What Makes a Good Cycling Route?
If you've been reading this blog recently (thank you for visiting), you'll know I've been working on a Safety Quiz. The "It Depends" answer I got from an 11-year-old has sent ripples across the quiet pond of my thinking. How do experienced cyclists best summarize their criteria for choosing a good route is the latest quiz question.
In earlier questions, I was looking for fun, thought-provoking answers, and silliness factored into a lot of these answers. Here, I'm interested to know what other cyclists value when choosing one route over another.
Just to seed the idea garden, I've got an ironic story to share.
Last Spring, I had inadvertently posted about one of the divides between cars and cyclists that seems to be in need of repair. The post was about a Tree that Babe Ruth put a baseball in, but I came across the tree during a search for bicycle access to the 650 Ponce shopping center.
In the early 90's, before the shopping center was developed as it stands today, there were multiple ways to get in and out of the parking lot. This was particularly attractive to me because I could cross from my house in Virginia-Highland over to Midtown without having to use either Monroe/10th Street or even busier Ponce de Leon. When plans for the development included a Borders, Staples, Home Depot, and other large stores, the neighborhood asked that traffic be forced to use Ponce de Leon alone. It is now impossible to get to these stores by foot or bicycle without approaching along Ponce. Out of a fear of excessive automobile traffic, the automobile traffic is encouraged.
Even more irony: the BeltLine -- Atlanta's planned pedestrian and transit corridor -- runs directly behind the shopping center and crosses my former cut-through. We'll see if the blocked entrance is opened back up.
So, when thinking about good routes and why it's hard to find those that go where we want, just remember we can sometimes be our own worst enemy.
Let me know what makes a good route for you.
Labels: 650Ponce, planning, safety-quiz
posted by Jett @ 9:57 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Good in-town cycling routes begin with a concern for motor vehicle traffic and time of the day.
My commute to work at G.P.C. takes me through downtown Decatur on Ponce, for instance. All the traffic signals ameliorate vehicle danger (i.e., they slow cars), so it’s quite safe.
I’m rather forced to use this as part of my longer biking route, however, because E. Morningside/E. Rock Springs/N. Decatur Rd. is(are) un-bikeable for the most part. Four dangers are present: high car traffic; winding roads; high motor vehicle speeds for road width and visibility; and lack of planning for non-motorized traffic.
N. Decatur Rd., that is, has major problems that require a road-length plot to reduce motor vehicle numbers and increase use-ability for non-motor traffic. We never even think to ride on it during a weekday because it is one of the de facto “only for motor vehicles” streets. (I started to type a parenthetical list of such streets, but the list got out of hand immediately.) I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but many, many in-town streets fit the above category. And these exist as such because of our supposed “second-class” (or worse) transport mode.
My apologies for the semi-rant here. This city, though, has a transit problem, big-time. And, I plan on being part of the solution so long as I live here.
Jeez, I only really answered your query with the first sentence, too. I hope others help more…
Barry
Atlanta's sprawl is bad and the distances that need to be covered by so many people turns many of our roads into racetracks. Yes, cyclists learn to avoid the racetracks.
So, does a good car route automatically make it a bad cycling route? Can we make that one of the criteria for selecting a Good Cycling Route?
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