The path I ride on is not an MUP, it is not a "wilderness trail". It is a transportation corridor serving bicycle traffic.

When there are road closures on the path, they put up Road Closed signs and send emails out and put notices in the news papers about the closure. They do regular maintenance to the asphalt as well as brushing to keep the weeds and thorns down. They treat this as a road, with as much seriousness and consideration as a road.

This is not a path designed for recreation, for de-stressing or for taking it slow, although you can do all those things on it if you wish just like you can go for a Sunday drive on any other road. The path is designed for speedy and safe travel, with little cross traffic, with many off-ramps to local streets marked with the name of the street, with solar-powered street lamps for night-time safety, with intersections to other similar paths clearly labled with the name of the path and mileages to other paths.

With the political will and decent bike advocacy, decent bikeways like this CAN be built. When decent bikeways exist, people use them. How did I realize the bike path was open again after the resurfacing (seeing as how I don't subscribe to the paper anymore and didn't keep up with my email)? There were no more cyclists on the surface street I was riding as an alternative. I went over to the path and there they were.

People like bike paths. People use bike paths. Bike paths are a good thing.