comments from my son

My son, who is 10 and cannot yet post comments, had the following to say about my previous blog: "fast & efficiently you should get a bike!!!!!"

biking, tourism, city

My friend Jeff, in town for the weekend, wanted to celebrate his 50th birthday Saturday night with a Rays game. Tampa Bay won in spectacular fashion, blowing a two run lead in the ninth, then coming back in the twelfth to defeat the obnoxious and annoying Boston Red Sox -- but that's another story.

On Saturday morning, Jeff, his daughter Rachel, and I rode to the Trop to pick up tickets. Taking the opportunity to show off our fine waterfront, we cruised around the fountain at the USF St. Pete campus, stopped to admire the glass blob that slithers outside the Dali, bought tickets, and pedaled a little further down the Pinellas Trail to check out the pottery center. (Rachel is taking ceramics at school and was very impressed.)

On the way back, we hooked a right at the Dome, picked up a new trail through Campbell Park, coasted downhill to the Third Street bike lane, and made it home before a mid-afternoon shower hit.

Here's the point: St. Petersburg looks great on a bike.

Lately I've been reading David Byrne's book, Bicycle Diaries, which is as much about bicycles as it is knowing the world. The globe-trotting former Talking Heads frontman makes a good case that the best way to learn a city is to pedal it. And today's NY Times Sunday Review ran a piece on Bicycle Visionary Sadik-Khan, the transportation commissioner who has doubled the number of bike lanes in the city. Sadik-Khan has drawn no amount of scorn, as the article notes, but visionaries often do.

Long story short. Sleepy St. Petersburg has a chance to put itself on the cutting edge. Much has been made about defeats to light rail in the Tampa Bay area. And the current political climate gives little reason to hope for improvement to our woeful bus system. (Welfare on wheels -- more on that later.)

But biking is cost efficient, surprisingly safe in downtown St. Petersburg, and fun.

While riding through St. Pete with Jeff and Rachel, I could not help but feel -- dare I say it? -- civic pride.

Our local government has laid terrific groundwork for creating a bike-friendly 'burg.

Let's face it. Real transportation alternatives are not coming here anytime soon.

So why not direct energies towards expanded bike lanes? It's a solution that Rick Scott and garden-variety liberals like me can agree on.

Bike Irony?

We meandered into Putnam county yesterday. As we traveled along route 21 we crossed over into Putnam county and were instantly greeted by a sign that said, "Welcome to Putnam County – a Bike-Friendly Community."

About five feet later the bike path running alongside the road ended. Abruptly. Nothing but two lanes ahead and very soft shoulders.

I would laugh but I don't think it's a joke.

How to Do Bike Paths

Today I'm in Hilton Head, getting ready to take a RoadTrek across Florida for three weeks (starting tomorrow). Aside from helping me complete my thesis for the Florida Studies program, this trip will help me undo my relatively tiny carbon footprint from last month. The thesis is another story and, if you're so inclined, you can follow my travels at my probably-always-evolving-over-the-next-21-days web site, but right now I'm thinking, of course, about bike paths.

Hilton Head is a tourist mecca but it also has some locals who, many years ago, cared deeply (I'm pretty sure they care still) about retaining a certain type of character as the island developed. When you drive on to Hilton Head today you're met with a wooded island that doesn't allow traditional signage. The sheer amount of foliage belies the anxiety-producing number of vistors who cluster around the ocean here annually. The natives (well, no, not the natives, but the locals) made sure of it, and if you're a store who needs a big sign or fancies neon, you're out of luck. Whether you're marking the location of a plantation – and don't get me started about that nomenclature – or a McDonald's, basically all your signs have to look a lot like this. No billboards, no high signs, and no flashing neon. It's a nice visual break, but there's still plenty to look at in the form of trees and landscaping that doesn't look a bit like manicured landscaping. These folks are hard core about keeping the local flora intact. Seriously, this is what one of the roundabouts has on its inside (this photograph may be of another part of the island, but trust me, it's close enough that you'll never know the difference):

The best way to see this all this is on your bike, because a smooth-paved, well-marked, broad bike path contours the entire island. And my god, it's gorgeous. Where the path crosses water (and it frequently does; this is low country), bikes bump smoothly across wooded decking on a path flanked by copper-topped posts. You can't bike for fitness on this island, because every other tenth of a mile is a new vista of cool ocean-forest-like stuff to look at.

