In Which A Finger Is Wagged At Dangerous Bikers

May 21 update: The posting is anonymous, but a person identifying herself as the mother of the injured biker commented on this post on May 20. If you read this post, please also read her comment.

As longtime readers of this blog may know, CR Biker has had a few close calls.

Once, I slipped on ice and banged up my knee. Several times, rude drivers have cut me off or ignored the presence of a bicycle—indeed, crossing Blair’s Ferry and C Avenue is always the most “invigorating” part of my daily commute because it’s a roll of the dice whether right-turning car and truck drivers will notice or care about a “walk” sign and a biker in the crosswalk.

And once, at night, a pair of teens actually seemed intent on trying to do me harm.

So, I’m a bit defensive about bikers and car drivers. And I was ready to take umbrage when I opened my paper this morning and there was a column with the headline: “Bicyclists, please put safety first.”

Then, I read the column. And my umbrage melted away. I don’t know Nick Gearhart (great name for a biker, by the way), but he’s right. In the column, he describes a scary accident where three bikers ignore a traffic signal and one of them is hit. We’ve all seen them, fast bikers who don’t seem to care if there is traffic or traffic controls or lights.

Somehow, it does not surprise me that the trio of bikers he saw ignoring a traffic light existed as a trio. Like teens in cars, groups of bikers don’t always behave better than a lone biker would.

This is bike to work week. I’ve noticed a few more bikes on the streets and sidewalks, although we two-wheelers are still far from a crowd in Cedar Rapids. I’ve been riding to work every day—not exactly a surprise since I commute by bicycle all year long, stopped only by rain, snow and ice on the road. This has been a good commuting week.

And Nick and his wagging finger? Frankly, I can’t find anything to disagree with in what he wrote. He’s right. CR Biker agrees—while it’s more important for car drivers to be respectful of bikers, on the theory that they can do more damage, it’s also important for bikers to recognize and follow basic rules of road civility, traffic laws and common sense.  “Share the road” goes both ways.

Nick finishes his column in the Gazette this way:  “Let’s all put safety first.” To which CR Biker can only reply, “hear, hear.”

"Some By Bicycle, When They Can ...."

The city of Cedar Rapids--and the nearby cities of Robins, Hiawatha and Marion--is planning for a 4-lane Tower Terrace Road to link Highway 13 and Interstate 380.

I have mixed feelings--as a lover of nature, I'm not that sanguine about our urban area taking over more fields and trees. But on the other hand, if the growth is going to occur, there will increasingly be a need for an alternate east-west road so that Collins and Boyson and Blair's Ferry don't continue to grow more congested. Tower Terrace as a "big" road makes more sense to me than Boyson. (Planners, figure out pedestrian and bike routes over this big road as part of the planning stage--otherwise, like Collins and Blair's Ferry, the road becomes a giant river of autos that is more daunting to ford to a biker than an actual river would be.)

Anyway, regardless of the merits of the plan, one line in the Gazette story caught my eye. It noted that 40,000 residents will soon call the area home, and that most of them will commute by autos or "some by bicycle when they can."

Trust me, they can most days, year round. I know it's been a pretty mild winter, so this season isn't a good test--I lost of most of January 2011 due to persistent snow cover, for instance--but I've been commuting by bicycle most days this winter. And by the end of February, even in years with harsher winters, the bike commuting season is usually underway.

Nice to see the Gazette mention the possibility that some of the new residents in these north regions of the metroplex might ride bikes. Cedar Rapids has a policy of trying to be a bike-friendly community, and figuring out how to incorporate bike routes in a way that won't be too expensive nor interfere with car traffic would be nice.

Old Tree, New Buds

My commute this morning was a bit unusual. It was a wee bit chilly, but really not too bad. That wasn't the unusual part--I had a class scheduled to tour The Gazette in downtown Cedar Rapids.

I stopped at my office first, and then headed downtown. I left about 45 minutes to get to The Gazette, and it turned out, via the Cedar Valley Trail, to be a 25 minute trip from MMU. So I had a bit of time to kill and took these photos in Greene Square Park, which lies sort of between The Gazette and the Trail.

One photo is an aluminum art "thing" that was installed in 1999. Next is some very young buds on a very old tree--what looks like some sort of pink infection is just redbud buds on a gnarly old trunk of a redbud tree that has far exceeded that tree's normal lifespan in this climate.

One the way back to MMU for my next class, I had to pass through quite a bit of construction and detour. I came back through the Evil Empire (Coe College), and ended up parked for my next class at Busse Library.

To get back to my office, I biked down to The Pit and back up the hill near Warde Hall. So this morning, I biked up Mount Mount Mercy three times.

That counts as something for RAGBRAI training.

CMS and Biking

Gazette columnis Todd Dorman wrote recently about his frustration finding a route to work now that First Avenue is under construction. See his blog here. I have similar issues--Council Street has been under reconstruction since the second (or first?) Bush administration, and C Avenue seems like the lone route into my area of town--no doubt some project will start there soon.

Anyway, Dorman expresses in passing, with some sarcasm, the idea of biking from his home. Well, I live in Northeast CR (what the rest of the world would call "north," but apparently some magnetic impact of the Quaker Oats plant causes the compass to be tilted in Cedar Rapids.)

I commute to Mount Mercy via bicycle all the time. Dorman's ride downtown would be longer than mine, but not by much. Bob Najouks, who retired from Mount Mercy two years ago, used to be a fellow bike commuter, and Bob rode daily from Marion.

Dorman refers to useing the Cedar Valley trail to work, but that would be a bad move. For one thing, with Council Street ripped up, there is almost no route from his house to the trail that doesn't involve suicidal behavior, such as riding Boyson Road. For another, he'd have to head way west for no particular reason.

The logical route involved Lindale Mall, a hold in the fence and E Avenue, but Todd doesn't know that yet. I've volunteered to show him, don't know if he'll take me up. We'll see.

Anyay, what does this have to do with CMS? Was in CMS testing at Mount Mercy today. CMS is "content managment system," ways to update web sites.

Riding the Cedar Valley trail to Marion is a complex CMS solution. Riding E Avenue is an easy CMS way to go. It's like the difference between BlogSpot and Wordpress. So far, I've found Wordpress much more user friendly, like E Avenue.

OK, the analogy is a bit strained. Oh well, it's only a blog. But some nice day soon, Todd, if you're serious, pump up the tires and saddle up. I've gone to meetings at Kirkwood from my home in Bowman Woods--I can get you all the way across CR. Will take more time, but you may enjoy the journey more, too.