I bike to work!

Thanks to the warm and relatively snow-free weather, winter riding has grown in leaps and bounds this year in Dorchester as well as all over Boston. Dotriderblog hasn’t missed a day in January riding to work. It took until the end of February to log 200 miles and at this writing 200 will be surpassed before the end of the day. Not a day goes by when I don’t see plenty of other riders out and about finding their way, no matter the conditions.

I haven’t always been a winter rider, but this is now the 5th year running that I’ve ridden to work at least once a week every week. With the right clothing plus making an old Dahon picked up at a local yard sale the foul weather bike (can ride the T if it is totally yucky), we’re committed to the point where it won’t just be a day each week streak. The ‘every day except when we drive for work or leave town from work on Friday’ streak is approaching a year and after last January we’d expect a few streaks ended and began again then.

Adding to the fun of being a winter rider has been the semi-regular stop off at Ashmont Cycles on the way home. I had long imagined being the one and only visitor but it seems to have developed into a neighborhood haunt for regular riders as well as curious ones. I’ve only been in there once this month when there wasn’t at least one other person in there doing business or just hanging out.  Often there’s a crowd. The community building that is going on there is awesome to see and to be a part of each day.

Ashmont Cycles owner Jack Peletier doesn’t seem to have to fall back on his previous career choice as much as he thought he might this winter. It’s great to see another person making money by thinking the best of Dorchester consumers. No one I know has gone broke by overestimating the buying power and consumer demands in Dorchester.

Along that line over 600 folks showed up at the first Winter Farmer’s Market in January. The next few weeks has seen at least 300 folks still showing up. While there were some moans about the prices, anyone who goes far and wide for produce knows the prices are fine. While the effort is part of a community effort to set up a food coop, the wave of folks is a signal to high end food retailers that they’re missing a huge market by not setting up here. But hey, they’re corporate and much smarter than anyone daft enough to try in Dorchester…NOT!

So if you’re out riding in Dorchester folks, do stop in and say howdy to Jack and the rest of us hanging at Ashmont Cycles. There you’ll find the diverse range of folks who make up the Chile Pot (a more accurate term than melting pot?) that makes up Dorchester and those of us out riding every day. He’s got a lot more inventory in there and you’ll have a chance to perhaps influence what else will grace the ever-reorganizing and expanding store.

One final comment: THANK YOU PARKS FOR PLOWING GLEN ROAD IN FRANKLIN PARK!!! After blowing it off the first ‘storm,’ they got it on the second one. We’re hoping that will be the norm from here on out forever! Fingers crossed.

The first work day of the New Year and it’s a fine day for riding to work. We didn’t see our usual compliment of riders but we were early. The dog walkers were out in the park and they all had leashes on their dogs! Great start to a New Year.

Just a quick comment here about dogs. Toni Pollack the Commissioner of Parks said at a recent meeting that dogs are the number one source of complaints and the biggest source of strife for her and her staff. Hey dog owners, did you hear that???? You as a group are hated and despised by Parks because you’re a pain when you let your dog run without a leash or you don’t pick up after your dog. It sounds like how bike riders are perceived by many automobile drivers… I’m sure most dog owners aren’t like that right?

So we see the State of the City’s Bike Program has been set for early February. We’ll have to work on our tongue bighting as the city has made a lot of progress in the past year. Ideal no, but progress non-the-less. The most exciting was the fact there has been a consulting group hired and the process of drafting a bike plan for the entire city has begun. Three years late, but it has begun. That will help advocates as well as city and state planners going forward to insure a complete streets approach is taken when doing road work in Boston.

We’re hoping the City steps up it’s public relations to support bicycling and to begin educating ALL of the public of the benefits of bicycling to those who do and those who don’t ride. The health benefits of course for riders as well as the savings, financial and environmentally no matter how incremental all count. Educating automobile drivers is paramount right now for sure to help increase safety and to diffuse the growing animosity between riders and drivers.

We’re also hopeful that Hubway would expand to more Boston neighborhoods. If a neighborhood is urban enough for ZipCar what’s up with no Hubway?

‘I bike to work!’ is feeling a bit bored looking at the bike scene and we’re hopeful those working full time advocating for complete streets and better biking will continue their fine work while remembering the working folks of Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury as well as anywhere around town really who don’t have the time or inclination to speak up. Folks who ride not out of choice, but because it is all they can afford. Making them feel better about riding as well as helping them to ride safe and as they should instead of sidewalking or riding into traffic like we see daily in Dorchester. That would help all riders and it might make these riders life time riders instead of folks likely to opt out and use a car the second they think they can afford one.

