Bike to Work Week 2024

 

Clouds over New Bohemia

Monday, May 13

Bike to Work Week began on this rainy Monday, though the Week had already been proclaimed (pre-proclaimed?). Mayor Pro Tem Ann Poe read the proclamation at Meet Me at the Market last Thursday evening, when it was also raining.

City Council member Ann Poe (left) with the proclamation

Unlike last year, there were no exhibitors present, which was surely understandable (though it turned out to set the tone for the week).

Cloudy skies prepare to bring rain over New Bohemia

A few hardy bikers thumbed their noses and their front tires at the weather, and joined in a brief ride after the proclamation.

Ride leader Nikki Northrop with some true believers

Bike to Work Week should be the opportunity for some reflection. The City of Cedar Rapids website is justifiably proud of being named a Bicycle Friendly Community in 2014 by the League of American Bicyclists, and our growing network of trails and protected bike lanes. But we're not rated 27/100 by People for Bikes (13th out of 17 Iowa cities) for nothing. (For more on the ratings nationwide, see Ionescu 2024.) Cedar Rapids is very spread out, with danger along any number of streets and at intersections. How much safer/non-car-dependent do we want to be, and what are we willing to do to achieve that?

Tiffany Owens Reed of Waco, Texas (People for Bikes rating 12/100), who hosts the "Bottom-Up Revolution" podcast for Strong Towns, had a brilliant post early this month (Reed 2024). She challenged cities to use Bike to Work Week to help achieve greater and broader ridership, for all the reasons we say we would like people to bike:

1. Pay attention to why people who could bike don't (safety, mostly)
2. Note that using bikes for errands and especially to get to work is feasible only when destinations are close enough
3. We need to devote resources to talking to a broad cross-section of people, and experimenting with pop-up bike lanes and street closures that are politically risky.

In the meantime, we have trail pit stops, which have been a great tradition at least since I first did Bike to Work Week in 2014. Two were planned today, one downtown and one at Collins Aerospace. The morning ones were cancelled due to impending weather...

...as noted on the CirtyofCR.con/BikeCR website, which I forgot to check. I took this picture of where it would have been...

May 2024

May 2023

...and pushed on to my summer office in the Geonetric building, happily arriving before the rain began in earnest. I noticed a few other bikers on the streets as I rode, and a few bikes sheltering in the parking garages.

Rain threatened in the afternoon, too, but the front swung north, so we got to do the pit stops. 

pit stop swag, 2nd Avenue SE

Seth Gunnerson of the city's development department was staffing the table. He did not wish to be part of the picture, which is understandable, since we wouldn't want to distract your attention from the snacks and swag with Seth's brooding presence.

Seth and I have known each other for years, so we had some time to chat; understandably, given the dire forecast, there weren't a lot of riders along the trail through downtown. We also provided snacks to a woman with a thick (Mexican?) accent who was on her way to the bus stop. There was a reporter from the Gazette there for awhile who took my name so perhaps I will be part of the story. No such thing as bad publicity in the blogging business, I say.

There was also a traffic lady who ticketed Seth's SUV when he wasn't looking. The SUV was needed because Seth was selflessly hauling all the swag and snacks; the ticket means he was even more selfless than he'd planned to be.

Here's how my Bingo card stands after one day. I counted "stopped at a morning pit stop" because they didn't have a square for "stopped at where the morning pit stop would have been had it not been cancelled." My conscience and I will be discussing this for awhile.

Tuesday, May 14

I had a complicated day in front of me, and when a rainshower greeted me as I left the house, I decided to ditch the bike and drive instead. I feel like I've profaned the sabbath or something, but commuter cycling is complicated enough, and sometimes rain is the straw that breaks the camel's back. (Besides cycling and writing, I also enjoy mixing metaphors!) "You don't have to bike to work every day," Nikki Northrop assures us.

So I drove to my summer office in the Geonetric Building, then walked downtown--the showers had stopped by this time, though for my apostasy I surely deserved to be drenched--to meet my friend John for coffee and to do some power-walking through the skywalks.

The first Bike to Work Week event of the day was the Bike to Lunch Business Challenge, located at "New Bo City Market food trucks or anywhere convenient for you." This is what the market looked like a little past noon:

Trucks, no bikes: Food Truck Tuesday at the Market

My choice: pupusa from Los Ortegas Pupuseria

Yes, there are food trucks, but nothing at all redolent of Bike to Work Week. 

Where the information stands were last year

I don't know what to say about this. Is this, really, the best we can do? It made me sad.

There was more sad to be made, though, even as they day turned gorgeous. I went home to get my bike, and rode about three miles to the address of the Chain Reaction Bike Hub, where there was to be an event at 4:00. I know this is a real place, because it was written up in the Gazette, and a Coe student bought the first bike there. But "1010 3rd Avenue SW" is some sort of body shop. This is what it looks like from the front:

1010 3rd Avenue SW

I went around the building to see if there was another entrance--no. There were a handful of men, who either ignored me or looked at me funny. I realized I was prowling private property, so I returned to the sidewalk for a few minutes, then left.

On the offchance that it was a misprint, I rode to1010 3rd Street SW, which doesn't exist, because it would be on the embankment that leads up to I-380.

"1010 3rd Street SW"

It was nice to get out on my bike anyway, though even in this "bike friendly" city I still feel like an intruder on the streets. (And even in the separated bike lanes--today I had my first experience of an e-bike rider ringing his bell at me in hopes of getting around me, which he eventually did.)

In any event, day two of Bike to Work Week was a nothingburger. I got a couple more squares marked off on my bingo card.

Wednesday, May 15

There's more to come in the remaining days of Bike to Work Week--morning and afternoon pit stops, the memorial Ride of Silence, a bike rodeo in the Geonetric parking lot, and the Friday evening afterparty--but I will be somewhere else. I leave today for the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) meeting in Cincinnati, which will be fuel for another post. Someone else will have to win the prizes at the Handlebar Happy Hour.

May 2024: On my way to Cincinnati wearing my prize shirt from May 2023
(photo by Jane Nesmith)

Bike to Work Week, and I say this with love, has so far been uninspired. I will admit the weather has not been our friend, for the most part, but weather happens, and it's our choice what we do about that. Kristen Jeffers, in the excellent piece cited above, charges towns with ignoring serious issues in favor of self-congratulation, but we can't even summon the energy to do that. There are reasons to do this--promote and encourage alternatives to cars, celebrate what we've achieved so far--but the city can only do that if our leaders care enough to do it well. 

This year's schedule

SEE ALSO:

"Reflections on Bike to Work Week 2023," 22 May 2023

"Bike to Work Week Diary 2023: It's Not Going to Work," 15 May 2023