As I was driving downtown to meet a friend in a coffee shop this week, I saw a road crew ahead and began to instinctively furrow my brow…until I saw what they were doing. The crew was painting bicycle symbols in a newly widened portion of the shoulder, with a stripe designating the lane and everything! I couldn’t believe it. Now, I and countless others, can use a more main road to get in and out of downtown on our bikes than just sticking to the biking/walking path along the river, or risking it in traffic (which, more often than not the case when using a more direct route from point A to B).
When South Bend received its designation as a “Bike Friendly Community” years ago, I was incredibly skeptical. There were more “Share the Road” signs than marked lanes, as far as I could tell. Road debris littered the shoulders and sidewalks were in disrepair in many areas, making them sometimes more dangerous than the roads themselves (not to mention, riding on the sidewalks in business districts is illegal anyway).
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Now I’ve been seeing big changes in the town, which I find to be getting us closer to cities I really respect as far as caring about their cycling communities in the U.S. (like Portland, OR, Minneapolis, MN, and Boulder, CO), and it makes me pretty excited. I know of people staying on their bicycles for exercise, or even getting into commuting by them on a daily basis or simply when the weather allows because of these shifts.
To me, bicycling has always represented freedom. I remember my first bike was bright pink with some neon yellow/green accents and white tires. It had ribbed pink handlebars and I relive the moments zooming around on it through the yard and through my neighborhood with friends. Next came my hybrid bicycle, half road half mountain bike. It got me much further as I grew up, and was a source of a lot of stress-relief through high school when I’d take it out and aggressively pedal for miles as fast as I could until I wore myself out. Lately, I have been borrowing my father’s old 1970's Raleigh road bike and zipping around on its lighter frame, and I love the ability to hold my own along main roads on it.
My bike represented the freedom to ride up and down the street in my neighborhood, the freedom to bike to my friends’ houses as I got older, it was the ticket to get to a boy’s house in secret at night when I turned 18. Now, when riding solo and trying to actually power myself down some miles or commuting to a destination will be a little easier knowing that the city has continued its dedication to giving cyclists more space away from cars and buses. Three-feet of birth given to pass from a car is still ideal (and the legal minimum limit in South Bend), but giving a visual cue that yes: cyclists and cars can and should share the road, is an encouraging pedal in the right direction.
