The Daily Commute III: Things thought and observed--and a Thank You

The astute among my readers have no doubt noticed that for a blog called "Cycling in Wichita," there's been precious little posting about cycling here since I began posting again. Now that the new semester has begun and my bike is up and running, I should be able to post more regularly about things I see while I'm out and about. Yesterday I rode out for the first time this semester, about which more later.

A couple of words about my commutes this spring. Yes: it's plural. I teach at McConnell four days a week, but my schedule is such that only Tuesdays, for now, work well for me to ride there on my bicycle. I may add Mondays to the list after spring break (one of my afternoon classes will end then), but we'll have to see. I'll also need to change the route map I've linked to in the right gutter: It's the same up to where Mt. Vernon crosses I-135; from there, I now take the Canal path south to Pawnee, get on Minneapolis south to Wassal, then take the footbridge across I-135 to make use of the new-ish path that runs past Joyland and then Gypsum Creek to George Washington. It's longer than the old route but takes about the same amount of time because I don't have nearly as much traffic to contend with. On Fridays I tutor in Andover, and beginning this semester (though not this Friday because the weather is supposed to be bad) I'll try out this route. I know it's not at all direct, but 13th in town is heavily trafficked in the mornings; besides, I'm in no hurry. I'll let you know how it goes.

Even though it was in the upper 20s or low 30s yesterday morning, I rode to work wearing cargo shorts, a lined windbreaker over a t-shirt, and gloves; aside from my ears getting cold, I was quite comfortable: It was sunny and there was no wind to speak of. I know, though, that such an outfit won't work on days when it's cold and the wind is blowing or it's raining. I saw a couple of other riders who looked like they were commuting to work, but judging from the gravel in the bike lanes over on Mt. Vernon, I imagine that winter weather reduces our numbers. Some drivers on the stretch of Mt. Vernon between Southeast and Broadway, on my afternoon commute, seemed a bit impatient with me as they passed (the street is pretty narrow there, and it was rush hour as well), but no one honked or cursed me or tried to injure me.

One nice addition since last summer: at the intersections of Mt. Vernon with Main and Water (each of those streets is one way in that part of town), there are now three-way stops at those intersections (Mt. Vernon traffic used to have preference there). The stops have the effect of slowing traffic a little more, thus benefiting cyclists in the lanes.

Just a quick visit for a moment to the Wichita front in the tensions between cyclists riding on streets and motorists: I spoke with two colleages yesterday at some length about my riding into work. Neither rides a bike to work (though one of them, in her college days thirty years ago, regularly rode from Wichita to El Dorado), but each is supportive of increasing cycling infrastructure on streets and to the rights of cyclists to be on the street in the absence of bike lanes. But, neither can abide cyclists who behave as though traffic laws don't apply to them but who, in the same breath, ask that motorists respect them. My colleagues, I repeat, are not opposed to seeing us on the street. They welcome us, in fact; they understand that, times becoming what they are becoming, having more cyclists on the road is a good thing. What they do not welcome is scofflaw behavior on the street.

Rather than wade into debates about Idaho Stops and such this morning, I just want to complicate the discussion a bit by suggesting that it's a mistake to turn the dynamic into a simple Us vs. Them debate. That leads to polarization, and we see how well that's working in Congress these days: after a while, no one is really listening to each other. Speaking frankly, cyclists' justifying running red lights by arguing things like cars are bigger than us sounds whiny, even if it is true. Semis are bigger than Mini Coopers; should that give Minis the right to, oh, drive underneath the trailer if they so desire? Cyclists are on much firmer ground when they assert that under the law, when they are on the street they, too, are operators of vehicles and should be regarded by others as such. But that also should mean that cyclists should behave as though they regard themselves as such, as subject to those same laws.

Some of those motorists out there, they like seeing us out there; we make some of them feel guilty for not being out there themselves. Good. Especially in a town like Wichita, we can't afford to tick those people off.

