Kirk said, "But is Eric really representative of most bicyclists? I don't assume that there is this huge group of potential BFW members out there that won't join simply because the BFW at present supports Smart Growth. I don't know. Maybe there are fewer bikers and BFW members because: (A) bicycling groups in the other parts of the state don't know about the BFW (one beef I have with some groups in Madison is their Madison-centric organizing) or (B) The land use patterns communities in Wisconsin (and elsewhere for that matter) have adopted since WWII have made bicycling a non-option for serious transportation."
The most vocal members of this list may be avid bicyclists who are commuters and concerned about the environment. This appears to be a group of people who are not carting around 3 children every day. I certainly would not have joined BFW if it were not for my future husband because 1) having 3 children and biking is not always compatible, and 2) BFW does not seem to have much to do with the family sort of crowds. There are families who move out of the city and into the suburbs for the "schools", for "safety", for "more space". The downside of these moves is the need to commute everywhere. I did my share of commuting into Madison from DeForest at one point until it became obviously silly that the only thing I did in DeForest was sleep and once in a while enjoy the backyard--I was commuting nearly 7 days a week to Madison for one reason or another. I have made a lot of changes in my life to increase our bike time. It has required effort to help the kids become comfortable on bikes and willing participants. We have 2 trail bikes and our oldest is on his own. We have hooked up a trailer on the back of the trail bike to go to the grocery store. We now go to the library almost exclusively on bikes. We encourage trail riding by attaching a carrot at the end (a restaurant stop). We go to parks and church by bike when we can. The benefits of biking to our family is to have brought us closer, reinforce the values of protecting the environment by biking or walking when feasible or practical, allowing us to see that we don't necessarily have to drive to the other side of town to go to a park when there are many we have not explored right in our 5 mile radius of home. If we are to get out of the suburban "group think", we need to be getting ideas out there that our community does not have to be a 45 minute car ride--it can be within our neighborhoods. Once this ideal becomes important, planning and Smart Growth will have to follow. We are not perfect...we depend on the car way too often and it is a convenient way to get around but with each year we learn and get better (and try to stay out of the way of the fast moving spandex wearing bicyclists on the Capital City Trail) :) Barb __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
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