Seriously. Except for in a very few places, the entire island's bike path looks pretty much like these photos. And there are bike racks everywhere and signage and people – even new visitors – learn pretty quickly how to navigate the island and give way to all the cyclists. I could live here without a car, easily. Well, as long as I didn't have to leave the island.

It's nice to see a community so committed to cycling. Of course, given the sheer volume of tourists, if they didn't offer throngs of bikes for rent and well-marked paths to travel, the traffic would look like a cross between Manhattan and Clearwater beach.

Our tourist communities could learn from this city.

mailbag

(1) Besides "certain death," a trusted colleague from Pittsburgh observed, commuting by bike would amount to "16 mile[s] over various rivers, mountains, and non-bicycle-accessible highways."

All fair enough.

Although I had not asked. Since HotU blog launched, I have heard this response several times over -- often defensive, always unsolicited -- about the need to drive. That leads to an important point. We as a society have created auto dependency. For many of us, living without cars is not an option. Not open for discussion. We burn gas, regardless of the ramifications. We also fail to understand why people want to fly airplanes into our buildings.

(2) Two readers responded to my decidedly unpractical choices in "Carrying Capacity of a 47 Year Old Man." Kip, a neo-thoreauvian, sent me a link for panniers. And a young radical named Josh kindly offered his kid-carrier, which would do fine for groceries. Thanks gentlemen, I will pass for now, balancing stuff on the handlebars is part of the fun.

(3) Which leads to my son's bicycle shutdown. I am happy to report that the front gate is fixed, and that kid and I rode to school all last week. More on that in the near future. My friend Merle, an environmental ethicist friend, relayed his own experiences while biking with a child in foster care.

The kid under his charge loved the adventure, though sometimes too much -- and took off into a busy intersection one day.

Thanksfully the kid made it. He survived the mishap and is now adopted.

But is that not the great lesson for young bicyclists?

"Both hands," I am often reminding my son, "you are traffic." Traveling by bike is pure joy. Bicycling involves risk. We weigh risk against adventure. And what more important lesson is there for a child to learn: how to balance danger against reward?

Thanks for all the questions and comments. Please keep those thoughts chuning and those wheels turning!

Twitter-ific

If you have a Twitter account, you can now follow this blog on Twitter. For my part, I think all you have to do is click here and opt to "Follow Me."

On a car-related note, I've decided to allow myself to drive one day a week. This week I drove three times. I suck, but not as much as I could, so there's your silver lining right there, dammit. The point is, the scooter is so easy and the bike is so continuous (it's physical work, but I can pedal without a lot of stops and starts) that between the stick shift (and I'd be lying if I said I was good at driving a manual transmission; it's actually painful to my passengers) and the traffic lights, just driving is exhausting. Give me a bus any day now: I can read, sleep, or daydream and no one gets hurt.

Hopefully, Dr. H and our two new contributors will add this blog to their Twitter accounts, so you can follow us all and we can be one big happy car-free (in my case, car-minimalist) family.

tough love all around

Son and I were looking forward to riding our bicycles to school. We have a safe route -- sidewalk, neighborhood streets, and bike lanes almost the entire way. We started this last year. I got good exercise. He and I bonded over a favorite activity. And he got to his fourth grade classroom on time, with an aerated brain, energies worked out -- and with a healthy jolt to his self-esteem.

So the routine was supposed to start this morning. (Yesterday, the first day of school, was simply too hectic.)

Except we had a bad night. The stress of entering the fifth grade -- "Rules, Rules, Rules!" -- proved to be too much. In a fit of pique while putting away his beloved Chopper, he busted our front gate. Long story short: he cannot ride his bicycle until the gate is fixed.

Which means we had to drive to school this morning.

Bummer.

I sure hope that gate gets repaired soon. The punishment is killing me.