Enough of that. On to some happier (if self-centered) news. One of my above-mentioned colleagues is involved in the College Hill Neighborhood Association and had, as she put it, a teeny-tiny hand in discussions regarding the Douglas Design District's recent streetscape proposal. As we talked about the plan and its likelihood of being implemented, she told me that in discussions someone used something I had written somewhere in support of its Complete Street design. It of course pleases and gratifies me to know that I contributed to that discussion in some small, positive way. I can't tell, just by looking at hit counters, who is reading and to what good or nefarious uses (or any use at all, for that matter) they put what they find here. This blog doesn't receive a lot of traffic to begin with, and much--perhaps the majority--of the traffic is not from Wichita. It's hard to know, therefore, whether this blog is doing what I intend for it here in the Air Capital (see the banner for a statement of that intention). I have a little evidence now that people are reading and thinking about this stuff. I am glad. And I thank you for reading.

"Objects in the Road"

I know, I know: "Ethics at 6 in the morning??"" Where's my coffee?, you're thinking. Bear with me.

Andy Cline of Carbon Trace has a nice post up on thinking ethically about street traffic that puts things quite elegantly, I think, while at the same time exposing blind spots, as it were, in the thinking of otherwise decent people when it comes to their sharing the road with bicycles. Read the whole thing, of course, but here are some snippets:

I ask [students] to identify with one or more of the various theories of ethics or at least talk about something they found interesting. For many students these are their very first stabs at thinking about ethics on purpose.

[snip]

Several students agreed with the idea that other human beings are not means to our own ends; they are ends in themselves. And I chimed in that living up to this deontological ethic would argue that, say, we should not treat people on the road (using whatever conveyance) as objects to be gotten around; rather we should treat them as people sharing a public space.

This is where the discussion gets interesting because acting in this way flies in the face of what the culture teaches us driving is and what the automobile — the machine itself — teaches that we should expect. And guess what? A big part of what the culture and the car teach us is that traffic laws are suggestions, enforcement is a hassle unless it’s happening to the other (object) guy, and 40,000 people dead per year is just the price you pay for a transportation system.

How do we change that?

Good ethicist that he is, Andy goes on to answer.

This struck me because, when I mentioned in one of my classes that I'm a cyclist, a student sort of blurted out, "I hate cyclists in the street." I took no offense and she didn't mean it personally--but that's precisely the problem: Her statement reveals indifference (at least, when she's in her car) to drivers other than herself. Yet, it's such a common attitude that I don't have a ready rebuttal to it. I mean, it's hard to rebut indifference. It's hard to get someone to see how indifference is potentially harmful to others.

I think, though, that Andy has provided me (and you, too--if you care, that is) with a means of doing this.

Of course, cyclists often also exhibit that same indifference via they way they regard the traffic (and the laws regulating that traffic), even as they insist on respect from motorists. This post is for those folks, too.

Readers' Ride report; a Wichita cycling eccentric

What has not kept me from posting on last weekend's rides? Well: now that I've dealt with the last of those delays by having my internet service restored, I can offer up a brief report.

I overslept on Saturday the 15th, and it was cold besides. Sunday the 16th, though, could not have been a better day for a ride: sunny; slight breeze, temperatures in the upper-50s/lower-60s. So, I headed down to the softball fields at Plainview Park; and even with a stop for a brief repair (my bike didn't shift gears properly and the chain got hung up between the frame and the rear gears) I arrived there just before 1:00.

No one else showed, alas, but I was still happy to be out. Here's the Veloroutes map of my route. From the softball fields, I followed the bike path up to the intersection of Bayley and Armour, then doubled back down the path to Mt. Vernon and turned west there. I didn't trace the entire route; for those interested, though, it's almost exactly 6 miles from the intersection of Mt. Vernon and George Washington to my apartment, so I ended up riding 20 miles in all.

The main thing I was looking for on this ride was progress on the path-building along Gypsum Creek from Pawnee to Woodlawn. Things looked about the same, as far as I could see, but that means only that: I couldn't see all that far.

