My family will be attending the First Friday Art Walk tonight. And, because it’s easy, fun, and convenient, we’ll be bicycling there. My wife and I will be helping out at Global Fayre tonight for a special Kiva event (check out the Carbon Trace Kiva lending team). Be sure to stop by.
Easy: Springfield has flat terrain and a grid street system. There are many routes to downtown along residential streets and low-speed secondary arteries. Downtown streets are narrow so you can take the lane. And the speed limit on most streets is 20 mph. You’ll find plenty of bicycle parking throughout the Art Walk area.
Fun: Riding a bicycle is fun. And it’s even more fun when you can ride it somewhere on purpose. Driving would be fun, I suppose, if you could drive as they do in the television commercials. Hokum, lies, and mythology.
Convenient: You might get to downtown quicker in a car, then you have to park it. The city brags about 6,000 parking spaces downtown. Good luck with that. And good luck driving those 20 mph streets with people walking everywhere. That commercial mythology is trying to persuade you that you should be zipping along open roads. You won’t like it when reality shatters the illusion — again. The 4-way stop at South and Walnut might as well be a parking lot this evening. Save yourself the aggravation; ride your bicycle.
Comments 5
Where is Global Fayre???
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 2:48 pm ¶On Campbell, 1/3 block north of Walnut on the east side.
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 3:17 pm ¶Perhaps Springfield should follow Columbia’s lead and build a new 15 million dollar parking garage.
Soon, Columbia’s tallest building will be a temple built to worship the automobile.
yeah!
Fits right along with Government Motors and Cash for Clunkers as we pray and hope that automobile dependence is not as unsustainable as it appears.
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 6:22 pm ¶I can’t really imagine driving to Art Walk and parking; although I’ve done it once when I lived further away, it’s extremely inconvenient to do and it really separates you from the whole experience.
My only problem with bicycling is the heavy traffic congestion in some places thanks to clueless drivers getting lost and gawking at the pedestrians everywhere. For instance, Walnut was crawling from National to Kimbrough and again from Jefferson to South- although it’s very easy to pass on a side and overtake the backed up cars, it’s really dangerous when drivers are completely unpredictable and dominate the road. I nearly got doored, almost hit a jaywalking pedestrian, and probably confused some drivers, but I never was in danger of being run over because I behaved like a car and dominated the lanes.
Also there doesn’t seem to be enough racks during Art Walk – most of them were nearly full while I was there , and it was aggravating and inconvenient that the Square was still missing the racks there.
Posted 07 Aug 2009 at 10:03 pm ¶Nate… The racks will be returning to the Square once the exterior renovation is complete. So that’s good. You can find some more racks on Campbell, at the Heers garage, and behind the Hollywood Theater. It does, however, make me smile that the racks are filling
More people are bicycling downtown — a good thing.
Posted 08 Aug 2009 at 7:19 am ¶