b ‘n’ b roundabout update

I like the pun in roundabout, because while this is an update of yesterday’s post, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether it is straightforward or not.

I asked a question yesterday on Facebook about Amherst’s new double rotary, aka Atkins’ Corner, and my pal, Baer, aka sweetmojo, sent me this link. It is a safe link to download and open (at least it was for me), but lotsa luck reading the damn thing. This is just how my friends are: thorough, leaving no stone unturned. Now I have to be responsible and read why I can’t have a bike lane in the roundabout. You know I’d rather rant than admit there’s a good reason Amherst does anything at all with my tax money. Okay, some of it was state money. I pay that, too.

I know we’re a little town, not a state capital or anything. I remember the bike lanes in Madison. I remember.

It’s not that I think it’s safe to make a bike lane in a roundabout necessarily. I just wonder why time and again when I see street improvements in Amherst, they do not include proper bike lanes. And everything else I said yesterday, too. But God forbid I should get involved in local politics. Remember how busy I am?

Maybe by spring they’ll complete the shared sidewalk/bike lane with some sort of entrance/exits for cyclists and I can see if it meets with my approval.

Props to you, Baer. You didn’t think I was gonna let facts stand in the way of my bitching, did you? That said, the divine biker in me bows to the divine biker in you.

This guy has a bike lane and he looks like he needs to chill the fuck out. They even painted it green for extra specialness. Lesson learned: happiness comes from the bike lane within.

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bike ‘n’ bitch: money talks

what, me bitter?

You already know about Amherst’s new, 6 million dollar double roundabout, right?

Guess what? NO BIKE LANE. At least not one that I can see. Maybe I am simply short on oxygen due to my recent bout with anemia. But I don’t think so.

6 million dollars, 2 years’ construction, and NO BIKE LANE. It appears that there’s a new wide sidewalk still being completed. Are bikes expected to share the sidewalk? WHO’S RUNNING THE ASYLUM people?

Also, it seems to me that as you get within an eighth-of-a-mile of the new roundabout, the breakdown lane that used to exist has almost completely disappeared. Instead of a 3″ white line and about a foot and a half of shoulder before the berm and sidewalk (this is actually only if you are lucky because in some spots on 116 the “breakdown lane” disappears almost completely), now there is a white line and about 12″ of “breakdown” lane. Next to that? About a 4″ high curb. NO ROOM FOR ERROR. Where is a cyclist supposed to go?

Oh, Amherst, you vex me. You vex me terribly.

When push comes to shove on your politically correct ass, you fall short, so short.

I’m not too into machismo, but I feel a wee bit of schadenfreude when I watch this:

I didn’t even mention all the trees that came down in the construction, some of which, according to the Shade Tree Commission, could have been saved.

 

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