Traffic Analysis

The travel writer Colin Thubron elaborates on his claim that “[t]he choice to travel on foot is a transforming one”:

Many people have remarked on the curious relationship between walking and thinking. The rhythm of the body seems to free the mind, just as the rhythm of a mother’s walk (it is imagined) puts at rest her babe-in-arms. Solvitur ambulando, declared the ancients: “it is solved by walking”. Wordsworth wrote many of his poems on the move, as did John Clare. Nietzsche claimed to have made all his philosophical discoveries while walking, and Kierkegaard wrote that “I have walked myself into my best thoughts.”

Emma Duncan, however, prefers to travel by bike, calling cycling “a great equaliser”:

Other types of traveller can, if they spend enough, set themselves apart from their fellows. Train-lovers can take the Orient Express; drivers splash out on slick sports cars; a private jet allows air travellers to avoid the hell of the airport terminal. But cyclists are all on a level; all have to meet each other’s eyes. Even the priciest bike cannot make cycling glamorous. However much a cyclist spends, he will still look faintly ridiculous—crouched over the handlebars, pedalling furiously, weaving round obstacles, determined to get somewhere, rather as man travels through life.

(Photo by Flickr user KJGarbutt)