Bike to Work Week 2025

Trail crossing by Manhattan Park, Cedar Rapids

This year's observance of Bike to Work Week--or whatever time period is celebrated in your community--occurs in the shadow of a hostile presidential administration that has shown itself willing to stop at nothing to get whatever it wants. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former reality TV star and U.S. representative with zero experience in transportation policy, has ordered a review of any federal grants that include bike infrastructure (Kuntzman 2025). While claiming bike lanes cause accidents and traffic congestion, he has removed research from the DOT website that shows the opposite (Wilson 2025). Viable alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles are the only way to reduce traffic congestion, as well as a key way to reduce climate change, but the Trump administration has scrubbed those data as well.

Why is bicycling so threatening to those now in power? Lyz Lenz (2025) notes the link to community building, which is itself threatening to an individualist ideology: "Project 2025 specifically criticizes the Federal Highway Administration for funding parks, trails, bike paths, and sidewalks--all the things that make our communities accessible and walkable." She argues that the Department of Transportation under Duffy "helps set in motion a vision of American life that is small, isolated, and alone."

Here on Holy Mountain, our vision is of an America that is large, connected, inclusive, and in no real way threatening. And by golly, spring is here, the sun is out, we have a good two weeks until the bugs show up, and there are bikes to be ridden! And who do we see spiking the guns of disillusionment, but our very own city, along with neighboring towns and the Corridor MPO!! Yes, Bike to Work Week is back, with innovative programming like commuter group rides and a Tuesday evening family ride with decorative lights encouraged.

Pedal for Pancakes gathering by the Cedar River

Monday, May 12 (high temp 84)

It was sunny and summery today, near-perfect weather for the start of Bike to Work Week. The week began with an experiment: replacing the trail "pit stops" of previous years with the first of two guided commuter group rides. This one left at 7:30 a.m. from McCloud Place on the city's northeast side, progressing down the Cedar River to downtown. I live on the southeast side, so I passed on scooting across town to meet them at that early hour, and settled for getting downtown in time to watch them cross 1st Avenue at 7:47.

Morning commuters cross 1st Avenue E

There were two city staff and three commuters, hardly a throng, but not bad for the first time ever. I wonder, too, if the decline in downtown office work since the pandemic affects the potential audience for this? Anyway, we have a base to build on. The afternoon return trip had several more riders.

Six years ago, British blogger Robert Weetman (cited below) wrote five questions to assess the bikability of a given route. The answers are admittedly going to be impressionistic rather than quantifiable, but arguably give the best indication of potential ridership, which I would say is the point of Bike to Work Week. 

Weetman's first question is...

Looking only at traffic-related safety, would most people allow an unaccompanied 12 year old to cycle here?

Maybe. Most of what I rode today was on appropriate bike infrastructure in manageable traffic. I encountered two pinch points that would deter many ordinary people from attempting a ride downtown during working hours. The 1st Avenue trail crossing treatment is much improved from its initial form, but it still would make me anxious if the 12-year-old put too much trust in it. This morning, as I awaited the commuters, a senior woman, resplendent in an all-purple outfit, approached 1st Avenue on her bike. She pushed the crossing light, and we crossed together. "Are they going to stop?" she rhetorically asked about the 1st Avenue traffic. "Sometimes they don't." Today they did. 

No traffic, no problem: Heading downtown on 3rd Avenue
at 8th Street

Later, when I was chatting with the commuters, they all said that most safety issues were at intersections. One guy talked about 3rd Street and 8th Avenue SE, where car traffic in the right-turn lane is competing uncertainly with cyclists in the bike lane. I brought up 3rd Avenue and 8th Street SE--yes, a completely different intersection--where the separated lane starts on 3rd, but first you have to cross 8th where cars are waiting (we hope) to get onto Interstate 380. I know the city's grid well enough to avoid this intersection, but I'm not 12 years old. Denver's Bike Streets organization has created a map to help people navigate that city safely on bicycles; maybe we could gin up something like that here?