Going forward, idling and Franklin Park are two issues where more time and energy may be going during 2012.

Idlers are of a similar ilk to drivers who yell at bikes to get off the road, clueless. How to get through to these folks is a big question. Anyone have any ideas? Maggie doesn’t think me yelling at them or leaving single brochures on their doors is effective. But that’s all I have right now. So far the Globe hasn’t run any letters commenting on the potential upsdie of educating all of us on the obvious waste of money and harm to the environment idling is in our economy. We’ll keep trying though.

Meanwhile, Franklin Park is 25% of the City of Boston’s parkland and it is generally used as a storage yard and dumping ground for the other 75%. When locals ask for more services they get lip service from Parks saying their budget is strained. Meanwhile anyone with two eyes can see the budget may be strained but it is obvious Franklin Park isn’t getting its share of the budget outside of the golf course which takes in a few bucks for the City. Does this sound like a familiar story? Yup! Of course we’d love to slip a disc golf course in there as well, so we’ll see how it goes.

Meanwhile Peddle on!

Here we are in the middle of December and most of us are still out riding. There isn’t a ride lately that I don’t see other riders somewhere on my short commute. What five years ago was a lonely pursuit during December and the other winter months today looks more like spring and summer five years ago. Of course living through the warmest fall on record (or was it 1975–I remember doing a lot of the Long Trail in Vermont that fall) has helped. But so has the ever-growing bike culture which has really taken root in Boston.

That leads to the question of what is Boston’s bike culture?  How does it reflect the rest of our community? Is there a way to influence bike culture? Can bike culture be an influence on the rest of us?

It’s funny when you talk with other riders how similar our outlook and experiences are. It must be what a rider sees while riding a bike that shapes our perception on things. Often we notice stuff that those riding along side us inside their cars are often oblivious too. Our awareness contributes to drivers chip on their shoulders.

While there are the obvious answers about the root of our bike culture, basically the origin of today’s movement goes back to the run up to the financial crisis of 2008 when investment banks were leveraging themselves 30 or more times and ‘hedging’ their bets in all kinds of markets thus sending their value spinning out of control to the point where we had $4.50 gasoline in the United States. Throw in the wave of increased unemployment and suddenly that dusty bike in the basement took on a new look. Out in Dorchester you began to see increasing numbers of folks of all race and age groups setting out on their bikes.

Dorchester also had a generation of bike culture that dates back to the 1970s when the ten speed racing bike was introduced into the market. Up to then it was a clunky heavy bike and being fancy meant having a three speed Raleigh. There is a core of riders in Dot that were part of that movement. Many of us never stopped riding. That’s my generation. We’re so glad to see a new generation take to it in even bigger numbers and with more success than ours.

Thus the core of bike culture and what will move it forward and further into the main stream are the Gen X  & Y types who may have grown up in the suburbs but have chosen city life over suburban life built around a car. It is the strength of that energy that has encourage dotriderblog as much as anything over the past few years. Keep it up folks!

Just remember that your experience isn’t unique! Your choices while possibly being informed and studied aren’t the ones that all riders may make. Keep telling your stories. Keep thinking big picture and that we need a consistent region-wide approach to biking that includes everyone, especially those in our more economically diverse neighborhoods.

Hence the general theme of “I bike to work!” Dorchester’s diversity isn’t just racial. It’s economic as well. We heard a statistic that 02124 has as many millionaires as Fairfield, Connecticut. One suspects Dot has more folks living under the poverty line too. It probably has one of the largest slices of the middle class as well. Housing 17 union halls it was roots to the working class to boot!

We need to help the folks who are out riding to jobs in down town hotels or restaurants at all hours and in all weather that are the under counted and under served segment of bike culture. Of course precisely because this segment of the Dorchester community isn’t seen that the rest of us get less services and support than other parts of the city. Despite our constant presence at city events. Despite the real facts about our neighbohood. So, keep up your great work bike advocates! Just work for all of us!

The week just past and some upcoming meetings are proving to be very exciting for bicycle advocates in the city of Boston. Wednesday night keen observers saw that Boston Bikes was opening a planning meeting with their design firm Toole Associates to view the initial Master Plan for Bicycle Infrastructure and to suggest tweaks and or areas where there might be something BIG that hadn’t been thought of yet.

