Riding to work

I ride to work most every day. I don’t really like riding in the rain, and some days I have meetings that take me beyond my bicycling limits for workday travel. But any other day—and I've ridden when it’s over 100 degrees and when it’s below 10 degrees—I saddle up and pedal the two miles from my house to the office.

I’m fortunate that about half my ride is in my neighborhood, with calm streets and little traffic. That’s not to say drivers don’t occasionally forget that there may be someone else on the road and roll through an intersection. Crossing Pine Street is generally easier than I expect. (Here's a video I made of a little bit different commute.)

As I ride into downtown, I take back streets—St. Paul Street, which goes behind the Farmer’s Table, and Real Estate Way make my usual route; sometimes I take the road in front of the Y. From there I come in Kennedy Street, wide enough that all the traffic gets into the inside lane, leaving me with a 12-foot bike lane.

Most days, my ride is pretty causal. I often say hello to people walking on the sidewalk. I think about different things—my work day, the letter I started, what that thing was moving in the grass. I try not to get too warmed up, and have found that 10 miles an hour is the threshold for sweating in the summer. And though occasionally I think I’m too tired to ride, I always feel better when I do. The 15 minutes twice a day does my body and mind good.

Paths to goals

Recently I heard someone say, and I can’t remember where or who, that a community’s issues are generally not “goal” issues, but “path” issues. The idea has been stuck in my craw ever since.

Most of us want to live somewhere that has public spaces 

like this one, in the other Carmel (California).   

Being intimately involved in pushing forward some of our community goals, I have seen this perception as a kind of truism. We want an equitable and healthy community, a vibrant and profitable economy that benefits all citizens, citizens happy and engaged with access to a strong education at all levels, and to the arts, activities and good food. We want a community whose residents love living here, and we want to be governed by thoughtful people full of integrity who respond to the needs of the community. The arguments we have in our community mostly result not always from competing goals, but from differing views about the paths we choose. 

One thing is certain: investing in walkable downtowns, bike and walk-friendly neighborhoods and commercial areas and good land use policy that supports it all. I recently saw James Brainard, mayor of Carmel, Indiana, speak about their experience.

Carmel has been in the community-development news for a while, and I can’t pretend to any great scoops about how they did it. But a few things he said in his talk really struck me as something that is possible in small cities and towns everywhere. I would say all of that starts with commitment and policy. 

Proceeding from the belief that design governs all matters, Carmel developed a set of design standards intended to create the old town feeling they sought. The overlay ordinance, Brainard said, makes it so “you can't tell if a house was built in 1910 or 2012.” Streets designed for traffic calming (1 1/2 to 2% of Carmel’s budget is for street trees, Brainard said) make active transportation comfortable and easy. Requirements for second floor (at least) residential space above retail stores in the downtown core and underground parking (paid for with tax increment financing) make for a human-scale downtown. Eighty-five roundabouts in the city give it an efficient, safe system for vehicles, and walking and biking are included in the designs, it appears.

I should add first that Mayor Brainard’s presentation left me wondering where the battles were. Especially when he (maybe) glossed over the details of a $95 million DOT swap to create an arterial under passing a spectacular double-roundabout intersection.

The Indiana Department of Transportation wanted to 

put up traffic lights to solve this problem 

caused by Carmel's rapid growth. The city taking over 

ownership of the intersection (at least) helped 

work out the $95 million in funding from INDOT. 

photo: Carmel, IN official website 

Even my live tweeting of the speech brought out an opponent (along with several new followers from Carmel).

Mayor Brainard did comment frequently on another piece of the puzzle that I think probably facilitated the process: they had no real old downtown to redevelop. In fact, when he was running for mayor and knocking on doors, he asked about their downtown. He realized after a while that people were referring to different places when they talked about it. “People need to know where the center of town is,” he said. 

So they moved over a few blocks from what they agreed was a commercial center of town, and put in place a set of incentives and design standards that did indeed attract the investment they hoped for. Building up from scratch, it seems, is easier to control, especially when you have the commitment to design that Carmel has. 

I should also say that Carmel sounds a bit too contrived for me. I have never been a big fan of the kinds of giant developed communities like Ashburn, Virginia or Irvine, California. I like my urbanism messy, I guess, the way I like my nature.

But none of this detracts from the remarkable example that Carmel provides: with commitment, political will and influence (how else do you get $95 million dollars from a department of transportation?), and including walking and biking comfort in your design—and luck—you can get what you want for your community. 

Walking to Work

I’ve been walking to work lately. Since the first Snomaggedon of January 2014, my bike has coincidentally been under the weather. The subsequent Snopocalypti-quake and one

Downtown from a new perspective.

thing and another, and I’ve missed my once-a-week mechanic at work. 

So I walked. Of course it is much slower than my usual bike commute. Two miles on the bike is 10 or 12 minutes; the walk is a half hour door to door. I take a slightly more direct route, using Henry Street, a major arterial that I avoid when riding to work. 

I’ve ridden my bike to work or school for the past 30 years almost, some from necessity and some from choice. I’ve ridden in cities and small mountain towns. For the past seven years, I’ve ridden roughly every day into downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina. I certainly get more out of riding than I give; I have conversations with folks who are otherwise invisible to drivers, I get to experience dramatic cold and heat on my face and hands, I pass the world at 15 miles an hour instead of 35. 

So the walk has been a fairly eye-opening activity. Aside from walking to classes throughout college, I have generally chosen the faster, more athletic cycling for transportation. But as a runner for exercise, and now having gotten more into ultra marathons, walking is an activity I early practice but often employ in races. 

Scary narrowing of sidewalk
into the turn.

As with my biking, the walk has made me more aware of need for the types of facilities I advocate for—pedestrian oriented, even pedestrian prioritized. Walking along the Mary  Black Foundation Rail Trail I am relaxed, and look at vistas and skylines. I am slower than on my bike, so I can see more details in the neighborhoods I pass through. I notice impediments I don’t see from my bike or car.

I feel the difference between a buffered sidewalk and a sidewalk that is right on the curb. I feel the difference between crossing a narrow neighborhood street and a wide arterial at funny offset angles and right turning vehicles. 

And I see what a difference pedestrian friendliness does for travel. We move more slowly, ambling and enjoying the morning. On the Rail Trail, we say hello.