Commuters gather at McGrath Amphitheater for the return trip

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

Reflections on Bike to Work Week 2023

Bike to Work Week: Gathering at New Bo City Market
 for Thursday night's group ride

"Small cities must become safe. They are not safe just because they are small."--GILBERT PENALOSA 

I feel bad about criticizing last week's Bike-to-Work-Week because I had a lot of fun, and the people who ran it were friendly and I know they worked hard to pull it off. But I don't feel bad enough to refrain from criticism, because this year's heavy tilt towards recreational trail riding missed the opportunity to do the vital task of promoting bicycle commuting on the streets where we live. 

From Cedar Rapids Climate Action Plan (2021):
You can't get there in an SUV, nor in a giant truck
even if it's electric

Should we not celebrate the tremendous strides our community has made towards a trails network? We are about two years away from connecting all parts of the city as well as outlying areas in a way that will serve daily commuters as well as recreational riders. 

Yes, we should celebrate! But the dailiness of bicycle commuting makes it uniquely crucial to solving the problems caused by decades of auto-centric design.

(1) Bicycle commuting is different from trail riding. 

Commuting differs from recreational riding in a lot of ways. It's a choice among lifestyles, not just a choice among activities. It requires, in most cases, negotiating space that is particularly crowded during traditional business hours. Even the longest, best-connected trails are only part of the journey; connections to the trails will be made at the start and end of the trip from streets, and those streets were designed for cars. 

This is unavoidable: There are limits to how much land and money we have to work with, and expanding infrastructure, even for worthy reasons, puts more distance between destinations. (Widening streets to accommodate protected bike lanes, for example, makes for longer intersection cross times for pedestrians and wheelchair users.) So we need to get serious about the streets themselves (Negroni 2023).

And once we arrive at work or school--or the store, or your friend's house (see "Cycling Poll" 2023), bicycle commuting requires secure storage for the hours we're going to spend there. 

Oh dear. (Czech Village, May 2023)

(2) Bicycle commuting requires more than just infrastructure. 

Cedar Rapids has in the last decade built some excellent things: added bike lanes, some of the downtown ones separated, and restored two-way traffic on one-way streets. We pulled off a heroic effort to replant street trees after the August 2020 derecho (cf. Steuteville 2023). This has helped get people onto bicycles--but those riders are and will remain a tiny minority of those going to work or school or errands unless more is done to change the context. 

Huge connection: tunnel under 1st Ave
at about 30th St E

Our goal here is more than infrastructure--way more. Infrastructure is one important means to the end, but it's not the end. The end/goal is to replace car trips with bike (or walking, or bus, &c.) trips on a large scale. To impact everything that needs impacting, we should expand the set of bikers tenfold, from maybe 2.5 percent of the metro population to around 25 percent. [NOTE 7/17/2024: These are numbers I made up. Pro tip: Never do this! According to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey 2022, the actual proportion of commuter cyclists is 0.1 percent.]  That's going to require expanding the current profile of bike commuters to include the less confident, women, people of color, and children. (This People for Bikes report from 2021 looks like it might be very interesting in that connection.)

(3) Bicycle commuting addresses public problems, so it should be a priority for policy makers. 

As The War on Cars says, "#carsaretheproblem." Transportation is a primary source of greenhouse gas emissions, and any city serious about its climate action plan needs to think seriously about how people get around (See Litman 2022). To address the rising incidence of traffic deaths, environmental destruction, super-empowered multinational corporations and despotic regimes, traffic congestion, land lost to parking, and household transportation costs, we have to make it attractive for people to drive less. Or not at all. We achieve this only by having safe, reliable alternatives. That's going to require government policy making, if only to help undo the unintended policy consequences of former times. I'm not confident it is city policy, but with all those reasons it should be. 