Dotriderblog’s big idea turned out to be taking a lane out of the Callahan or Sumner Tunnel and dedicating it to bicycles. I’ve since dubbed it the Thomas H. Menino Cyclo-Tunnel. I’ve also further dreamed that a bike lane be suspended from the ceiling of the tunnel and a limited height lane remain under it thus only limiting trucks and other tall vehicles and not any automobiles. Of course that would significantly add to the expense.

Expense wasn’t the question in the plan. It appears to have taken EVERY suggestion by ANY bike advocate from ANY part of the city and incorporated it into a huge series of sharrows, bike lanes, dedicated lanes, cyclotracks and separate pathways. WOW! If instituted (w/o the THM C-T) I believe that would bring Boston’s bike infrastructure to nearly 400 miles of roadway.

Of course not even I asked how much or how long at the time. A lot of the plans are already in the mix like the Morrissey Blvd Master Plan that calls for all kinds of new accomodation. Given the pace of events in the City the Mayor will have to hang around another 20 years in order to see this dream realized. I’m not sure if I’ll last that long myself…

Hopefully this plan will come together and we’ll start the day by day work to begin implementing it. There will be a lot of community meetings in any bike advocate’s future if these are to get done. Of course, the more is installed the better the results the easier it will be to convince crabby neighborhood groups that it is in their best interest to go along with this.

Hence Dotriderblog’s other MAIN suggestion might appear to be a good idea in terms of developing a constituency for more bike infrastructure. EDUCATION! There needs to be a plan to educate riders and automobile drivers alike about bicycles and how to operate them and for cars to deal with them. The more of us that understand how bikes should work on the road the better. Perhaps I’ll be able to go for more than a day without someone suggesting I get off the road.

The meeting in Dorchester on Thursday showing how DCR is trying to proceed with the Neponset Bikeway along the Neponset River was truly exciting. We’ll know by the end of the year if the Federal Funding will be forthcoming for same. We noticed the TIGER funds got through the latest budget vote yesterday although the cutting of the high-speed rail funds might eat into that… (sigh).

The Missing Link’s in Dorchester will be slated for completion if the TIGER Grant comes through. If it doesn’t they will be left off the current plan except for perhaps having the plans completed. So keep your fingers crossed or contact the White House, your Senator’s and your local Congressperson and tell them to speak up for the Tiger Grant for the Neponset Bike Way!

Next week will be a meeting on the Casey Overpass and a Cyclo-track extension on Morton Street. Cool! Go folks go! I hope that one works too! Quite an exciting week!

Peddle on!

This post may get changed and added onto. Any of my local friends PLEASE either post a comment or e-mail me directly if you think of anything I’m leaving out.

We’ve caught wind of an event by Boston Bikes on 11/16 at the Library to provide input to the direction they should be heading when developing more bicycle infrastructure. WOW! Outside of ditching cars there are dozens of suggestions that come to mind.

To start, if the City and State would only require ALL ROAD PROJECTS include a plan for bicycles, we’d get off on the right foot. It seems there have been a dozen or so projects in Dorchester that simply haven’t thought about bikes for a mili-second. Boston Bikes would take a big step up if they had more input on the projects. We might have lanes on Morton Street, Geneva Avenue, Bowdoin Street as well as a few other streets. Or Sharrows anyway.

What’s the dream? Let’s start with Mass Ave from Everett Square to BMC. A separated bike lane from the Square to the bridge past South Bay would be a good start. Then a solid lane up to the point where cars have to veer around the fire station and THEN a direct bike lane up Mass Ave in the face of the one way traffic coming south. Add southbound lanes all the way and we’re in there.

So, while we’re looking at commutes, finishing lanes on Blue Hill Avenue to Dudley and all the way to Mattapan works. Branching off that, River Street, Cummings Highway, Norfolk Ave, Morton Street, Seaver Street (Talbot, American Legion Hwy, Columbia Road and Warren Street (sharrows) are done!), Quincy Street and hey! Dudley could use attention.

Looking off Dot Ave, Adams Street (in Lower Mills and Fields Corner), Neponset Ave, Freeport Street, Hancock Street, Pleasant Street, Boston/Dorchester Street, D Street, Dover Street Bridge all come to mind. Morton Street and Washington Street from Lower Mills? Sure.

Harvard Ave, Bowdoin, Ashmont Street, Park Street all come to mind as east/west streets that are major arteries in Dot. Granite Ave? Let’s! Adams Street from Adams Village? Of course!

