Backstory: In Marin County, walkers, bikers, and hikers rule the road

Here, if you don't walk, run, or ride a bike, it's as if you are personally responsible for global warming.

By Chuck Cohen

from the March 23, 2007 edition

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I AM DRIVING through Mill Valley in Marin County, California. I am happy. And why shouldn't I be? I am surrounded by green mountains and towering redwoods. I am tooling along well under the speed limit on my way to lunch.

Then, in the middle of the block, I come to a squealing stop. I am no longer happy. Pedestrian Power is about to significantly slow down my life and delay my meal. In front of me, a couple is crossing. Another couple, coming the other way, joins them in the middle of the street. All four people stop. They hug. They exchange tofu recipes. They make plans for dinner and discuss where to ski next winter.

And yet, in all that time, nobody, no one in the line of cars stopped behind me or the line going the other way, dares to honk a horn. Not one driver leans out and shouts what any other driver in America would yell, "Move!"

The problem is, in Marin County, where I live, a certain shame is associated with owning, let alone driving, a car. In the most politically correct 519 square miles in America, if you don't walk, run, or ride a bike, it is as if you are personally responsible for global warming. As if you as well as your car are emitting noxious fumes.

This, no doubt, explains why it is so difficult for Marin County pedestrians to keep sneers off their face as they stroll languidly across the street. Or as they stop to look up and check the movement of the clouds, or reach down to save a discarded spinach leaf from being run over. If, by chance, they happen to glance over at the waiting line of cars, the best you can expect is a sorrowful shake of the head to indicate that you probably also purchase nonorganic tomatoes.

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