Awkward interface: Wide sidewalk on C Avenue NE
crosses Collins Road in front of right-turn lane
on the way to Collins Aerospace

Among other things, therefore, elected officials need to take part in Bike to Work Week activities, partly for symbolic support, but mostly because they need to participate in the discussions that will lead to  policy solutions. To be sure, the mayor and city council were elected by constituents who predominantly drive everywhere, but they are also responsible for leading policy making in response to public problems.

(4) But, alas, what needs to be done is less clearly perceived and more difficult to do. 

One of the attractions of trail-building, I expect, is that whatever the difficulties in getting them built, the task itself is quite straightforward. Plan the route, acquire the land, build the trail. And then people use them, even in Iowa with our wildly variable weather. In town, the bike lanes and two-way streets have helped, but we need to do more than accommodate biking, we need to encourage it. How that is done is not clear, but it probably involves working with people more than building things.

In a post last winter, I spitballed some ways policy makers and cycling advocates could encourage more cycling in town. During Bike to Work Week, I pulled some of them to add to the city's wish list boards. I tried to stay away from infrastructure, because as I've said, the obstacles are more and trickier than infrastructure alone can solve.

Opportunity: Loftus Lumber on 3rd Street SE,
 site of future mixed-use high-rise

• Aggressive promotion. Take advantage of the 2,000 or so living units that are coming online in the core of the city over the next year. Shower the new residents with love and attention. Work with building management to schedule biking events, invite them all, get them together with bicycles, get them bus passes. Find out where they work and use that information to improve connectivity.
• Focus on key streets, like Wiley Boulevard SW near the new Westside Library, and the areas around the new schools. How safe is it for a child to walk from the affordable housing clusters to the library? Make it safer. How do children negotiate the crossing of, say 27th or 29th Streets by the new Trailside School? As the video at the bottom of the post argues, the proportion of children walking to school has plummeted in 40 years for a variety of intertwined reasons. As Cedar Rapids enlarges school attendance areas, that will make walking less likely but for older children might not rule out biking.

Truth in mapping:
Stop calling C Avenue NE a "bike-friendly street"

• Slow the cars. Nothing's going to stop someone who's determined to be aggressive, but design choices like narrower lanes can reduce average vehicle speeds to where collisions will be survivable. (See, for example, Gardner 2023.) I'd also like to see more traffic enforcement; I doubt we can enforce our way to safe streets, but I'd like to see some consequences for recklessly dangerous behavior. Finally, the city could push for weight and height limitations on SUVs and pickups, or at least be able to tax them more heavily. (On the dangers of vehicle gigantism, see Benfield 2023 and Muller 2023.)
• Invest in a large random sample survey of public attitudes about cycling. Who isn't cycling that could be, and why not? (Right now we're just reaching a convenience sample of cyclists.) What are concerns unique to women, the physically handicapped, parents of small children, and people of color? What are non-cyclists' attitudes about cyclists, and are there concerns we could address?

Awkward interface: The CeMar Trail,
 heading away from Cedar Lake along H Avenue NE

Besides a focus on making shared streets safer, I'd like to see the city look for ways to make cycling and walking more convenient, comfortable and secure. Availability of plenteous parking should not determine design, because the more parking there is for cars, the greater the distance between destinations, and hence the less convenient to walk or bike. At destinations like schools and job sites where people spend a lot of time, create secure bike sheds rather than relying only on bike racks. More people will ride if they can worry less about theft. 

I'd like to see more emphasis on specific groups who are underrepresented and hence easy to overlook. What about a morning group ride for women? Audits of routes from the perspective of disabled individuals? Outreach to communities of color? Who are the employers, retailers, and such who innovating in making it easier for their employees and customers to get their by bike? 

And then celebrate our progress during the next Bike-to-Work Week!

