navigating the big city

Now that winter is here (sadly we don't have the magnificent snow of the east coast, though), I admit it's harder to get on my bike for trips downtown.  Active Trans' lakefront trail conditions blog is irregular, but it seems to suggest that the southern part of the trail is more reliably clear.  That doesn't stop the biting cold, and the fact that I still have no sufficient gloves for the cold wind once it gets below 20 degrees.  

The fact remains that however nasty the weather - on Friday I made the pretty unsafe decision to bike to REI in the driving sleet and snow, without my glasses, at dusk - when you get to your destination after 20 minutes on your bike in this weather, it feels damn good and satisfying.  And I wouldn't give that up for anything.  

Still, it's wonderful living in a city where I am guaranteed to walk or bike somewhere when I leave home.  Anny recently wrote on her blog about how Charlotteans' conceptions of what is too far to walk are so out of whack - since when do we need to get in the car for the half mile trip to Harris Teeter?  (You know who you are...)

All this talk of transportation makes me think of winter transit in Istanbul - mornings when the wind and weather were bad enough that nobody knew whether the ferries would be running, walking down to the dock and crowding onto the Turyol docks, because those boats ran in the sketchier weather, being smaller and, honestly, probably no safer than the big IDO ferries.  

NYTimes slideshow 36 hours in Istanbul

I will never forget the day it was so foggy you could barely see the bow of the boat from the stern, but we rocked back and forth, crossing the Bosphorus with its foghorn blaring, a man standing on either side of the bow, seemingly looking out to see obstacles or other boats or buoys before the captain in the cabin 20 feet back.  I stood in a prime spot in the front, right at the window in the middle, drinking my tea and calling Mireille to get her to hold the shuttle on the other side so I could get to work on time and without having to take a bus.  

Not quite a bike-able commute.  But there really is nothing to compare to a ferry commute.  Especially one where they serve tea in glass tulip glasses for about 38 cents.  

I've been doing a lot of work at MPC lately on Complete Streets.  (Although I am still infatuated with the idea of Shared Streets that I wrote about earlier and which I still honestly think could work - with some considerable effort to educate the public - in certain Chicago locations, like Polish Triangle in Wicker Park where I also spend a lot of research time.)  We've got two Complete Streets workshops coming up soon, and its an important item on our legislative agenda for the year, so I'm learning a lot.  It turns out Charlotte is nationally recognized for its Complete Streets policy, although it certainly has a long way to go implementing those guidelines on the ground with designers and developers.  While some of the people running these upcoming workshops want to bring in some of the planners from Charlotte, a just-published Benchmarking Report I read yesterday by the Alliance for Biking and Walking says that "Charlotte is the least safe major city for bicycling with 62.7 bicyclists killed per 10,000 bicyclists."  Inshallah, ten years from now when the much-praised Charlotte Urban Street Design Guidelines have had time to be implemented, we will look to Charlotte as an example of a city that successfully turned itself around from being a car-driven city to a multi-modal transit-driven city with plenty of bicyclists and walkers and bus-riders and maybe even - am I dreaming too much? - a well-utilized and integrated light rail network.  

Am I dreaming too much?  Or could that be Charlotte's future?

Comments

[Coop]

Charlotte's future involves brightly colored lepricons on stilts pinning it around the city on giant two wheeled bicycles, kinda like those old-school ones with a uber-large front wheel and a microscopic back wheel. These lepricons will most thoroughly enjoy wheaties as opposed to lucky charms and will not be a community obsessed with their iPhones or cell phones, and therefore will not need to talk/ text and ride at the same time providing a model for all to use as an alternative to the ear-spiting/ head-throbbing automobile congestion. It will be marvelous.

[helen]

I like Cooper's vision of Charlotte!

I had no idea Charlotte had such a progressive policy (that we need time and persuasion to implement : )) I remember looking at the website that ranks where you live on how walkable things were and was a bit surprised at how ridiculously close I am to many things- the beast that is Fairview cuts us off from something that would be a quick walk away (and that could still be... ) Glad you are learning so much and doing such interesting work!! Keep up the tales from Chicago :)