Commuting - Yet another win for cycling

During the recent (and at the time of this writing, current) East Coast power outtage, transportation becomes one of the victims of the disarray. However, this interesting blurb appeared in an article from the Detroit Free Press (http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/blackout/pm4107_20030814).


In Toronto, fourth-year medical resident Justin Geagea was on his bicycle on his way to work when the blackout hit.

"I wish I had a camera to chronicle what is going on," said Geagea, 28, from his home later. "Everyone has emerged from underground. The sidewalks are packed on Yonge Street. The cyclists are the only ones getting home."

:) :) :) :D

It was interesting to watch the gridlock on CNN. I haven't heard much from bicyclists yet, but I'm sure there will be some stories. Just wrote to let you know we're interested in hearing them.

John

With everything else to worry about, people forget that armageddon is going to tie up traffic.

I thought the same thing when I saw those crowds.

I was wondering whether someone could manage to get a bike into one of the tunnels, too.

In any case, if I worked on an island, I would have a rubber raft-- just in case. If I worked in a high rise, I'd have a parachute.

It goes without saying that you need a bicycle to beat urban gridlock, too.

The live coverage of New York City showed a helecopter view of the car/pedestrian gridlock. Then you would see people on bikes zip from one side of the screen to the other.

I'm waiting to hear about Dahon.steve's adventure. I recall he uses public transportation and keeps a junker bike in the city.

On one of the news shots of New York we got on tv we saw a lone cyclist ridng through the chaos. :D

Well I live in the Northern suburbs of Detroit and I was at work
when the blackout hit. My commute has heavy traffic on a good
day so I didn't really want to ride it with no traffic lights. I put
my bike in the back of a coworkers truck and got a ride home.
My commute normally takes me a little less than an hour and it
took us almost 2 hours to go that 15 miles in his truck. I was
grateful for the ride becuause of the intersections but I could
have gotten home much quicker on my bike.

Yesterday with no gas in the area and 2 hour lines at the stations
that were open I was having a great time riding around on my
bike. Everyone was pretty good but thay had police stationed
at many of the gas stations that were open to keep things under
control. There were many people stranded becuase they went
out looking for gas and couldn 't find it and eventually ran out.
I saw more people on bikes yesterday than I have ever seen.
Although I didn't have to go to work I did have fun riding around
yesterday. Yesterday it was a bikers world......

Steve

I was running home from work when the outage started. Darkend traffic signals were what I noticed. I thought it was a local problem at first, but no matter how far I ran, the traffic lights were still out.

This weekend we have an event called the "Dream Cruise", where almost every baby boomer with an exotic old car converges on a single major boulevard (Woodward Ave) at the outskirts of the city and idles up and down the road for about 7-10 miles. This is billed as the largest one-day (Saturday supposedly) car event in the world; however starting on Thursday, Woodward begins to clog up with old used cars and "Dream Cruisers". Folks were just beginning to set up their lawn chairs on the side of Woodward to watch the goings-on when the power failed. This made very interesting for folks just trying to get home.

Starting on Friday some gas stations were operating the pumps on generators. This caused huge lines and chaos at the stations. In my little suburb these stations had a Police presence to ensure order.

The Governor asked that folks refrain from using their cars, this was largely ignored by folks. Cycling was my prefered method of locomotion on Friday because it was much easier to negotiate the mayhem of rude and harried cagers at the intersections and the block long lines around gas stations causing congestion.

Aside from a little spoiled food and having to bail out the sump pump from time to time, as it rained, little else was changed for me by the "Blackout of '03". I had stocked about 25 gallons of potable water and enough food for 3 days in the basement. So I mostly just enjoyed my unexpected long weekend.

Dan

All of my family lives in Michigan and when they lost power I didn't even think at the time about gas. Last time I was home I went biking with my brother. He bough a new Specialized bike out of his price range but whatever I have he has to have to, anyhow ... last time we were home he was wasted after the 15 mile ride, it was kind of funny. Anyhow, after the blackout I called them to see how everything was going and his wife told me that after the blackout he rode his bike around and to our parents (8 miles away). I was pretty happy about that and surprised at the same time that he thought of it. I guess it took her 2.5 hours to drive like 10 - 12 miles from her work to our parents and my brother rode those 8 miles in about 45 minutes. I was happy to hear that story ... Just goes to show you that the advantages of biking exceed fitness alone.

Originally posted by DanFromDetroit
This weekend we have an event called the "Dream Cruise", where almost every baby boomer with an exotic old car converges on a single major boulevard (Woodward Ave)

Yeah I heard on the radio that the cruisers were complaing that
they could only cruise until 8pm on Friday. Mind you the cruise
didn't officially start until today. People come from all over the
country for this and I can understand their frustration but the
attitude that they were going to drive Woodward no matter
what any officials or police said is kind of ludicrous. I am just
glad to see the power came on in most areas last night so that
the cruise could go on. There really are some cool cars out there.

Steve