Originally Posted by
koolerb
I didn't realize my town was bike unfriendly until I talked with one of our local bike shop owners recently. I asked if I could put my bike on their rack for trips to the supermarket since there is no where to lock up the bike at the supermarket. He said sure but the town makes him drag it inside when they close. He said the town council is super strict about public bike racks because they don't want to encourage bike riding in the town. I need to get to a town meeting one of these days to see who in the heck these people are.
Reminds me of the local area meeting I went to one time discussing the changes to a traffic light at the intersection of a very nice bike path (ie expensive) and a major through road... The "council" that was being addressed looked decidedly car-centric... large body people; the women had "hairdos" and the men wore slacks way up to here. Their opinion of the bike path and the related projects was rather narrow... in spite of me and a few other commuting cyclists in the room.
We remained quiet as a professional planner pointed out that adding a bike phase to the lights would make for faster, more efficient crossings for all, vice allowing each cyclist to trigger a "walk" signal. In the end, Mrs Beehive Haircut gets up and states: "well, whatever is better for the kiddos..."
"The kiddos..." as if no one used the bike path but young children that needed her approval. That is likely "who the heck
those people are."