Much improved interface:
Cedar River Trail crossing 1st Avenue E, 2023

Same intersection, 2014

(I hope they don't make me give the t-shirt back.)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: David Jones, "Bike Commuting Statistics: 74 Cycling to Work Stats for 2023," Discerning Cyclist, 5 March 2023 [HT Ron Griffith for this one]

VIDEO: Jason Kottke, "Why Did Kids Stop Walking to School?" (12:38, from kottke.org)

Bike to Work Week Diary 2023: It's Not Going to Work

My first Bike-to-Work Week in Cedar Rapids since 2019--I was in Belgrade last year--comes with much anticipation, though mingled with concern. The incredible weather forecast and four years of deprivation have me utterly psyched for this. However, this year's schedule is visibly thinner, missing some of the highlights of earlier years, and oriented more to trail riding than commuting. (More on the importance of this distinction later.)

The disorientation started early. The traditional mayor's proclamation was moved from  Monday morning downtown to the previous Thursday evening at New Bo City Market, and was delivered in the absence of the actual mayor by City Council member Ann Poe.

Ms. Poe read it like a pro, having done it once before in 2016

The proclamation was attended by maybe three citizen cyclists, along with city staff promoting various initiatives...

city displays included posters for Connect CR
and a planned intergenerational center

...and some rather puzzled citizens who were there for weekly Jazzercise. Later came the regular weekly bike ride connected to Meet Me at the Market, which I was not able to attend. (I also had to miss Saturday's MPO Ride.)

I had shown up to the proclamation 45 minutes early--did I mention I was psyched?--in a bright neon Bike to Work Week t-shirt. The young city staff setting up their displays had not seen this artifact. "From back when there was money," one said. Oh boy.

May 2019: Post-proclamation breakfast at Jimmy Z's

Monday, May 15

Cedar Valley Nature Trail pit stop at 2nd Avenue SE,
about 8:30 a.m.

Bike to Work Week started chilly and gray this morning, though the forecast for the week remains ideal. Pit stops around town return as a key feature of the week. I got to the downtown location about halfway through the 6:45-8:45 morning shift and, frankly, did not see much action. The guys at the pit stop, Steve Hershner from the city and a young man from Hall Bicycle whose name I didn't catch, reported more people coming through during the half hour before I got there, and a fair-sized group of trail riders at about 7. Steve was resplendent in his BTWT shirt from 2019, the one with the bike map of Cedar Rapids that long-time readers will remember I didn't get, albeit in the chill he had several layers over it.

snacks available at the morning pit stop

This afternoon, I visited the pit stop at Collins Aerospace. Getting there from Coe College was a little tricky through the after-school/rush hour traffic, but I made it. (I prefer side streets to main streets, even if there are bike lanes, so I forsook the chance to try out some of the newer bike infrastructure.)

By this time, the sun was out and the air was considerably warmer than the morning had been. We saw quite a bit of traffic on the Lindale Trail that runs along the north edge of the Collins campus. Derek Stepanek from Northtowne Cycling and Fitness was helping people test ride e-bikes. He was kept busy the whole time I was there. 

Betsy was there from the City, and it turns out she's also in charge of coordinating the bikeshare program, which gave me the opportunity to mention there's been a scooter in front of my house...

...since Friday night, and another one two doors down, which I can't report through the app because it won't allow me to upload the picture it insists on having. She suggested I try the phone number, and pointed out other people are reporting wayward scooters without this problem.

I have problems other people don't have? Story of my life...

Tuesday, May 16

Today's Bike to Work Week event was the Bike to Lunch Business Challenge, initiated in 2019, and this year timed to coincide with the New Bo City Market's weekly Food Truck Tuesday. I enjoyed West African peanut and sweet potato stew, the weekly special from The Full Bowl.

(Note: this is not a truck)

Roman Kiefer from the Corridor MPO and Haley Sevening from the City were on hand to answer people's questions about trails...

...particularly the planned completion of the Lindale Trail (in 2024) and the CeMar Trail (in 2025), which when completed will not only be useful for commuters but for recreational riders will create a huge loop between downtown Cedar Rapids and Uptown Marion.

Visitors left a fair number of wishes as well, mostly related to trail riding.