On the way home, I had my first truly close call with a car. I was heading west on the Harry Street bridge, approaching the intersection with McLean. A car was at the intersection, stopped for the light and waiting to turn left (south) on McLean. There were no cars in my lane. When I was about 50 feet from the intersection, the light turned green. Suddenly, before the car in the other lane had started forward, a large white truck cut between the car and me. I don't know how close he actually came, but it looked close. I could easily have touched the side of the truck as it passed. But no matter: he certainly could--and should--have waited the few seconds behind me that it would have taken me to reach the corner and get out of the street and onto the bike path there.

Both the ultimate cliché and the ultimate indignity: the truck had Texas plates. I am proud to be a native-born Texan, but I swear that some people feel that the combination of a crew cab and the badge of "Texan" gives them the right to do especially bone-headed things behind the wheel of said crew cab.

Except for the close call, it was a good ride: good enough to cause me to hope for a few more days like it during the winter.
__________

Via Douglas and Main comes the story of Bob Hughes in ncbeat.com by Stephanie Barnard. "Bicycle Bob," who lives just east of downtown, has been getting around by bike since the late '60s and has "about 75" bikes in various states of repair. He figures he's been hit by cars about 40 times. Best quote: "A bike is nothing but a new pair of shoes with a round sole." Anyway: go and read.

Hither and Yon #3

Angry Jack's Tube Tree, out behind the Bicycle X-Change's West Douglas location. Click to enlarge. Image via Riders of Rohan.

A round-up of things:

I've been instructed not to apologize for my silences here, so I'll just say that work and other obligations have kept me from here. I am looking forward to our rescheduled Readers' Rides for this weekend, though, and I hope we have the combination of other folks and decent weather. On Saturday the 15th at 9:00 a.m., we'll meet on the south side of Kellogg at Armour; on Sunday the 16th at 1:00, we'll meet at the softball fields at Plainview Park.

Though I wasn't able to do the Readers' Ride this weekend, I was out errand-running on my bike Saturday morning: my first chilly-weather ride, about 10 miles in all. Despite the stiff north wind (which, because of my route, fortunately was something I didn't have to contend with for very long) and a temperature in the mid-30s, I was dressed warmly, if ridiculously, enough (only my toes got a little cold). I was wearing "civilian" clothes, though: a warm but not breathable lightweight jacket; jeans; heavy gloves; a wide elastic band over the ears, tennis shoes. It worked--I stayed warm--but I won no style points, and I was distracted at times by the bulkiness of it all. Maybe Santa Claus will bring me some more-appropriate cold-weather gear . . .

On Election Day I walked to my polling place (I had considered riding, but I didn't know if there would be bike racks; as it turned out, there weren't). At any rate, at the intersection of Central and Wichita (Wichita runs between the county courthouse and the county jail, in case you were wondering), a Cornejo Construction crew was busily at work digging up not only a good bit of sidewalk but also a lot of soil. As I wondered what they were up to, I suddenly remembered the recent news of the new downtown bike path. So: it's good to see that work has indeed begun on that project.

Via local and loyal reader Mark comes some welcome news for touring cyclists:

The United States is on a path to creating what could become the largest official bicycle route network in the world, thanks to the approval of a new plan by America's leading authority on national route designations. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has just approved a National Corridor Plan laying out the framework and guidelines for the development of this system.

The plan identifies corridors connecting America's urban, rural, and suburban areas. The corridors cover well over 50,000 miles, which, if transformed into routes along roads and trails, would create the largest official bicycle route network in any country or on any continent. By comparison, the planned Euro-Velo network in Europe is projected to be 60,000 kilometers or 36,000 miles.

You can find further information, including criteria for routes and links to other trail sites, here.

Mark was also kind enough to send along a link to a map showing proposed routes: (pdf file). The astute among you will note that Wichita is included on one of these routes.

