Carless in Calgary

It comes down to simplicity. I have found that the more you think about it, the more you realize that you don't even really need the bike to commute. Save it for the weekends!

In 2005, my car left this World in a blaze of glory - it burnt! I reluctantly tried just using Transit here in Calgary, and a bicycle. I soon became fed up with Transit and decided, okay, I can bicycle and walk, and on the really crappy days (rain, thunderstorms, -30C, etc) I can ride the bus or beg a friend for a ride. I've been cycling for the better part of four years now, and I am seriously considering making walking my main way of commuting to work. Why? Like Allan said, you don't have to bring extra clothes, you don't need to shower, there is no need to fight traffic if you have to commute partially on streets...it is surprising how much other stuff pops up that you never would have considered.

Transit would like you to think that you can achieve this "lack of headaches" through them, but in my experience, walking is the last step in living a much simpler and independent car-free life.

I thought there was a biking blog, but I cannot find it, so will respond to this article.

What I really want to comment on is the weird curb system I discovered in the dark of night while biking home from a class at Mt. Royal. There's a nice wide bike lane along - who can remember the street - the bike map highlights where the path is but lightens the street names, so I can't read them and have a hard time following the downtown bike route - some nice wide east/west street around 14th, when a round curb that collects - ? escaped zoo animals? - leaps out in front of me and I have to jump into the traffic lane.

Now I discover, biking to the grocery store along 5th Ave, that these same traffic aberrations are under construction. Please, please explain to me the logic of a huge round of cement bulging int traffic....???? Am I supposed to leap over it on my flying bike? Does it electronically fence in pedestrians until it's collected enough to fill it, only releasing them when there are 15 or more?

OK, just so you now - in addition to the curb burps the City of Calgary is installing to the tune of - how many dollars?? - there are the too numerous to count detours, complete with no detour signs, on the bike paths. So, say, you want to take the bike path from downtown to Inglewood. Only, at that intersection just before the homeless centre, the only possible pathway open to you, everything else being blocked off with chain link fences, is - oh - the bridge to the north side of the Bow River? ?? Detour signs, anyone? Just like biking to Mt. Royal, and suddently Sarcee Trail is fenced off, including sidewalk and paths, and the only open street takes you AWAY from the college. IF there are ANY detour signs, there is one pointing you away from the blocked off area. After that, you're on your own.

So. Back to Inglewood - in the end I biked the wrong way up some street to 9th Ave, and proceeded east in the middle of the traffic lane, hoping I would annoy enough cars to get them to complain to the city so the city would think about, oh, I don't know - leaving little "through" paths?? New York City can do it - why can't Calgary? Or even, you know, those little orange directional signs called d-e-t-o-u-r signs?