Not everyone in the considerable turnout was there for Bike to Work Week, but the level of interest in cycling, particularly trails, was encouraging.

This morning I joined a webinar this morning on safe streets hosted by Gilbert Penalosa's organization, 880 Cities, featuring guests from Hoboken and Seattle. Ryan Sharp, director of transportation and parking for Hoboken (pop 60,000), which has had no traffic deaths in 6+ years, credited "a lot of good fortune" but also 13 years of deliberate preventive actions like protected bike lanes, curb extensions, "daylighting" parking areas, road diets, pedestrian islands to reduce pedestrian crossing distances and vehicle speeds. Allison Schwartz and Brad Topol from the Seattle (pop 730,000) dept of transportation noted that despite that city's increase in pedestrian and cycle deaths since 2019, where there have been separation and slowing vehicles those have gone down. 

The Seattle presenters stressed shifting away from consideration of isolated individual blame to system accountability. (On the contribution of design factors see also Sheppard 2023). The core goal is to go beyond reducing tragedies, and to design a system where everyone feels safe moving around the community--regardless of transportation mode, race, sex, and income level.

Getting there requires more than trails, and more than bike lanes. This morning I drove--heretic!!--from my house to the YMCA, which is a little more than a mile, and spotted three cyclists (all white men). What would it take to get three to, say, thirty? with more diversity to boot? Is the city mentally prepared for this to happen? Can we help it happen? Do we even want it to happen? (The last is meant ironically, of course. I may be a backslider but I'm no heretic!)

May 2016: Bike to Lunch with the mayor at Kickstand

Wednesday, May 17

The Ride of Silence is where Bike to Work Week shows its serious side, commemorating those who have been killed in road crashes, typically from being hit by motor vehicles. Roman Kiefer of the Corridor MPO (pictured above) began the ride by citing recent statistics from the area: no one killed so far this year, one serious injury, with four last year in 267 collisions. It shows the frustrating limitation of infrastructure; even with a network of connected trails and protected lanes, sooner or later one has to cross paths with motor vehicles, and as those get bigger and faster (see Benfield 2023) tragedies will happen unless something can be done to address that.

Car-dependence is also bad for nature and public health. Last night's The War on Cars podcast featured an interview with Amy Westerveldt, host of the podcast Drilled. She is currently reporting on environmental damage and political corruption caused by Exxon's oil extraction in the South American nation of Guyana. This week ProPublica has a story on the aftermath of oil extraction in California, which has left a bill so large that neither industry nor government can cover it (Olade 2023). Our thirst for oil has all sorts of harms, which makes the promotion of bicycle commuting all the more vital.

The ride began and ended at City Square in Marion, wending 5.6 miles through the streets of Marion and far northeast Cedar Rapids. We had a Marion police car before...

...and a Cedar Rapids police car behind. We rode Marion Boulevard to Blairs Ferry Road to C Avenue to Boyson Road, then back on Central Street. Those are some serious stroads. I don't recommend doing any of that without a police escort!

Riding east on Boyson Road in Cedar Rapids

The ride really did happen in silence. Most other people we encountered were respectful, and we got some cheers from people sitting outdoors at Villa's Patio. Coming back in on 10th Street, I heard a little girl ask her father, "What is that? It looks like a parade." I thought particularly of Dan Lehn, my Coe College colleague who was hit by a truck in July 2016. Dan loved people--his family, his friends, his students, and everyone else, too. How tragic to have such a sweet spirit taken from us too soon.

Scenes from earlier today:

Morning pit stop downtown

Afternoon bike ride: Transamerica campus

Also today, the Veo scooter disappeared from in front of our house, after four-plus days. It happened without our intervention, as I never did get the app to work.

Thursday, May 18

Bad news for someone in Czech Village this morning

This morning I rode across the Bridge of Lions into Czech Village to meet a friend for coffee. I found this sad remnant pictured above as I locked my own bike. If nothing else, the theft shows infrastructure is far from being the only or even the primary existing obstacle to confident bicycle commuting on a mass scale. 