You may remember that last month I noted that an Obama administration would be keenly interested in developing alternative-transportation networks. News of the development of this bicycle route network, along with the new administration's transportation policy priorities, is all welcome news to cyclists who use their bikes as more than recreation.

I'm surprised that this thread didn't attract any comments. If you're wary about ratting on your fellow cyclists, you can always post anonymously.

Quote of the week? From the Springfield [MO] News-Leader (via Carbon Trace): "Our study showed people were going fast enough to warrant a higher speed."--Earl Newman, Springfield city traffic engineer. You should read the article, but the upshot is that the city is raising speed limits on some streets for no apparent reason other than the fact that people are already driving faster anyway. Along the lines of this reasoning: one of the local television stations recently had a story in which a reporter confronted drivers who were ignoring school zone speed limits. So, maybe we shouldn't have school zones? Many in Wichita are so small (often about half a block) that the temptation is indeed strong to simply ignore them. Or what about those pesky stop lights? And those folks that drive over 100 mph on the Kansas Turnpike--should we accommodate them as well?

Human nature being what it is, there are folks who push limits, whatever those limits might be. Their default setting for driving speeds is, Whatever the sign says plus 5 (or 10 or . . . ) mph. My former mother-in-law is such a person; her motto is, "You know how fast you need to go." There's no way to safely accommodate such people and protect the safety of those of us who have better control over our ids. Some laws are meant to inconvenience us--for our own good, and that of others. Besides: in these days of greater awareness of fuel consumption and the near-certainty that gas prices will rise, driving slower--enforced through current or reduced speed limits--is an excellent way to reduce fuel consumption.

Mr. Newman is, I'm certain, a fine American. But his thinking about speed limits (not to mention its implications for pedestrians and cyclists) seems born of an earlier America of cheap gas and bikes on sidewalks. Those days are receding from memory. It would be to our mutual benefit if our city planners, you know, planned--for a coming future and not for a past that no longer serves us well.

Cycling on the sidewalk

Ray of Bike Noob confesses and explains his rationale. Andrew of Carbon Trace links to Ray and offers his own take.

What say y'all on this?

I'm in no position to pontificate one way or the other. Personally, I use either the streets or designated bike paths; but on occasion, due to heat or getting winded, I've been known to hop onto the sidewalks for a little bit until I feel stronger. That happened much more often during my early days of cycling than it does now (the weather is cooler, and I'm in better shape now). But I am of the opinion, and I've seen it borne out, both while out and about and on others' blogs, that riding in the street and observing of traffic laws (riding with traffic, taking your lane at lights, stopping at lights and stop signs) is on the whole not only safer but faster than (proper) riding on the sidewalk is. And (okay, here I will pontificate a wee bit) if we want to see the day when cyclists are regarded by motorists not as moving road hazards but as also deserving of the same care and caution as other motorists are, the only way that will happen is if we're on the streets as well--it's then that cycling ceases being thought of first as recreation and, instead, as legitimate transportation.

As a commenter says in response to Bike Noob's post, if you feel uncomfortable in the street, you should consider changing your route to your destination. To which I say, "Absolutely!" If I hadn't found Mt. Vernon as an alternative to Pawnee for my commute, I'm not sure I'd still be persisting with cycling to work. As Robert Frost says in a rather different context,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Though I'm not sure Frost's speaker is being entirely truthful here (read the whole thing carefully), I assure you that, as regards bike-commuting, I am.

Sunday Ride #4: North on Arkansas River Path to Sedgwick County Park

Maps of route: MapMyRide, Veloroute. In essence an out-and-back route, with a big loop around the perimeter of Sedgwick County Park, the zoo, various county offices, and the baseball diamonds at the corner of Ridge and 13th. On the way north, I took Charles Street (located just north of the intersection of 13th and McLean); on the return, I took the bike path, which runs along McLean. South of 13th, the path is basically level; between 13th and 21st, the path arbitrarily ascends and descends the bank. One warning: at the 21st Street bridge, which the path passes under, there's construction occurring directly over the path. There's a "Sidewalk Closed" sign but no barrier in place. The amount of debris (concrete, pieces of wood, etc.) on the path makes pretty plain that during the work week, you'll want to go up to street level and cross that way.

Another cool day (we Wichitans collectively must be engaged in some serious clean livin' to have been blessed with this early-fall-like weather), another longish ride for me.

As the city's bike paths go, the Arkansas River Bike Path is its crown jewel. It's the longest (almost 14 miles); it's the best-maintained; its route--it passes through downtown, the Museum district, and links up at the north end with paths that run to the Sedgwick County Zoo--is great for visitors wanting to cycle to the city's Greatest Hits. It's clearly intended primarily for recreational cycling, but its generally north-south route, along with its length, its passage along the western edge of downtown, fairly easy access to it at its northern end for West Wichitans, and its eventual linkage at the southern terminus with the the Gypsum Creek path (which I posted on here), make it a decent commuting route.

I briefly considered riding the entire route as I'd done with the Canal and Gypsum Creek routes but in the end decided to ride the southern half on Tuesday. Just in case anyone is wondering . . .

It was a cool Sunday morning, so I expected to see folks out--but the pedestrians and other cyclists (more about the latter later), especially downtown and at the park, were numerous enough that we had to be alert for each other. It was fun. I was especially intrigued to see a fair number of cyclists who were clearly older than I am--some appeared to be in their 60s. Wearing the cycling jerseys and spandex shorts. Passing me by, no less. Today also gave me my first glimpse of West-Side cycling culture in Wichita, and--at least as far as rec-cycling is concerned--it seems to be alive and well: in addition to the ubiquitous Treks there were lots of folks on cruisers, and a couple of mothers were towing small children in trailers. As I rode along Westdale Road, I happened to glance into a house's open garage and was startled to see about half a dozen bicycles leaning against one of the walls.

I'd like to wonder aloud a bit about these spandexy folks or, as Andrew calls them here, the "thin-tire" crowd. Thus far, because most of my riding has been during the work week, I've not had too many encounters with them. Today, though, 4 or 5 of them passed me, and though they all warned me as they approached, I found myself thinking, "Don't these racing bikes come with some sort of bell or horn or something? Or are bells for weenie cyclists?" (My Fuji came with a bell.) While I don't begrudge them their desire to attain and maintain a certain speed, it seems to me that attempting to do so on a bike path on a weekend with lots of folks out--and not just slow-pokes like me, either, but pedestrians as well--is, well, in its way akin to motorists presuming that cyclists have a lesser right to use the streets than they do. They--the thin-tire folks--would have had more success had they been on the street, or had they just driven out of town a half hour in any direction. The last thing we need to have happen is incidences of cyclist-on-cyclist road rage on bike paths.

All that said, though, they aren't entirely to blame for wanting to ride there. The simple truth is that there aren't many other places for them to go on that side of the city: west of I-235, there are no other designated bike paths for folks to ride on except at the park and the connecting path to the north end of the Arkansas River path. That's about a quarter of the city that, relative to the rest of Wichita, is woefully underserved as regards bike paths or designated bike lanes on streets. The WAMPO proposals recognize this, but its list of priorities (pdf file) don't rank west-side projects very high.

I'd like to say that the crowded paths are a nice problem to have, but it seems to me that they indicate instead that, as the city has grown to the west, it and the county have fallen behind in providing bike-paths and bike-friendly streets (yes, that's true all over town, but I'm speaking relatively here). Until that circumstance changes, "sharing the road" will be a needed principle to apply on at least some of Wichita's bike paths, too. At least on the weekends.

Saturday-morning musings

A "Share the Road" sign from Marin County, California. Of course. Image found here.

Somehow, I don't see the City of Wichita adopting this sign any time soon. Now Lawrence, on the other hand . . . I do like it, though, because the yin-yang symbol does suggest something that I think is true about bike-friendliness and, more particularly, the Complete Streets movement: that at its best, transportation options should complement each other rather than conflict with each other. The usual Share the Road signs, though, tend to emphasize compartmentalization as the philosophical goal. Turf, territory, the notion of "special interests" seem implicit in such signs; and while, yes, bike lanes are de facto markings-off of space, re-imagined streets do feel more like a shared space than a segregated one.

Onward.

Blog Flux now has a Groups feature in which like-minded folks can arrange themselves into virtual collectives. It's a bit different from the usual directory listings in that the groups are more subject-specific than directory entries tend to be (this blog, for example, appears in "Local" in one listing and "Environment" in another because this isn't a "Sports" blog, and those directories didn't have any other options that worked as well). Anyway, as of this morning there is now a Cycling Blog Group which, as I type these words, has Yours Truly as its sole member. As others join, it's my hope that it will be a source of information and inspiration.

In the news . . .

It's a few days old, but it's still good to see some local-media coverage of commuter-cyclists.

Jim Grawe of KWCH posted this story, "Wichita Bike Riders Running Out of Room," on July 25, 2008 on the KWCH website. Grawe interviews Erick Riedell, who apparently commutes into the downtown area. Some of what Riedell says will be familiar to local cyclists (on the city's bike-paths: "They're great if you're going where those paths go, but if you don't live near a bike path and you want to come to Old Town, there's no paths coming downtown."); some, less so--at least in my (admittedly-brief) experience (on impatient motorists: "They'll throw bottles and spit on you and throw trash out the windows."). The story concludes with a general statement about how the city plans to link bike-paths together and make some major streets bike-friendlier (as I've noted elsewhere, most recently here).

The chief value of such a story is not in informing those of us who get about town but in informing those who don't. We become a little more visible via this piece, which is to the good.

Sunday Ride #1: Canal Route and 21st Street

This is the first post in an occasional series in which I'll ride and report on the dedicated bike paths in the city.

The map of my entire route is here. I didn't note my exact departure time from the apartment, but I rode the entire route in a little over an hour.

To start things off for the Sunday Ride series, I chose to ride the length of the Canal Hike and Bike Trails (not sure why it's plural . . . ) and a return home via 21st Street. I chose this route for several reasons: 1) It's relatively close by, and the morning feels like it will be hot today; 2) Friends, curious about my route to work, have asked me if I know it, and I don't; 3) As I've mentioned in a couple of places in this blog, it's a goal of this blog to convey to visitors (and to my council representative) that bike-commuting should be seen as something more than the Yuppie Thing it is often presumed to be--indeed, for many in the Hispanic and Asian neighborhoods just to the north of downtown, as well as for many street people, cycling is the way to get to work and to run errands. North of Kellogg, the Canal Route runs through the heart of working-class Wichita, and I wanted to get a sense both of how practical it is as a commuter route and much it's used. As for 21st Street, it is a major artery through Wichita's Hispanic neighborhood, and I was curious to see how bike-friendly it is.

The Canal Route is, in one sense, a study in contrasts and, in another, a model of consistency. First, the contrasts: North of Kellogg, I-135 is elevated, and the bike-path takes advantage of that by being routed underneath the southbound side of the interstate. As a result, the scenery isn't much to brag about, and there's a fair amount of loose gravel on the pavement. The path has lights installed along it, but the lamps aren't in the best of shape. Something that impressed me about this part of the route is that, in addition to the through streets often being bike-friendly, a few pedestrian bridges also span the canal, allowing for convenient access to the path from the east side. Also, a couple of the street crossings have pedestrian-controlled traffic lights. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by that portion of the route. South of Kellogg, meanwhile, I-135 is at ground level and so the path wends its way through residential areas, greenbelts and parks. Often, the path is fenced off from the residential areas as it runs along in the spaces between backyard fences and fences demarcating highway on-ramps. I have no idea how those portions of the route would feel after dark, but in the daytime the proximity of the houses made them feel safe.

Now to the consistency: For one thing, it's a rare stretch of the route that's exposed to full sun--something not to be dismissed lightly on a hot morning like today. This next part, though, strikes me as strange: It's as though whoever routed the path wanted it to be more entertaining than practical; thus, north of Kellogg, it slaloms around the bridge piers and, between piers, often curves for no practical reason. The same is true south of Kellogg. There's no way my route map can account for all those curves and, because I don't have an odometer on my bike, I can't say for sure, but I'd guess all those curves added well over a quarter-mile to the total length of my ride. There's no denying that, north of Kellogg, the curves make the route (emotionally) diverting to the point that you don't mind as much that pretty much all you have to look at is concrete and asphalt; on the other hand, though, the abundance of bike-tire tracks short-cutting across the bases of those loops suggests that many if not most people who use that stretch aren't there for fun but to get somewhere. South of Kellogg, meanwhile, some of those curves occur in the above-mentioned fenced-off stretches, creating a couple of blind corners that, if you're not cautions, could easily end up putting the "rec" in "recreation."

All in all, then, the Canal Route is shady and fun and, especially north of Kellogg, certainly has features intended to ease access to it. However, its slalom-y nature suggests that it was envisioned as serving primarily for recreation. That's not a bad thing, mind you; but as I imagined using it as part of my commute to McConnell (ultimately not practical, but it does head in the right general direction), I found myself thinking that the curves would cause me to feel as though I wasn't making good time. But that's just me.

21st Street, meanwhile, seemed surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning. Even so, people were patient with me to the point that, when I was waiting to turn left on to Waco (there's no dedicated left turn lane there), the motorist in the eastbound inside lane on 21st deferred to me to turn left. The street itself isn't particularly bike-friendly, but drivers seemed clear on the idea of sharing the road. Though I rarely have occasion to head that way, I'm glad to have made the trip there.

A cyclist's death in Wichita

From Kansas Cyclist comes this story of a cyclist who on the night of June 12 was struck at an intersection not far from where I live and who eventually died of his injuries on July 5. The accident happened at McLean and Central, which locals know is a roundabout where Meridian also intersects.

The following, I hope will serve as a reminder that traffic laws and signage aren't just for motorists and pedestrians:

Investigators determined the SUV driver had the green light at the intersection, and witnesses said [Kevin] Keller ignored the “Don’t Walk” pedestrian traffic signs. The driver of the SUV won’t face charges because Keller was determined to be at fault in the accident.

UPDATE: As Anon. notes in his/her comment below, this is a somewhat risky intersection even for motorists, because of the odd angles at which the streets intersect there. Cyclists passing through there would be well advised to observe the lights and WALK signs--especially at night--and proceed with caution.

Yesterday's trip

Route map.

This is mostly an excuse for me to play around with and introduce those not familiar with it to the Veloroutes mapmaking thingy (hat-tip: Noah of KC Bike Commuting). If you visit the link, you'll see my comments about the particulars of the route.

Additional notes: You'll also see that Veloroutes calculates distance, times and speeds. Due in large measure, I suspect, to construction and fairly heavy traffic (for midday) on 13th, it took me about half an hour to ride this route both ways. So, I averaged less than 10 mph, there and back. But also, I confess to still not feeling especially strong in the legs. I can't outrun cars, I know, but I'm still self-conscious about not wanting to be perceived by motorists as an impediment to car traffic. So far as I could tell, though, they were respectful of my presence.

The optimist in me thinks that, as it sinks in that gas costs will cause many to re-think their transportation options, and given the absence of dedicated bike lanes here in town, cyclists will begin to get more respect from motorists. Let us hope. However, in the official print media, I'd settle for "notice": seeing the many links in Bike Commute Tips Blog to newspaper articles about the recent rise in bike sales and bike-commuting made me curious about whether such articles had appeared in the Wichita Eagle. As far as I could tell, though, the answer to that question is No.

To borrow a phrase, hope for change.