Buckfast Tonic Wine? Is building more shiny buildings, hiring armies of high-visibility 'city ambassadors' and imposing no-drink zones really an effective way to treat the Buckfasters?
Back to the reassuring whirr of chains, gears and tyres. Enough contemplation.
AW.
