Happy May! Commute Day 1

A beautiful, cool day to kick off Bike to Work Month! Spring is springing everywhere, puffy clouds above, making for an invigorating, nearly sweat-free commute -- sans rainjacket, yay. On my Wallingford/Fremont-originating commute, I enjoyed cycling up the new, freshly painted westbound bike lane on 34th. This new, vintage 2005 bike lane was something I and others struggled to get put into Fremont Bridge approaches seismic retrofit construction plans back in 2004. The Burke-Gilman Trail was slated to be closed thru Fremont for 18 months, without any provision for westbound cyclists. Yikes!! Last time they did that (for Adobe area construction in 1999-2000), cycling on 34th was totally haywire, with wrongway cyclists using the odd, one-way eastbound bike lane on the south side of the street -- a dangerous bike-on-bike and car-on-bike disaster. So, a bunch of cycle heads (Cascade's David Hiller, me from the Bike Advisory Board, the Bicycle Alliance, and pedestrians, with support of the Fremont N'hood Council, a bike enthusiast from the Fremont Chamber, and others) convinced a rather recalcitrant SDOT capital projects manager to get smart. The result: after a nearly year-long push (involving city councilmembers, SDOT directors, multiple meetings w/capital projects folks and their rather bike-naive consultants) they finally agreed to give up one of two car-driving lanes (parking was agreed to be important by all) and stripe a "temporary" westbound bike lane during trail closure. (And, it's been there the better part of a year, with no traffic issues, 'til other unrelated construction projects kicked in, making Fremont a bit messy overall, regardless of westbound bike lane or no westbound bike lane.) Well, 2007 is when we'll fight to make it permanent, but it was a great win, and every day I bike it and see others bike it I think how great it is that it's there. It's less than half a mile, but it's a beautiful bike lane (striped both on the outside of the bike lane AND the outside of the parking lane), and I'm proud of all the people biking there and enjoying a margin of safety and comfort that they wouldn't otherwise have had while the trail is shut down. Ah, the little victories!