Traffic

I love to watch the traffic from our 17th-floor apartment. It's like a carefully choreographed ballet. There are three sections: the middle one is supposedly for cars, trucks, and buses; the lane nearest the curb is ostensibly for bicycles and motorcycles; and the sidewalk is for pedestrians. In reality, things are a lot more fluid. Vehicles go where they want. Bikes and motorcycles are on the sidewalk as a matter of course (to be fair, they sometimes are entitled to HALF of it); cars drive on it occasionally. People walk in the cyclists' lane. It's amazing from above. Being out in it, however, is another matter. Nothing stops for nobody; everyone and everything just keeps moving. Cyclists don't always stop for red lights. All vehicles can turn right anytime, with no stopping. When I'm out walking, I can't flinch and freeze if a bus seems to be heading straight for me. I try to remember that if I just keep going, that bus will miss me by a centimeter, as the driver has carefully calibrated. Our intricate dance would look beautiful from the 17th floor.