Out on the waterfront, we have the Missing Link movement trying to obtain millions to finish that neglected segment. How about Morrissey in front of BC High and the Globe? Lane after lane for cars…nothing for bikes! Day Blvd, Columbia Road out to Southie? Way overdue. Old Colony Boulevard!

Improve ALL access points to Franklin Park so we’re not jumping a curb or slithering through a gap in the fence. Yup!

There is an effort somewhere (is it dead?) to make a bike trail along the Purple Line. Sounds good!

How about Hubway stations at JFK, Fields Corner, Ashmont, the new Purple Line Stations, Franklin Park and on into other neighborhoods? Great idea! Throw in UMass, Codman Square, Grove Hall for Hubway? Wow!

We’re going to measure the width of Dorchester Avenue where the state only deigned to put Sharrows and compare it with the other laned part of the Avenue. We’re hoping (and pretty damn sure really) that something built in 1804 maintained most of its original width from Lower Mills to Congress Street no? Betcha!

So that’s it off the top of my head right now. Please let us know if you have any other thoughts. Dot-centric of course. Thanks!

Well we’re heading into the dark time of year. I actually enjoy it to some degree outside of being on the street in some places in the dark. The ride through Franklin Park in the gloam is awesome. You hear the geese and the ducks settling in on Scarborough Pond. There is a mad rush of squirrels and chipmunks skittering through the forest. Who knows, I might get a shot at the coyote I’ve heard has been seen in the park. I hope he gets a few geese!

Dotbike continues to deliver new riders and good results whenever we have a ride or community event. Perhaps most noticable during Saturday’s Dotbike Art ride were all the OTHER riders we saw. Riding up Geneva Avenue and down Bowdoin Street was new territory for a number of riders in the group. When we stopped at Nonquit Park on Dudley Street one comment I heard was in amazement at how many other folks were out riding. YUP! That’s what we’ve been saying all along is that there’s no typical Dot rider. I wish those who made decisions on our bike infrastructure would come out and hang during the day sometime and really see how importants bikes are in our neighborhood.

The bike count along the Dorchester part of the Harbor Walk that we call the Missing Link was pretty interesting. I got to count at perhaps the busiest spot at the base of the Neponset Bridge. We saw folks riding in both directions on the bridge and quite a number of folks zipping along underneath. The pathway users tended to be those in stretchy suits. The folks riding into Quincy were going to work in their work clothes… One non-bike related observation was how many of the folks who work at the ambulance company walked to work. I guess they spend enough time in a vehicle during the rest of the day…

So, we’re waiting to see a rush of late season activity toward reaching the city’s goal of another 15-20 miles of bike lane. So far it’s been low hanging fruit. The 10-intersection solution continues to defy a full length treatment of the Avenue. Throw in a collection of steel plates along the entire stretch and who can blame the city for delaying any lane or sharrow installation. We continue to see paving jobs where sharrows or lanes might have worked. Sadness in that Mr. Timlin and his crew still haven’t lived up to their talk and begun to think bikes in EVERY road project. We’ll continue to hope their actions get caught up with their rhetoric.

The winter riding through Franklin Park appears as though plowing will continue up Pierpont. It may not go down Glen Road. Parks smoothed out the plow bumps on Pierpont Road. Since I don’t go down Glen myself as a regular practice we haven’t seen any indications that Parks is planning to go down there. Let us know if we should try to make that happen or not?

Over the past month dotriderblog has gotten letters in both Boston dailies (sorry if the Monitor is still out there) decrying their reports on scofflaw bike riders being ticketed and the accident rate in Cambridge… Our points being:

If you’re ticketing bicycle riders where are the 50 car driver tickets for each bicycle ticket? As IF folks in their cars are any LESS scofflaw or apt to break the law than any bicyclist… For that matter throw in pedestrians and the cops will be in traffic court for years.

Hey car folks, guess what? Every rider isn’t someone else in a car jamming up traffic! More riders = less drivers! D’uh! One might think some drivers would like that advantage no? I want a back pack sticker reading “If you think I’m a bad rider you should see me drive!…to which one friend said that’s too long just put “Boston Driver” on and that will say it all

The media isn’t doing us any favors through their coverage. How about something about how to be a safer rider? Jeesh the past two weeks drivers have been more scofflaw aggressive and nasty to riders than EVER! Coincidence? Perhaps. It has been a warm September and dotriderblog has been known to be too aggressive (in some circles) related to expressing his opinions of someone’s driving habits. Hence the folks with their windows open hear me and often respond with a series of four letter words. At least the papers ran my letters.

