It's time for my biennial complaint about the poor condition of the westbound bike lane on University Avenue.
Two years ago, yawning pits in the westbound bike lane regularly swallowed bicycles, children, and small cars. At the urging of those on this list, I complained to the city. Eventually, someone or someones were dispatched to take care of the problem. Apparently, those someones were sent out with a just a small amount of patch because at least one-third of the bike lane never saw any patching. Last summer, the pits once again awoke from their winter slumber. They were soon back into their habit of bullying the true out of innumerable bicycle wheels. I did nothing but grit my teeth; however, someone else must have complained because once again a crew was dispatched to fill the pits. Based on the evidence left behind, that crew's day job must have been to create ATV trails or patch motocross courses. Instead of yawning pits, bicyclists got an asphalt curb at the end of each pavement segment. It was so unpleasant that I secretly wondered if this had been done to teach bicyclists to keep their yaps shut about pavement conditions in the city. Something reminiscent of, "Oh, you think the pavement's bad, huh? Vinnie, give 'em some patch. *Now* let's see what they think." Fortunately, winter and its handmaidens--the snowplows--came. That helped to knock down most of the asphalt curbs. This spring, the pits once again awoke hungry for bicycles and their tasty wheel true. I hesitate to ask the city to patch the street again because their last cure was almost worse than the disease. Is there any long-term relief on the horizon? I see that the issue was raised at the PBMVC public meeting in May where it got a response somewhere along the lines of "Yeah, we could do that...or not." David _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
