Faux Toes

Yesterday Morning





Standing room only. After I took this, one more person got on.


Lorin's bike. My Bike. Bob's bike (which is the same model as Lorin's but newer)


Lunch Yesterday:


The communal dog poop repository. It seems all the loft dwellers in the area come to this small patch of green space to let their dogs do their business. Mushrooms will be growing here in a few weeks.


Last night as I left, I saw... Another bicycle. A real bicycle. The first one I've ever seen other than one of my own. Occasionally, there's a 125cc scooter locked up, but this is the first time I've actually seen another bicycle. The Gas Crunch is on. I can smell it (isn't that called huffing?)

This is a Schwinn Point Beach. I'm still torn on what I think about it.


The following photos are from the ride home. I took the bus to 87th and Antioch. Karen was also on the bus. These are pictures of the most treacherous part of the newish Single Point Urban Interchange at 87th and US-69/I-35. Traffic is insanely fast through here, as people rush to zip through, often in excess of 55 MPH (45 MPH limit). This forces cyclists to the sidewalk for a brief stretch of road, as the outer lane is narrow, right turns are frequent and traffic is hurried. Anti-sidewalk people? You can bite me until you try to negotiate this yourselves in rush hour. You just have to be careful, and take a pedestrian mindset for a few blocks. There is an on-road route across the highway at the cost of about 2 miles. I'm just lazy.

The crosswalk is not visible to cars getting ready to enter the highway. It's around the curve a ways. Motorists cannot see pedestrians waiting to cross. Furthermore, no yellow crosswalk signage, traffic signals or any other hints of a crosswalk exist to raise the guard of motorists.


The crossing is perpendicular to traffic, which is why it goes around the corner. Unfortunately, this cloverleaf-style highway entrance ramp descends rapidly, so the crosswalk is also low.


As you can see, there are no traffic signals nor crosswalk lights here. This is a serious flaw of traffic engineering if you ask me.




As a pedestrian, you can't tell if a car is coming until it's too late because of the descent and blind curve. Motorists often negotiate this ramp at 50 miles per hour. Again, they have no clue a crosswalk awaits.


Ideally, this intersection would have a full red/yellow/green light activated by a crosswalk button (as seen in school zones), but this messy crosswalk should at least have a pentagon crosswalk sign and a yellow alternating flashing light to alert motorists to the potential of pedestrians. This is similar to how MUP crossings are handled in Merriam, KS at 67th street and on Merriam Lane.

This morning, I got to watch an awesome sunrise.








Hazy Crown Center skyline


The old building I still want to explore. No time this morning.




Downtown skyline at daybreak. It's getting brighter in the morning every day.


Random Tunage:
Peter Cetera - You're The Inspiration (solo cover - originally performed with Chicago)
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping