The Daily Commute IV: Things thought and observed

A deer at Chisholm Creek Park. Image found here.

Friday was head-out-to-Andover day. A quick look at the forecast (20% chance for snow; high in the mid-'30s), a quick decision ("I'll risk that"), and I set off.

I'll dispense with all the I'm-woefully-out-of-shape stuff first. The results of my hiatus from regular cycling over most of the summer and into the fall and winter really showed yesterday, especially on the return trip: even if I hadn't stopped to talk to the Mrs. via cellphone, it would have taken over two hours for me to get back home. By the time I made it downtown, I decided I was just too tired to risk riding in the street on 8th or Murdock or whatever it is (which is what I usually do), so I rode on the sidewalk till I reached Waco. My legs felt such that I was afraid they would feel terrible this morning. But, amazingly, they don't. There's weariness today, but not soreness. So, I know the next trip will be easier.

Now, on to the happier Cycling-in-Wichita talk. I know the route I've chosen is not the most direct, but I like it: it's scenic for much of the way, and because almost all of it consists of dedicated bike paths, I'm able to travel a bit faster than I'd be able to on the street. Also, once the connecting path from MacAdams Park (the present north end of the Canal Path) to Grove Park (where the K-96 path begins) gets built, that will cut at least a mile (not to mention some pretty rough pavement on 17th St.) off this route.

The way out: Though it was overcast, it wasn't too cold, and there was no wind. I didn't know how passable the paths would be, whether the previous night's rain would take care of most of the snow; and I admit to being a little worried about the condition of the path under I-135 as well. As it turned out, though, the Canal Path was completely clear and almost completely dry--just a little mud in a couple of places. It also appeared, at least on that part of the path that passes through Chisholm Creek Park, that the city had cleared the snow off the path some time before. Elsewhere, there was some slush and standing water to contend with, but nothing bad. There was actually more snow along Rock Road at the bike/ped crossing than there was anywhere else. I saw a couple of people out on bikes; they seemed to be rec-riders, though. (Since I didn't have to be in Andover until 10 that morning, I missed whatever commuting "traffic" there is on the north and east sides of town.)

Without any question, the most pleasant part of the ride was through the park. Some birds were foraging for seeds, and I startled a couple of deer who saw fit to run right in front of me (I saw either another one or one of these two on the way back as well). I'm already looking forward to riding through there in the spring.

The east side of the K-96 path, as those who have ridden it know, crosses the abandoned railroad right-of-way that runs along 17th St. As I mentioned a while back, one of the WAMPO-approved projects is a conversion of this same right-of-way, but only from I-135 to Oliver. It was hard not to gaze westward down the easement and think how much more connectivity the bike-path network would gain by extending the path at least to K-96, or even (a boy can dream, can't he?) on in to Andover. Alas, it may be the case that there are disputes over just who has clear title to the right-of way along that stretch; and it's my understanding that the council member through whose district the right-of-way runs opposes such a project in any case. I of course wish neither were the case; if any of you reading this happens to feel the same way, especially if you live in that district, I hope you'll let that be known.

Those of you who live on the east side of town know that 13th St. has recently been widened and, as part of that work, now has for most of its length one of those soon-to-be-ubiquitous 10-foot-wide multi-use paths. What can I say?--it's a concrete sidewalk. But it's in good shape, and the people who live nearby seem to use it. Compare/contrast, though, with the, ahem, "work" done to some sidewalks at the corner of Piatt and 21st St. (which I passed by on the way home--I changed my route home a bit) to patch up after some underground utility work had been done: Just a mound of asphalt, with no effort made to level it out, to replace the sidewalk that had to be removed and that, a few good rains from now, will crumble away. To assume that this sort of thing is okay to do because it's in a part of town where people aren't likely to complain about half-assed work (sorry, more polite language won't do) like this is beyond cynical.

I reached Andover and went to Butler's facility on 13th St., a couple blocks east of Andover Road, where I tutor on Fridays. While I was there, I had a nice conversation about my ride over with a colleague who lives not too far from me. She said she's been giving some thought to riding out to Andover as well when her schedule permits; she has to get her bike in shape first, though. So: maybe another commuter.

A quick word about Butler's bike-friendliness: It's lacking. Its buildings don't have dedicated bike racks (I locked mine up on a railing by some stairs), but I know students ride there occasionally, so a rack would be nice to have. Butler will soon be launching a wellness program, but we don't yet know the details of that. I am hopeful that cycling will somehow figure into it; if it did, bike racks might make an appearance as a result. Also, one of Andover's WAMPO projects will be the building of, you guessed it, a multi-use path that will run along Andover Rd. from 13th to 21st street--right where Butler's other two Andover buildings are, along with a middle school and a high school. There's a lot of pedestrian traffic through there, so the sidewalks are much needed.

The way back: By the time I left Andover at about 1:30, the north wind was beginning to blow a bit and, when I reached K-96, some sort of precipitation started to fall--not snow, but at least some of it was freezing, I think. That let up around the time I got off the Canal path to turn west for home. But the only misery I felt was just from being so tired.

The upshot: All told, it was (still) a good ride. I know this because I'm looking forward to next week.

The daily commute: Things observed and thought II

The gateway over the new Midtown Bike Path; click on image to enlarge. Via Coasters Bicycle Club).

Thanks to Copenhagen Cycle Chic's and Streetblogs' and Carbon Trace's linking to the "Front Porch Chic" posts, this humble blog had over 300 unique visitors over the past two days (an average day here is between 20-30). (By the way: you should be visiting those good people on a regular basis, and not just because they linked to my posts.) But with this post, rest assured, I will return this blog's visitor counts back to their accustomed bottom-feeding depths as I talk about stuff that may be of interest only to people in this mid-sized city in Kansas.

As before, what follows is actually a hodge-podge of items in some way associated with getting around town via bicycle, some of which are from before last weekend. Take "The Daily Commute" to indicate more a state of mind than a rigorous recounting of the day's ride.

**Among the items for consideration on today's City Council agenda (WARNING: 429-page .pdf file!!) is a motion to increase funding for design work for the long-discussed bike path linking the north end of the Canal path to the west end of the K-96 path. Apparently, the extra money ($25,000) is needed because the city has asked the designers to make it more shovel-ready so as to qualify it for non-ARRA (you know "ARRA" better as "Stimulus Fund") money (the project wasn't approved for ARRA funds). The recommendation is to approve the funds. It's not clear from the agenda what sorts of schedules this project is on--a fairly tight one, it's safe to assume. I will try to find out more at the WAMPO meetings this Thursday (I think June 11th, by the way, should be dubbed WAMPOpalooza).

I do not have to tell you how much this project would facilitate bike-commuting from the northeast side of town to the urban core. It of course does not reduce the necessity of an east-west route (or two) through the city's middle latitudes, and it obviously does not at all address the complete absence of bike paths of any sort west of Sedgwick County Park. But for those who live near the K-96 path and work in the downtown area or even as south as far as McConnell/Boeing, this linkage suddenly makes both paths much more viable as commuting options than they had been. But here's the deal: though the city's political climate is, I feel, slowly shifting in "our" favor, if the federal money weren't there, it wouldn't get built. According to this story in Sunday's Eagle, the city has a $7 million shortfall in operating funds, a total of $17.5 million in projects on its wishlist for federally-funded environmental and energy-saving projects, but only $3.5 million in federal money. This situation is of course being played out in cities everywhere these days; indeed, we can be thankful that this money, little though it is, is explicitly designated for these kinds of projects.

Still: the fact that this request for more money for design work is on today's agenda suggests that building the path has some priority and that, if the financial stars align properly. work will begin on this project soon.

**Speaking of bike paths long in the works, on Friday I rode down to Garvey Park, which, as you know, is the southern terminus of the Arkansas River path, in part because I had not ridden all the way down there in a while and in part to see if by any chance work had begun on the path to link that path with the south end of the Gypsum Creek Path (short answer: No, at that end, at least). Depending on the weather tomorrow (there's a chance for storms in the afternoon), I may ride out to Plainview Park after my class to see what I can see from there. [UPDATE: Nope--no work there, either.]

Gentle suggestion to the Parks and Recreation Department: The content on the home page for bicycles has not changed in the year that I have been looking at it on a fairly regular basis. I for one would welcome posted announcements of projects, openings of paths, etc., individual maps of the new paths and updates to the old ones showing the new extensions . . . and an updated city map of paths that indicates the newly-completed paths and the new bike lanes on Mt. Vernon: some small gestures to indicate that cycling occupies more than oh-by-the-way status in the city.

**And speaking of newly-completed bike paths, on Friday I had a closer look at the just-opened Midtown path (a map of which I would link to if one were online--see above), and on Monday after class I rode that part of the just-completed extension of the Canal path that runs from the west side of I-135 at Wassal up to Pawnee. The Midtown path, in case you don't know, is a converted railroad right-of-way: it runs from Central right next to the county jail on its west side (perhaps there should be signage along the path warning against picking up hitchhikers?) due north to 9th, where it hitches to the north-northwest up to Prospect Park and Otis Park, continuing on to 15th. I don't know if there are plans to extend the path still further along the right-of-way, but that land appears to available for at least a couple more blocks to the north--ideally, all the way up to 21st Street via the right-of-way or, alternately, from 15th up Market to the future NOMAR International Market (and even if that didn't come to pass, it would appear to be a simple matter to designate a bike lane for a half-mile along 15th over to McAdams Park. Knowing a little about the aspirations the people of the Delano District have to convert their own stretch of abandoned railroad right-of-way, I was interested in looking at the immediate environs around the Midtown path to see if, here and there, there might be occurring a reorientation of the neighborhood in the direction of the path. Well, silly me: the path only opened in April. So, you know the answer to that. That said, though, the potential for that sort of thing happening seems large to me, especially in the area immediately around Otis Park and just to the north. Just a little vision, some money and, of course, clear claim on the property rights up to the actual path . . . but what I saw up there made me feel frustrated that the Delano District's path isn't yet built--around that route, there's even more space for a combination of established businesses and new, mixed-use development to appear and, potentially, become the District's true focal point as a community.

Now to the new southern extension of the Canal path. As I've said before, once I cross Pawnee at the pedestrian-controlled crosswalk, I head straight into the neighborhood: down Minneapolis to Glen Oaks, then left to Minnesota and then south on Minnesota to where it T-intersects Wassal. The official path, though, runs on the south side of Pawnee to the intersection with Southeast Drive, then follows that street south to Wassal. On my return trip Monday, I decided to check out the that path. I must be frank in my assessment: though there are probably legal reasons why it takes the route it does (since the city already owns the land it's on, there were no purchases to have to deal with?), it still makes no real sense. Two examples: on the stretch along Southeast, there's both a bike-lane and a bike path on the same side:an amazing redundancy in a city that is just now adding on-street bike lanes. Meanwhile, that part that runs along Pawnee from Southeast to the ped crossing crosses a couple of very tricky entrances to the large strip mall on that corner. This is a very clear instance when it's obviously safer for a cyclist to be in the street rather than on the sidewalk. As for the route I take, Minneapolis is a wide street with some on-street parking but little traffic, and Glen Oaks and Minnesota are a little narrower but otherwise the same. I much prefer it to the official path.

**As I mentioned last week, I stopped by Tom Sawyer Bicycle Shop, at the corner of Broadway and Mt. Vernon, and I spoke with one of the staff (whose name I didn't get) about the new bike lanes and about the state of cycling in the city. He said he hadn't seen any increase in people riding, or in the store either for that matter. He also seemed fairly pessimistic about the likelihood of more Wichitans' becoming serious riders any time soon. I suggested that perhaps things are changing, but he said that it would take $4/gallon gas to see real change. Granted, Tom Sawyer isn't exactly located in Wichita's cycling epicenter (such as that is); the chief reason I feel as I do about the ground shifting in cycling's favor is that I see so many more people bike-commuting here in the Riverside and Delano neighborhoods than I had seen last year--something that south Wichitans would not necessarily have witnessed. Also, I sense the conviction among the (admittedly few) people I've met in city government that cycling and alternate transportation need to matter more here than they have historically.

But finally, there's a bit of (positive) fatalism at work in me as well: our economy is changing, in some ways gradually and in some not so, as we speak and whether we like it or not, away from its dependence on oil. The Obama Administration has clearly prioritized projects for mass transit, rail, and alternate transportation such as bicycling in its funding. The twin pressures of more people choosing to bike (a bottom-up pressure) and meeting federal requirements in order to obtain funding for infrastructure (top-down) will lead Wichita to add that infrastructure. There are signs that the city is becoming more forward-leaning on these issues. We just need some people to encourage them to keep leaning forward.