I bike to work!

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…

The question today is it easy to be for something or against it? What happens when no matter what you say it becomes steeped with criticism? Is it impossible to change that trajectory? What happens when you become so for one thing that anything short of that is subject to your complaint?

Generally those you are criticising begin to tune you out. Then it gets worse and you feel like complaining more. A vicious circle ensues and not much gets done. That’s where we’re feeling we are now. Who cares if my complaints are spot on, what the Mayor’s Bike Program isn’t doing is clear and the Hubway Bike Share program is a supreme waste of time treasure and talent? That’s just that crank dotriderblog…

The over 500 photographs of riders at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbike have not been seen by the folks who decide what happens at the Mayor’s Bike Program. Other bike advocates hear from the City that there aren’t that many riders in the neighborhoods when here’s proof. In fact if we began the site all over again and concentrated on it as much as we did last year we’d have well over 1000 images. Today sans my camera we saw over 20 bikes during our 4 mile traverse from Dot to JP. Few if any were headed down town. Most were going across town.

Meanwhile the City’s community outreach remains an after thought or has become a charity program, not an empowerment program. Folks will find the money for bikes if they feel empowered to use the roads. Meanwhile we’re passing bikes forward to folks who might not be confident or competent enough to deal with Boston’s streets. Hey have this used bike and stay on the side walk where we won’t count you…

Total focus on Hubway has pushed traffic enhancement efforts and their needed constant oversight on the backburner. Some jobs get done but there seems to be little enthusiasm on the contractors part to do the job right and no obvious effort from the city to encourage a better job be done.

So, we’ll try to keep quiet since no one’s listening anyway. We’ll see if things improve. We’ll fall back on my brother’s advice, “Don’t get involved in promoting bicycling because that will make it not as free and more regulated than it is now.” Hmmmmm….we’re thinking my brother is onto something….