Bicycling in Bloomington

 It was a cold weekend in Bloomington, so I did not ride outdoors. Saturday is typically a rest day for me. Sunday, it was zero at 8 AM, so I trained indoors. I did two DVD sessions over 1.25 hours. The second session was rated 9.5 on a 10 scale. It was challenging but it’s often fun to be challenged on a bike.

Today (Monday), it was cold again, so I trained indoors. I was going to commute to campus by bike but I had so much stuff to bring in that all of it didn’t fit in my backpack. I had to drive. I’ll be away until Thursday, so not much riding this week.

Saturday morning, I attended at presentation by “walkability expert” - Dan Burden. He designs Walkable Communities. He included a fair amount of information about bicycling in his presentation. His suggestions for improving transportation flow included creating narrow lanes for car traffic, slowing speed limits, and creating more bike lanes. However, his bike lanes are different from those in Bloomington. He recommends 6″-7″ depending on the roadway and parking. Wider bike lanes would also mean the road debris might get moved farther to the right, and allow safer use of the lanes. Changing  the roadways to slow speeds and improve traffic flow and at the same time, increasing bicycling and pedestrian use is a very good goal for all cities.

During his presentation a thought came to me - why do we consider biking, walking, and mass transit as “alternative transportation?” It would be better to consider car and truck traffic as alternative transportation.