Another issue is the size and speed of vehicle traffic, which is unusually high on 16th Avenue these days because of the major construction project on the 12th Avenue bridge. As motor vehicles get bigger, streets are more crowded and cyclists, pedestrians, wheelchair users, and others are less confident of even being seen.

Today's Bike to Work Week events included a pit stop at New Bo City Market, sponsored by Goldfinch Cyclery.

I chatted with Lillian Pope from Goldfinch, who in addition to bicycle expertise has a passion for social justice, but is unsure how bicycling can help. It seems cycling can speak to economic and racial equity--and the viability of small local businesses--as well as environmental sustainability, but it doesn't happen automatically. It will take intentional effort, along a path that is murky at best.

Lillian also suggested a fix for my floppy handlebar grip, which involved walking my bike over to the shop and getting a new cap put on the end.

Good as new! Thanks, Goldfinch!!

At 6:00 the weekly Meet Me at the Market ride departed. Eight of us took the Cedar River Trail south to Hoover Park and back, about 15 miles in all.

The suburban subdivisions sprouting on the southwest side have rather nice trail access to the core.

After the ride, there was a small Corridor Urbanism meetup at Kickstand in New Bohemia.

The beer and conversation were good, but I was stunned by the number of bikes at the bar on a Thursday evening.

Maybe we should change it to Bike to the Bar Week!

What we've been missing, by failing to keep the focus of the week on bicycle commuting, are the sorts of events held in earlier years that were specifically focused on commuting, such as how to encourage more of it...

May 2017: Nikki Northrop Davidson, Bike2Work Consultants
presents "Bike to Work 101" at the Metro Economic Alliance

...and bike-friendly workplaces (featuring the building where I am now writing!).

May 2014: Geonetric's bike-friendly building under construction
(destination of group ride with the mayor)

Maybe these aren't exactly the ticket, though as an academic I'm always up for a panel, particularly if there's coffee! And with all the construction going on in the core, and elsewhere in the city, it would be nice to feature what architects and employers are doing.

It is good to celebrate the increase in the size and connectivity of our metro's trails networks, but trails won't save the world. Bike commuting could save the world, if we wanted it to.

Friday, May 19

Bike to Work Week culminated, as always, in an after-party, tonight at Sag Wagon, a bike-themed bar overlooking Cedar Lake.

Ron Griffith pointed out the Sag Wagon has a trail map painted on one outside wall.

We gathered at 5, mingled among the other bar patrons; I sat with fellow BTWT enthusiasts Chase and Desiree. At 6 they started handing out prizes. Based on the number of cross-outs on my Bike to Work Week bingo card...

...I had first crack at the prize table, and I scored a water bottle from Goldfinch and a t-shirt from Hall Bicycle. Other than the fact that the t-shirt appears to say "Smack me," which I certainly don't want to encourage, this was arguably my best Bike to Work Week ever from a materialistic standpoint.

(photo by Haley Sevening)

Bike to Work Week 2023 was a lot of fun, but also missed opportunities. This will take another blog post to work out, however, as it is high time I closed this one.

See also:

"Trails and Bikeways Ideas," 19 February 2023

"Bike to Work Week Diary 2019," 13 May 2019 [includes links to earlier posts]

Kaid Benfield, "CARZILLA: Are Huge SUVs and Trucks Hurting Pedestrians and Walkable Communities," PlaceMakers, 5 May 2023

Alec Davis, "Can You Live a Car-Free Life in Des Moines?" Waste of Space, 6 May 2023 [includes ref to bike neighborhoods]

Bill Pugh, "Bike Bike Baby: How Greater Washington Can Boost the E-Bike Revolution," Greater Greater Washington, 10 May 2023

David Zipper, "Bikeshare's Proud Past and Shaky Future," Paved with Good Intentions, 8 May 2023