Friday, May 15th was Bike To Work Day here in Providence. As has been the pattern for the last few years, the day started off rainy but by the afternoon it was beautiful and sunny. Bike To Work Day is funny to me since I ride my bike to work every day. Naturally I figured I would see what all the fuss is about.
The morning 'session' consisted of some speeches, a bit of food, and a couple of table-top displays from the local bicycling advocates and shops. The big show is the mayor riding his bicycle down the hill from his house on Elmgrove Avenue to kick off the festivities. I arrived a respectful few moments right after him since I didn't want to be accused of sitting on his wheel all the way downtown. It was 7:30 or so and I had a few minutes before I needed to be at work so I stuck around just long enough to listen to what the big muckity mucks had to say. My overall impression: meh.
First of all, watching the Mayor "ride to work" is funny. He rolls with some of the other officials involved with transportation, flanked by two bike cops, and followed by a cruiser with lights flashing. When the Mayor takes the lane, he Takes The Lane...
Anyway... the speeches rolled out at 7:45 or so. Richard Godfrey (of R.I. Housing, for some reason...) spoke about Rhode Island coming in at number 35 in the League of American Bicyclists "Bicycle Friendly States" ranking. He said he has ridden in many of the states that came in ahead of us and he insists that Rhode Island is, in fact, better than these other places. Interesting... I made a mental note to myself to invite Mr. Godfrey to take an early morning commute with me some rainy day in November. Let's enjoy some time on the roads (not bike paths, not separated bike lanes, not quiet country roads: Rather, let's ride in the places where the people are...) when it's not nice out and see if he still thinks we've got it so good. Now don't get me wrong, I think Rhode Island is a great place to ride, but cycling infrastructure here is nowhere near what it is in some of the other states above us on the LAB list. That's part of what makes riding here so exciting: Adversity! And why would you even mention the list if you completely disagree with what it says? A better tactic might have been to point out how far we still have to go before bicyclists consider Rhode Island a pleasant place to ride. Now is no time for smugness!
Then Mayor Cicillini spoke. He said the same stuff he always says about how bicycling is good for us and reduces traffic and air pollution. Yes, riding is good for us, but I think his other points really say "Hey, get on your bike so that you are out of the way of the rest of us, all us folks in our cars! We're wasting our time in traffic here!"
Mike Lewis, Director of our DOT spoke next, and he highlighted all the expensive bike paths the state has built over the last ten or so years. Bike paths are good, but they're sort of like light-rail in that they don't solve "the last mile" problem. You can't put bike paths everywhere so you've still got to be able to safely ride on the roads with cars. Plus, bike paths are expensive. Now we've got some pretty nice bike paths here in Rhode Island, so I'd say that with the exception of fixing the debacle of the Washington Bridge crossing, I think we're almost done with them. Instead, I would argue DOT needs now to expend more efforts on the streets themselves, opening up space for bikes on the roads. Striping. Sharrows. Tuning traffic light sensors to trip for bicycles. You know, thinking about how to move people, not just cars.
Some other folks also spoke (Mark Dietrich from Prov. Bicycle Coalition, and Chris Wilhite from the Sierra Club), but they didn't speak into the microphone so I don't know what they said. Here's Chris and the others:
That's the Mayor in the red cap. Notice the huge crowds pressing in on all sides. Actually, in fairness, there were probably 30 people present, they just all happened to be behind me when I took this photo.On the whole, the level of dorkiness was high, bordering on Dorktastic. I saw lots of wind pants, helmets tipped back on heads, neon vests, and bikes dusted off just for this occasion. But you know, that's awesome. More people on bikes is a good thing, at least until there are so many of them that they begin to get in my way while I'm riding to work.
