September 15, 2019
Hi gang! How are you all?
How is the two-wheeling going? I hope you said well, or something even better. My own wheels are still spinning along merrily enough, I reckon. There have been a few bicycle-related events that I’ve noted recently:
2. A kid riding a bike across a busy intersection in Blair was hit by a person driving a semi-truck and killed
These events range from somber to tragic and it just sometimes seems that our local transportation opportunities and options are forever limited to a rather narrow rut, that of the auto-man empire. Bike lanes were installed along Fort Crook Road in 2013. The current mayor has apparently had enough of them.
Despite the impending doom of the Bellevue bike lanes, there ModeShiftOmaha had an interesting post showing bike lane use of the Fort Crook corridor using a Strava heat map. The heat map, as I understand it, does not show how fast people zoom along this corridor on their 2-wheeled carbonized zoommobiles. Instead it illustrates volume of use over a given time. Once I had observed this post, it made me reevaluate my lack of Strava use over the past one year or so. I stopped using Strava awhile back because I stopped signing up for various cycling-related challenges because the one in Omaha was discontinued. Also, activating the app right before leaving for my bike rides may have contributed to the temporary loss of my phone and/or wallet because I may have absent-mindedly ridden off without zipping the lid on my pannier after stowing the phone there? Anyway, the simpler the better, as far as I am concerned. Hence my penchant for single-speed bicycles and sending postcards to convey thoughts and/or ideas. However, if pro-bicycling organizations might possibly use Strava data to support the expansion of bicycle-friendly bike infrastructure, then maybe I should re-activate! So I did.
The fatality in Blair happened shortly after another incident in which a child was struck by a person driving an SUV and killed while attempting to cross a street in downtown Papillion. I hope that we can make these and other intersections safer so that these types of things don't keep happening. I am guessing there are a few things that could be done to help. It seems obvious to me that we can't always rely on attentive drivers avoiding collisions with small humans. Although I would gladly defer to others who have studied these types of intersections, I have often thought that it would be nice to have a few intersections marked as pedestrian/bicycle routes with a yellow diamond sign and maybe some blinking lights.
Sarah Johnson has been and, I am fairly confident, will continue to be an inspirational proponent for improving bicycling opportunities here in Omaha. Although I have only met her a couple times, she is extremely personable and relatable and I am always impressed by her accurate and forthright critiques of bicycle infrastructure improvements: often noted how these measures are mostly feel-good projects that don't substantially add to the bike-ability of our fair to middling city. Thank you SJ.
So those are a few of the current bicycle-related events I’ve been noticing lately.
Another thing I’ve noticed lately is that I am weaker and suckier at mountainous bicycling than ever before! My last foray out to Tranquility Park I decided to ride from my home to my friend Rich’s home prior to hitting the dirt. I felt kind of tired after my 6 or 7 mile ride to Rich’s place, and that may have contributed to how hard and often I hit the dirt – thrice to be specific! That might not seem like a lot to some, but my appetite for crashing has diminished quite significantly recently. I’ve got responsibilities, I recover more slowly than I used to, and I just haven't gotten out to do much mountainous bicycling lately, which makes me rightfully not-very-confident in my ability to get rad. Fortunately no injuries to speak of, just a few scrapes and a fair bit of dirt.
So, to summarize, the turkeys are trying to keep the bicyclers off the roads.
But the bicyclers can use Strava (and similar apps) to push back against those turkeys and bring the auto-man empire into compliance with the Allies’ Complete Streets (and similar) programs that are attempting to prevent adding to the severity of ongoing problems with growing cities and growing numbers of automobiles. Also, the bicycler is like the scrawny suburban fox that prowls largely unnoticed, but is able to swiftly jump over lazy brown dogs and, when the time is right, might successfully make a meal out of those delicious wild suburban turkeys!
Or at least a goose.
Foxily yours,
BSO
