General Cycling Discussion - New Road

I rode through the Chesterfield valley today. In the past couple of years a glut of strip malls has sprung up where farm land used to be, and traffic has increased a lot. Behind a long stretch of shops is a new road, Edison Avenue, about two miles long, paved, striped, and not yet open to traffic. The last time I rode past it, I noticed that it looked finished, so this time I rode it. It was wonderful: two miles of quiet, smooth pavement to myself. I hope it's still closed to traffic this weekend so I can include it on my Saturday morning ride.

Think of it as a diamond in the rough! Finding that alternate route (as temporary as it might be). The same applies to newly paved roads, they are such a joy to ride on, but here in Quebec, many roads don't stay newly paved for long, growing pot holes extremely quickly.

I love fresh pavement, yet I do hate what trucks can do to it.

:rolleyes:

Originally posted by Prosody
I rode through the Chesterfield valley today. In the past couple of years a glut of strip malls has sprung up where farm land used to be, and traffic has increased a lot.
A bittersweet scenario.

Even more bittersweet than it ought to be. In the valley are the remanants of small villages--Gumbo, Centaur, a couple others. During the floods of 1993 the entire valley was underwater after the levee broke. Since those floods were described as 500-year floods, and since the levee was reinforced and raised some, I imagine developers figured they could convince all the chain stores and restaurants to move in. They were right: Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Lowes, Target, Circuit City, Best Buy, some kind of Golf Mania store (some name like that), Everything's a Dollar, Subway, Olive Garden, Sonic, New York Burrito, Starbucks, Red Robin, the local bagel and bread place, and on and on and on...

As early as one year ago half these places were not there. Farmland in this county is all but gone, and the empty land, when it is developed, is either commercial stuff like this or McMansions.