I haven't seen this posted elsewhere and just heard about it this week. There is a meeting at the Marquette Middle School cafeteria (510 S. Thornton) tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 to present a "proposed Bicycle Boulevard project to neighborhood residents." Marsha apparently mailed a notice to a lot of people who live on or near the route, but for the rest of us this may be the first notice. The route is a sort of winding (with right angles) one and designed to "provide an attractive, convenient, and comfortable cycling environment that is welcoming to cyclists of all ages and skill levels."
I have been involved off and on with this project since at least January. I don't object to something designed to make bicycling "attractive, convenient, and comfortable," but I do object to the use of the term "bicycle boulevard" to describe this type of bicycling initiative. The term "bicycle boulevard" is traditionally used to describe a treatment of roads and separate paths that facilitate quick commuting for bikes, in other words, one where the number of stop signs is minimized and motorized traffic is discouraged. In some places, it involves having road diversions where all motorists are forced to turn at a certain point in the road while bikes can continue straight on. This discourages cars and other motor vehicles from using these bike boulevards. My problem isn't so much with this initiative, as with the other two bicycle boulevards we have on the east side, one comprising the 1100 to 1300 blocks of East Wilson and the other of East Mifflin from Blair to Dickinson. The only thing that makes these bike boulevards is the number of signs saying it is one. On both of these, there are stop signs at almost every intersection for vehicles on the bike boulevard. This makes a mockery of the term. I would urge the city to adopt different terminology for this "bike boulevard" and at the same time work on converting the two above-mentioned "bicycle boulevards" into genuine ones. (This is particularly needed on the East Wilson one, which has become a heavily traveled car boulevard for those motorists who can't drive eastbound on Williamson.) tim -- "The system filters out the thoughtful and replaces them with the faithful." --quoted in John Dower, *Cultures of War*
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