A child in Space

I wonder what it was like. Seattle today, 50 years ago. That thing up in the air making its first trip March 24 1962. A futuristic train soaring way up, on a concrete foundation. People on the ground, dressed up in spring coats and hats. Watching, stretched necks, big eyes. The nation’s first full scale monorail system, The Seattle Center Monorail!

It must have been absolutely spectacular!! The world moving in to Space Age, and Seattle taking the lead! Still today, 50 years later, the Monorail feels like an ahead of its time transportation on its safe, solid and eternal route between Seattle Center and Downtown Westlake Center. Adding the element of the ride passing inside the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project Museum in the year of 2000 makes the space dreams still alive.

Personally, I love it! I love the idea of it, I love the sound of it, I love the convenience of it, and I love all the beautiful pictures it makes! From every angle: combined with the Space Needle, the greenery, the arches of the Science center, the EMP Museum, the mountains and the downtown high rises.

My first ride with the Monorail was pretty much exactly 19 years ago. I arrived in Seattle the first time March 23 1993, and the 25th we hopped on the bus in Kirkland where we had landed, and paid our first visit to the heart of Seattle. One little son held tight in each hand in this unfamiliar and quite intimidating new place. Trouble & Trouble 4 and 6 years old in brightly striped handmade Swedish pants, trusting their parents knowing the world. Well, the parents needed hands to hold too, and they grabbed Annie and Harold’s who became Trouble & Trouble’s American grandparents and our benefactors and Seattle guides: “You got to ride the Monorail, the boys will love it!” And so we did. And of course they loved it! The note in my journal that day says: “We went with the railway above the ground”. It was my second day in Seattle and I hadn’t quite caught the name yet. For a grown up there is something very special experiencing the world through a child’s open, innocent and unprejudiced eyes, and reading my journal I feel like I was a child myself that day.

And, I’m thinking, maybe that was what this day was like 50 years ago today. Seattle watching the city’s entrance in Space Age 1962. Like a child.

Making a safe ride

March, I love it! In Seattle cherry blossom is sprinkling the city with pink clouds. In Umeå the 1,5 foot of heavy snow is finally sliding from the roofs, collapsing from trees in loud splashes. The landscape has been frozen since Christmas, it was a very white and serious winter, and now it’s loosing its grip. The cramp is releasing, we can breath again!

When I was a little girl riding my bike wasn’t allowed until the streets were dry, no melting water anywhere. Bikes were a summer tool for fun and transportation. Oh, what a wait. At this latitude mostly until May.

Umeå is a big biking town, the Beijing of Scandinavia. During spring, summer and fall, the residents of Umeå move in fast wheeling crowds across the vast and mostly flat city. Twenty years ago we allowed the bike its winter break when the first snow fell in November, stored in garage or basements until streets were dry and safe again. Those were the days. Today those poor things are equipped with winter tires having to carry us around in feet of hardly passable white stuff. And this time of year as the winter road melts during the day and then freezes again during night, we slide around on black ice, and yes, the ER is full of broken wrists and ankles.

The typical bicycle rider in Umeå on a regular day is transporting him/herself on a regular bike in regular clothes, briefcase or groceries in a bicycle basket in front of the handle bar or in the back. Kind of very casual, straight up sitting, mostly without helmet, the bike like a comfortable extension of the body.

The bike rider in Seattle on the other hand, well that’s a completely different ball game, as my 80 + friend Helen would have expressed it. Here is a person lying over the racing bike, calves pumping in slim biking clothes, water bottle attached to bicycle frame, streamlined helmet matching the slim outfit. Riding the bike in Seattle is serious business, an aggressive art. And it has to; Seattleites are competing with cars on regular streets with highly aggressive traffic. And yes, the ERs are highly frequented by cyclists.

Both cities are working on being more bicycle-friendly and safe though. Every neighborhood in Umeå built from the 60ies and forward is equipped with bicycle lanes separated from the streets. You can actually move across town without having to interfere with cars. Seattle is planning on “urban greenways”, designated streets often parallel to arterials but much quieter — that offer everyone from cyclists to pedestrians and people in wheelchairs safer ways to get around without having to drive. But Seattle is a big city and this is a big undertaking. In Umeå, we just have to wait until May for the bike lanes to be dry and comfortable. In Seattle it will take years to create a safe bicycle environment. But it’s worth waiting for. Until then, have a safe ride!