AnnArbor.Com reports that the City of Ann Arbor recently acquired some federal stimulus dollars that will allow for some new bike lanes near downtown Ann Arbor.
The locations of these new bike lanes will be along Catherine Street, North University Avenue, Ashley Street and First Street.
Since many people feel better about biking when bike lanes are present, these new additions should be a good move.
If you are looking for a place to get your bike repaired that is close to downtown, you might want to check out Sic Transit. They are located a little under a mile from downtown Ann Arbor on Broadway.
Their specialty is fixing up vintage bikes, but they also do repairs of all sorts.
Check out their new website at sictransitcycles.com
For a complete listing of all of the Bike Shops in the Ann Arbor area that sell quality bikes and do quality repairs, check out our Guide to Bike Commuting in Downtown Ann Arbor.
Concentrate Magazine recently wrote an article about a Jove employee (a MA-based company) who recently moved to downtown Ann Arbor with his wife and is now telecommuting to work.
Why telecommute in downtown Ann Arbor? Here’s what the employee has to say:
They choose to live in downtown Ann Arbor because it provided a quality urban experience where they could live practically car-free. As Mark puts it, “not having a vehicle is awesome.”
That’s what I like to hear!
I am going to be on CTN’s Ecosense program soon. As part of the topic of biking and walking, CTN created this short video. Check it out below.
FYI:
A local ride to remember those who have been killed on public roadways will be held tonight. Gather at Wheeler Park 6:30pm for a 7 mile ride.
The following post was originally sent to getDowntown as a comment about the Commuter Challenge. I asked if I could post it on our blog to see what others had to say. Please read on and provide your own comments in the comments section.
I’m writing because I think that marketing alternative modes of transportation to commuters is great, but I would love to see [getDowntown] focus more energy on driver education to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. This week – and the irony of it being the first week of the Commuter Challenge is not lost on me – two cyclists whom I know personally were hit by cars in Ann Arbor. They’re both okay, but one spent several hours in the emergency room, and both bikes were damaged. One driver didn’t even realize she’d hit a cyclist at first – it was a classic right hook accident – while the other appeared to strike the cyclist on purpose.
If we’re going to encourage more people to bike and walk in Ann Arbor we need to make this a safer place to do so. As it stands, the more pedestrians and cyclists we have on the streets, the more people we’re going to have being hit by cars. It’s terrible.
I understand that your job is to make it look like Ann Arbor is a wonderful place for alternative transportation so that more people will use alternative transportation, but we have a really long way to go, and unfortunately, the behavior we need to change is from the people who drive and will keep driving. We need a real share the road campaign, we need brief, pithy instructions for how to pass a cyclist safely, we need police who don’t assume when a cyclist gets hit by a car that it was the cyclist’s fault, we need to tell people to look before they open their car doors, we need big, constant reminders that bikes have a right to be in the road – even in the middle of the road – and while we’re at it, we need drivers to understand that if a pedestrian is in a mid-block crosswalk it’s the law to stop and let the pedestrian cross the street.
I’m sorry, this has become a bit of a rant. Between my two struck cyclists and spending 30 minutes in the rain this morning waiting for an extremely late bus, I’m feeling like a very challenged commuter today. Last year I didn’t participate in the Commuter Challenge because my commute is “alternative” 365 days a year so I thought it was silly to count it, and I also didn’t want to give fodder to the people who say Ann Arbor is a great place for non-car commuting because I don’t think it is. This year I am participating, because I care even more about advocacy for non-car commuting and I thought maybe I should work from within the establishment instead of just whining about it from the outside. So here I am. Sending you a long-winded message to say “Please do more about safety for pedestrians and cyclists. We need it badly.”
Ann Arbor has once again made it on one of those lists. This time we were ranked #14 out of the 50 top Bike Friendly Cities by Bicycling Magazine.
Here’s the slide with a picture of Ann Arbor and some other info
So who are the cities that came in ahead of us? Here are the top 5 bike friendly cities, according the Bicycling Magazine:
Recently, A2Politico posted a blog post after I met with Ms. Lesko (the blog’s author).
Today, ArborBlahg presents a different take on the subject.
AnnArbor.Com has two articles on cycling in the Ann Arbor Community that might interest you:
This just in: now when you search for directions in Ann Arbor on Google Maps you can choose to see suggested bike routes! This is great.
I did see what it might say for my normal bike commute, and it was pretty good. I come from the West Side and normally bike on Washington, which is the first suggested route it gave me. However, what Google doesn’t know is that there are some non-motorized paths I take that make the trip a little nicer for me. Still, it’s really cool that these directions are now available.
