Almost exactly a year ago, I was grousing about the incomplete snow removal on the Lake City Greenway. Today, as I was riding to work, I noted that the whole thing had been cleared. It was much more pleasant than taking the snowy streets. So, since I originally griped publically, I shall un-gripe publicly: Good job, guys!
Of course, they might not read this at all, but you never know. Stranger things have happened due to this blog....
Now that the new trails have opened up in the woods, and most of the bike paths are in place, we've been taking the kids out riding with us. Paul occasionally joins us, too. Between the trailer and the bikes in the shed, we've got seating for eight!
Grin!
Since Aiden is now big enough to go riding with us, he now also gets a helmet. He picked the design out himself — bright yellow with little white chicks. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but then, my helmet is a graphite gray. How dull!
Pulling that trailer keeps me humble. As we were going up an incline, I stabbed the shifter down to get a lower gear, and discovered that I didn't have any lower gears left!
The new trails are beautiful. The new pavement is black and smooth, almost dreamy. The old mountain bike trails — the ones I used to ride back when it was still "trespassing" to do so — are still there, but Deborah prefers to go on the paved trails with me. Somehow, dodging trees and bouncing over roots at high speed doesn't jive with her idea of a relaxing afternoon. Go figure!
I stopped in to ask Rob about the sign on the bike shop lawn. He said he'd gotten a few queries about it, but that it just meant that there should be no bikes on the sidewalk, as it wasn't wide enough. I shot him a curious glance, and asked if he'd actually seen the sign. He hadn't, so I took him out to the corner. His response was hilarious. No bikes! Right on the lawn of the bike shop! And he hadn't even known it was there! Fortunately, Rob has a pretty good sense of humor, and he told me that it was part of a regulation for the marking of the greenway, and certain things were required to get the state funding. Still...
Elsewhere, as I had hoped, they've been painting lines to supplement the plethora of signs on the new greenway. It's much easier to figure out now.
This looks promising. Note the suggestion of helmet usage.
On the bright side, we've got better traffic direction here. On the down side, we now have a concrete post to run into.
Marking lines for painting a path along E. Canal St. By the way, there's no crosswalk here, either!
Spring is in the air. Earthmovers move about, digging up random patches of land. Signs spring out of the ground. And the citizens of Winona Lake all wonder: What are they doing now?
Most of what I'm noticing these days has to do with the further construction of the bike path/greenway. And, I'm sorry to say, there are several parts of it that look either poorly thought-out, or downright unfriendly.
Winona Lake is acquiring a sad history of unfriendly signs; for many years, there were signs all over the place stating that "This Park is for the Use of the Village at Winona Patrons Only" ...which was offputting, to say the least, given that we'd been here longer than the Village, and it was previously just a public lawn. Those signs, fortunately are gone. More creative, I thought, were the ones stating "Parking in designated spaces only" ...with a notable absence of designated spaces nearby. But some, I can only look at in wonder, and ask, "What were they thinking?"
Take this one, for example:
This is, I must stress, on the lawn of the bike shop. Neither Nancy nor Rob were in at the moment, so I couldn't ask what was going on there, but I can't imagine they're pleased about it. No bikes! At a bike shop! If you want to say, "This is not the bike path you are seeking" then it would be better to put an arrow towards said bike path. Banning bicycles from that street isn't the answer. I might note that there's a similar sign right across the street. The deep irony there is that in about a week, they're going to be running a number of criterium-style bicycle races right down that very street!
Here's one that's just confusing, even a bit dangerous:
Use crosswalk? I don't see a crosswalk. There's a semicircular sidewalk, did they mean that? Are bikes supposed to go on the narrow sidewalk? If a cyclist makes that assumption, then there's trouble once s/he gets to the next sign:
Routing bicycle traffic down that little passageway looks like a recipe for disaster, especially given the two sets of double doors that open right into it. I can only hope that some future painted lines help clarify that cyclists should go on the asphalt; otherwise, there are going to be some painful accidents and probable lawsuits.
Here, though, is one that I agree with:
The bike route ends here. It was supposed to continue on for several miles, all the way to the other end of Warsaw. But Warsaw seems to have dropped that ball. So: Winona Lake: Kudos to you, in spite of the signs. Warsaw: get crackin', ya slackers!
If you give a town a greenway,
They're going to want to use it.
If they're going to use it,
They're going to want to use it year-round.
If they're going to use it year-round,
you're going to have to clear the snow off of it.
If you're going to clear the snow off of it,
for Pete's sake, clear the snow off of all of it!
As far as I can tell, the path was cleared only as far as the entrance to the Winona Lake Hotel condos, which is right across the street from this picture. So, what — it's only cleared so that Hotel residents can get to the Boathouse restaurant for lunch? The number of tracks walking off the other side of the street lend some credibility to this idea. Thing is, look at the tracks that go off into the snow — there are a lot of them. But they're not going towards the Village and it's shops, so they must not be worthwhile, eh?
OK, I'm done ranting for a few minutes.
