How Was Your Commute Today?

[carlotta]

Somehow I went on vacation for a week and the days got WAY shorter.... the trail at 6:15am is questionably dark (wildlife/people) and it'll probably be a week or so before I'm back to the winter road option for the first bit of the commute (not a big deal, light traffic that early, plus a fairly wide street and a big downhill so easy to stay with traffic). Worked later than anticipated last night and probably should've had my big headlight for the last bit of the commute as well.

Classes are starting again as well which means a whole new cohort of trail users to train (and crew teams/ROTC/etc), you'd think "keep right" is a fairly easy concept, but apparently not (as we all know). Plus K-12 starts in a week or two which means school busses and (more) harried parents....

Also, not directly commute-related, but bike parking at work has gone from awesome to serviceable to crappy. I used to bring my bike into the building and tuck it into an unused corner of the lab, not in the hallway, stairway, or anywhere else the fire marshal would have an issue with it..... unfortunately plenty of other people left bikes in hallways and now security has decided no-bikes-in-the-building is the way to go. Ok, fine, I used to park outside in front of one of the other buildings with a covered bike rack so I've been doing that for a few months. Now the school has decided to concentrate bike parking in large corrals of ~100 racks and remove all other freestanding racks. This MIGHT work, except they didn't bother to ask commuters for input and none of the new parking is covered (they installed cameras, and the security guy I spoke with said the budget allowed for one or the other..... if they'd polled commuters I'm pretty sure we'd rather have a roof than cameras. Both would be great, but pick one and it's a roof every time for me). There is one garage with a rack, but it's the useless old style where you have to either get one of the end spots or put your front wheel over the rack, and that doesn't work with fenders. They're also threatening to start charging for access to that sub-par rack. Ugh. /RANT

[Melalvai]

carlotta, that's ridiculous! Write a letter to the editor or something. Be the squeaky wheel. (But don't expect anything to change!)
I was the squeaky wheel and got my wheel repaired because of it.
I'm bringing my bike into the building now. That's not allowed for the same reason your building doesn't allow it. So far I've managed to sneak it in. But I have short-timer's syndrome so I don't care if I get caught. If I cared, I think I'd just walk at this point.

[carlotta]

There's definite unrest among the commuters.... I've talked to a couple other people around the racks and they're not happy either, but there's a general consensus that the powers that be on campus don't really care what we think. I've emailed the contact who was listed in the initial email spelling out all the changes, but not heard anything back and as non-faculty (important people with power) and non-student (not $$$ generating), I never expect much when I complain.....

Good news is we're probably moving to a different institution in a few months which means I get access to their underground garage with bike parking, so maybe things will be better by winter/bad weather.... until then, there's one good parking spot which was empty at 7am all week last week, so I have incentive to get to work early...

[carlotta]

This morning was an example of why you run a headlight, even on a fairly well lit MUP.....

I came around a blind corner (always an adventure, had a woman on a bike coming at me on my side of the trail this morning, but that's sort of expected) and ALL of the lights were out (street lights, trail lights, parking lot lights). This is a section of trail that's probably 1/3 mile from civilization and it's busy, even at 6am. I had my light on low, but had to crank it up to avoid joggers (lots of black, little reflectivity) for 1/4 mile or so. I almost felt like warning the assorted roadies I saw headed for the dark section after I came through it, but figured it'd be a good lesson for them, and it'd be light enough to see in 15 minutes or so anyway...

[skhill]

It rained for less than 10 minutes here yesterday. I felt the first few drops as I was hopping onto my bike for the ride home. By the time I'd gone 2 blocks, it was raining pretty hard. As I turned on to my street, it was letting up. And by the time I'd stripped out of my wet clothes, it had stopped entirely. Sigh.

And if I'd gotten away on time, I'd have been home before a single drop fell, but I got held up about 15 minutes. One of those days...

[BethG]

Students are back in town, and people are all coming back from vacation, so the traffic has been bad - BIKE traffic that is. Still faster than driving, but there's been some pretty impressive congestion. And they haven't all figured out how to be good fellow travelers, either. Someone rear-ended me the other day because wacky gal that I am I stopped at a red light. Fortunately I wasn't injured, and the guy at least had the decency to be embarrassed, and apoligize.

[carlotta]

I feel your pain, Beth.... bike/pedestrian/crew team practice (I ride past our boathouses) traffic has increased so much in the last couple weeks and it's been pretty crazy. I've seen cops out either warning or writing tickets for running lights and I always try to thank them if I end up stopped at the red (which always seems to surprise them).

Nice commute here this morning, broke out the full gloves/knee warmers for the first time (should've worn them yesterday, but I'm stubborn and didn't go back up to the apartment once I got outside and realized how cold it was). Not too crazy traffic/trail traffic.

The ongoing parking situation at work is getting worse, the rack I've been using is one of those old 'put-your-wheel-over-the-rack' jobs, and I can't park like that with fenders... so there are two usable spots (the end vertical posts) I can use. Long story short, even when I get here at 7am, one is usually occupied by the parking lot attendant, who doesn't actually lock his bike to the rack, but got very indignant the day I tried to move his so I could lock to the rack (really??? what's the difference leaning against the rack or against my bike??). The second spot has had a bike that is cable locked to the rack the past couple days (and could be cable locked anywhere along the length of the rack). I'm done trying to deal with that rack, the only WRITTEN bike policy I've seen says bikes are "discouraged" from being brought into university facilities, so I'm printing that out and bringing my bike into the building from now on, security can deal with it. (we're moving in a couple months, and I will have access real racks in a parking garage at that point, and maybe sooner... the garage/new building is 200 yards from the current building but a different institution and I'm not sure I can use it yet)