crawl, walk, run, cycle, bus, rail

My recent move and job change changed my daily commute from 6 miles to one of about 40 miles. I'm five days into this new way - and about two-thirds of the way through "Divorce Your Car!" by Katie Alvord.

Coincidence? Well actually, yes - but having recently crossed over from a sleepy back-street jaunt into the tense wilderness of the rush-hour highway scramble - I am finding myself quite receptive to Alvord's message and advice.

Locally, all the buzz, in the transportation scheme of things, is the reconstruction of one of the central highway arteries in the area - turning Route 40 into The New I-64. I had been starting to feel some disdain towards this collective funnelling of even more resources into the car, you know, things like taxes, fuel, and dodging little old ladies escorted by boy scouts. A couple of things make me feel there is an "upside" to the expansion of the highway.

Firstly, the project has an Interactive Study Map and claims that a lot of local streets will have pedestrian and bicycle friendly bridges spanning the highway. As a former and hopefully future, bicycle commuter, I recognize how much easier this will make biking around town. Currently, almost all my biking routes end up using the same couple crossing points - sometimes taking me farther out of the way than if the highway weren't "right in the way".

Secondly, it dawned on me that maybe the mass hysteria about the highway being unavailable could be channelled positively into a better appreciation for the mass transit available to this growing city. The light rail system is already underway and scheduled to be completed by the end of the year (fingers crossed) - I can only hope that one of the central roads being closed will get more people to consider and actually use this mode of transport.

Ultimately, I don't feel that getting deeper into bed with the car is going to help us in the long run. Perhaps, instead of two new lanes to the highway, the community would be better served by two new sets of rails. I've dropped a line to one of the local promoters of mass transit but it does seem this particular idea has already been brought up and shut down. However, times and circumstances change - maybe it is time to revisit this.

So, what am I actually *doing*? I have been getting back on the bike. I had a short lay-off from riding and need to get my mileage back up. I'm also planning for my next step, which is to get on the bus for some short trips.

over and out.