Big Brother

Last week at a public meeting, the city presented the final plans for additional bike lanes to be added to the ever expanding bike route system.  Sitting and listening to the address, the thought struck me that it must be very difficult for this department of civic employees to have their voices heard over the noise coming from their big brothers in the transportation department.

Big Brother is watching

Someone asked why build bike routes when in the winter that is where all the snow is placed?  Judging from the answer, it reminded me of having to ask my father for my allowance and being afraid that he would brush off my request knowing I could do nothing about it.  The civic employee reponded to the question of snow removal by saying that they had mentioned it to the big, bureaucratic traffic department and that group shot back with: "It's the perfect place to put the snow!"

As part of the information session, long and detailed black and white photographic maps of the affected streets were displayed in the auditorium.  A part of the route I cycle was represented by a map 30 feet long that snaked across most of the room and it was fun to trace my commute along its black and white path. 

When I noticed that a bike lane was still planned for a section of my commute that is always dangerous because of large puddles of rain water and melt water, I had to conclude that the city's bicycle department had mentioned the problem to the transportation department but were probably told "Tell the cyclists that they will get a free bike wash when they ride on that lane!"