Which brings me to the second half of my post title: Where was the Mayor’s Boston Bikes on this one? HEY! The Globe and Herald didn’t take my letters thinking I’m a kook. The guy from the Globe said it was a great letter when he shredded my assertions based upon the stats I’ve gleaned the past few years as a pseudo bike advocate… HOWEVER wouldn’t it have been nicer if my letter had been displaced by a nice note emphasizing safety and civility when riding signed by the Mayor or his minion? Other bike organizations missed for that matter, although I’ve been led to understand that for one it may well have not been from a lack of effort…

What’s with Cambridge letting police harrassing riders? Let’s get organized and hand out MassBike Share the Road flyers to bikes AND cars at the most jammed up intersections in the area. Where’s that effort? Education is key. City leaders are missing these teaching moments as the media doesn’t seem to be getting the point that riding bikes is with us now and it won’t go away until we have 10 years of $1/gallon gasoline (and it will happen just like it did before). And by the time that happens it may well be too late as a generation of folks have gotten used to the idea that it’s usually faster, cheaper, healthier and less stressful to ride your bike somewhere in town rather than to use your car.

Now that it is obvious to even the hardest case nay sayers that the Hubway bike share system is going to be a success, isn’t it time for the city to ramp up its public relations FOR bicycles? One suspects that we’ll see a new roll-out in this regard in the spring. Let’s hope so.

So as we head into October and the evening ride gets darker, be sure to get all the blinkers and head lights tuned up and ready. Get those light colored close out and be ready. We’ll see you out there one day! Peddle on!

Summer is winding to a close and dotriderblog has begun riding across a wider spectrum of Boston Streets than usual. It’s funny how much more one sees on a bicycle rather than in a car. Here’s a few of the things we’ve noticed in just the past week.

The one that made me smile the most is the Hubway station on Yawkey Way. We’ve been chronicaling (and will do so with yestereday’s photos as well on the dotbike flickr site) the dire need for bike racks by Gate D on Yawkey Way at Fenway Park. We’ll show a continuing daily need for bike racks as there were a couple chained to trees and fences and just a half block later there’s the Hubway….Can a private bike use Hubway bays  for parking?

There were only two bikes  in the bays and the more time I spent in town the more I saw them riding around. So Hubway will be a success and I’ll be proved wrong (as predicted here or at least wished for). My criticism that it was miss timed and there is much to do around the city to make the infrastructure safer for riding for all of us still stands. We thought doing the safety stuff first made the most sense, but no one listened. Hopefully that will get more attention going forward.

Mass Ave compromised with Sharrows in a few spots and nothing’s happening north of Columbus Avenue really.

The Dot Ave Ten Intersection Solution continues to be a drag and as of now there are fewer Sharrows as south of Route 203 was paved and the sharrows have yet to return. It’s been over a year since they put the ‘temporary’ paint on Dot Ave from Old Colony to Broadway and there’s still no bike lanes… Any sharrows or lanes anywhere else have already been obliterated. Plus the turn lane from Dot Ave to Park Street heading west is an accident waiting to happen. It’s too bad State planners didn’t take our observations seriously. The road design still reeks of increasing automobile flow instead of promoting safety and traffic calming…

Parks got pounded in the hurricane and they’re still out there cleaning up. They got things barely passable but need to back through and clean up the smaller messes. Once Franklin Park was voted the second most beautiful park in the world, but Parks seems to see it as a great dumping ground for snow and brush… No doubt Franklin Park will get more than its share of brush dumped within it’s confines.

We’re still seeing more riders than ever on our short route to work. We’ve refound our camera and have filled up the memory card in recent days, so one day we’ll have to update the flickr site. The range and diversity of folks continues to be astounding. Add to that where you see folks and for this Dot-ite veteran it’s is heartening to see the old lines that separated us blur. While that may be happening with folks living in different spots it is way cool that bikes are leading the way in getting folks to ride into parts of town fearful folks might deem as “No go”. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that…

Dotriderblog posted the comment, “I put some air in my tires and I have a whole new attitude” as his facebook status the other day and someone asked me if it was meant to be a metaphor.  Good question. My answer is definitely! My new approach on any issue will be to see how we can get some air in the tires of the project at hand. Despite my post a while back suggesting it isn’t easy to be a crank, it really is. Hindsight is easy as is being critical. So….

