“Eighth Street! It’s terrible! You have to wind through the parking lot of the vacuum store and across the gravel through that other parking lot, and then sit there for ten minutes to cross over into the Russ’ driveway…!”
If you know what I was saying in that quote, then you bike my city. It describes a particularly ugly stretch of street just beyond our award-winning downtown, the hidden non-infrastructure that everyone who bikes this way knows. It’s also a route that I ride four times every weekday on the school run, and sprang up as a topic of discussion as the first meeting of people of the Holland Area Cycle Coalition wound down.
Like me, all the people around this table want things to be better. A diversity of riders represented that night – yes, road warriors, but also commuters, year-round riders who brave the ice and snow and brutal cold, and even a few other family cyclists. One doctor who commutes through the snow expressed concern for the guys he passes on the road mid-winter, who were not represented this time around. “This is a choice for me, but for them it’s not. We need to make things better for them, too.”
We need you – your voice, your thoughts, your experiences. Our second meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday, October 22 at 7:00 p.m. at Skiles Tavern in downtown Holland. If you can come, please do. If you can’t but like to ride bikes, Like the Facebook page for the Holland Area Cycle Coalition to stay up-to-date and voice your thoughts there. And if you know anyone who rides around town on a regular basis, please invite them to join us as well. The more voices, the better!
Our series on the stories we tell will continue later this week or early next.
Traversing Tulip Lane 