Peak chicken?
What I Saw At the Inauguration:
The traffic was so bad, and so chaotically handled, that everyone had a story. Mine: Stuck for more than an hour near the Mall one night and late for an appointment, I jumped out of a car and hailed an open-air bicycle with a backseat. The driver threw a blanket on me and began to pump the peddles. "What is this called?" I shouted as we raced around limos and town cars. I expected some politically correct name like Energy Saving Mobile Apparatus. He looked back at me quizzically. "A rickshaw!" We got there on time, 15 blocks in four minutes, and like a happy capitalist, the driver, gauging the moment, the need and the competition, opened bidding at $25. I was grateful to pay.
Gwadzilla in Washington DC has lots of bike and rickshaw photos from the inauguration:
- WABA bike valet. In spite of freezing conditions, an estimated 1.4% of inauguration attendees arrived by bicycle.
- These guys made some money.
- Bikes in DC.
- No other choices.
I was there, and spoke to at least one guy who cycled to the gates of the mall, as well as saw a ton of rickshaws in Adam's Morgan. None on inauguration day though--my guess is that demand FAR outweighed supply. In afterthought I kind of wish I'd had a Rickshaw, I couldve made a killing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by, Kit, and letting us know how things were there.
ReplyDelete