Dear Editor: I’d like to share that the city’s “obsessed” recent bike and pedestrian efforts have been transformational for me and my spouse personally.
(In his column, “Discontent with Satya Rhodes-Conway, City Council simmers,” Sept. 6, Paul Fanlund doesn’t) name which bike projects he finds “weird.” But my positive specific examples, among many more, are: the Eau Claire bike boulevard, Broom Street new path last year, Whitney Way lanes and Regent Street crossing, and the pending Wilson Street path this year.
Some of these were critical for me to start bike commuting 13 miles to Monona from Rosa Road (along with backbone paths and recently painted street lanes in between). I’ve removed over 600 car miles off the Beltline this year, directly because improvements and additions to the bike network all across the city have made this trip good and safe enough. Now I stop at local Garver and State Street joints and grocery stores on the way home instead of burning across town, or being gridlocked, on the highway.
And the Mineral Point adjacent off-street path being built this summer unlocks safer, gas-free errands for me and my neighbors across west side retail to West Towne Mall. When I drive, I’m quite happy to have bikers off the Mineral Point lanes.
These biking benefits aren’t theoretical or made up, and I wish Fanlund would factor in these pluses to our health, taxes, safety, and environment, before grinding on people like me as far leftists who think he’s a racist. I just don’t get where he’s going with all that.
Steve Samuel
Madison
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