Instead of pointing out the mundane things that have been done that shouldn’t have and bemoan what isn’t getting done, we’ll try to figure what needs to be done and who might be able to provide the air in the tires to get the job done! After all the evidence is pretty clear that investing in improving the infrastructure for bicycles is good for automobiles. Every biking denizen is someone who’s NOT in a car. They’re not cutting you off, running the light or taking your parking spot with their car. The more people who are on bikes means less people in cars. Less cars jamming and wearing out the roads.

We’ve all heard the lip service from state and city transportation officials that clearly show they understand expanding our transportation options is a good investment. Despite that there is an institutional prevailing wisdom that cow tows to the forces advocating for more automobile access.  By getting more air in the tires of those open to promoting bicycles and bike culture, perhaps the incremental changes that we see might begin to move a little faster.

So it is obvious that the Mayor’s Bike Program could use some air in their tires through the addition of more staff and resources to promote safe bicycle use around the entire city. The Roll it Forward program needs to expand the educational element as part of its distribution efforts. Hubway could use some more air too in order to expand its service area to all Boston’s neighborhoods as well as across the river to Cambridge and Somerville.

Since I’ve adopted my new attitude we attended DCR’s presentation of their new proposal for a Bike Path along the Neponset River from Lower Mills to Mattapan Square. I liked it! I came prepared to be po’d at the Milton Fear and Loathing Crowd and instead I came out feeling sorry for them since they’re going to miss this awesome new resource. The folks in Mattapan will get most of the pay off! Great! Plus it was an ingeneous and wonderfully esthetically pleasing plan that will give riders awesome views of the Neponset River. Kudos to the planners at DCR for that one!

Then on August 31, as I was zipping down Talbot Ave to a meeting in Dorchester (my usual 10 minutes late) I couldn’t help but notice the Bike Lane Chevron Guy had been installed in front of the Harambee Play Ground heading east and the Sharrow Arrow in front of the Lee School heading west had been installed! HOORAY!!!!!!!!!! It must be my new attitude!

July and August saw Dotriderblog have a couple of little incidents that left some pieces of skin on the sidewalk. We were feeling about 12 years-0ld with scabs on both knees and elbows AND the palm of one hand… We smushed our nose a little and had a black eye of a few days, but hey it wasn’t that bad… Guess we gotta work on being safe, but that 12 year-old is just in there wanting to get out so… No other vehicles or people involved.

Cudos to the Dorchester Reporter for their piece on the Hubway Bike Share program. Balanced, highlighting the lack of service to Boston’s biggest and most heavily populated neighborhood. Good quotes from a person in Mattapan feeling equally left out. Nice pitch by Ashmont Cycles owner saying bring more riders!

The Boston Globe had a piece reporting on the 60 warnings BPD issued over a short period of time and how the RMV has no way to enforce payment of any ticket. Well would there be an opportunity for a ticketed rider to go to court to defend themselves? We didn’t ask that question at the time, but hey it’s a good one no? We did get a letter in suggesting that to be fair, thousands of warnings should have been issued to automobiles over the same time. We can all agree that there are thousands of auto-scofflaws out there breaking the driving laws everyday. Same with riders, only we’re a fraction of the picture. Perspective no? We hope that the Globe works on theirs…

Our last post speculated on the half assed nature of the city’s Roll It Forward program. We got to witness it first hand yesterday at Dot House. The van showed up an hour late leaving the volunteers to go over safety tips and hand out locks in an effort to stall. The bikes were handed out in a very uncontrolled manner. They weren’t all given out and the young lads on the BMX bikes they were given (really giving out bmx bikes?) had already ditched their helmets and were screaming the wrong way up the street or sidewalk doing tricks… The girls in the group seemed to disapear and no one got an opportunity to ride around in a controlled group in order to get a feel for the road. Nice folks, good idea, piss poor execution…. Anyone who volunteered for that and got the service from the city they did deserves an apology… Doubt it will happen though.

We posted a picture on the dotbike/flikr site of a Share the Road sign in front of Andrew Station. Cool. Now when is the paint coming? Of course now we’ll have to wait for all 10 of the 10 intersection solution intersections to be completed…Then it will be fall and the punch list will include more bike lanes and sharrow chevrons than ever. Since few left over from last year have been accomplished (and what was done still is lacking), what would make someone confident the City will succeed this time? It’s Dorchester, so what!?! Glad I could end up on such a positive note…