Interesting how bold the cyclists are. I wonder why they don’t seem to fear being tipped over by the streetcar tracks? They ride right across them, often at only a slight angle, and don’t get channeled into them. Were tracks built somehow with less of a gap between track and street? Were the tires of the bicycles fatter?

This is a marvelous film because it also captures an era where all these transportation modes are either beginning, ending or right in their heyday. Modern cycling as we know it developed in the 1880s roughly, and was really at its height in 1907. Streetcars, electric ones, were relatively new then but completely dominant. Cars were just beginning. Walking of course, had always been around.

Could we get back to some modern version of that? What I think of when I watch this are these incredibly expensive light rail systems, and which seem to be built with so little subtlety. They are typically separated from the street, and an intrusion into it. Even modern streetcar systems usually do not blend so seamlessly as this Barcelona one did. Could we get back to that?