Mike was quick to respond to my inquiry, but I must say that several experienced cyclists do share Mike's opinion of Santa Fe Trail Drive and prefer to use other roads. I can only hope that making bicycling more visible in a positive way gets more people out on their bikes.
Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to respond. Our city isn't earning high marks from the sustainable transportation advocates, but it remains a pleasure to live, work, play and bike here, thanks also in part to local businesses who remain friendly to bicyclists as both patrons and employees, such as Hen House.
Noah,
Thanks for writing. I was pleased to see you referenced in the article and read your positive comments. Knowing there was significant truck and car traffic along that route and given the narrow nature of the roadway, without curb/gutter/shoulder treatments, my general feeling was that it would not necessarily be the best option for riders. Your experiences obviously prove that my concerns are unfounded.
Again, thanks for writing
Mike
In this article, Mike Hendricks apparently quotes you saying that it is unwise to bicycle on Santa Fe Trail Drive.
I live in the apartment complex behind City Hall, and work on the southern reaches of town along Renner south of College Blvd. I'd be interested to know what route you would propose for getting to and from work. 87th St Pkwy and Renner are both high-speed thoroughfares without wide outer lanes or any other amenities that would make me feel safe using them during rush hour.
I might add that I got this job two years ago, and have found nearly all of the motorists to be courteous along this route. I also encounter many other cyclists on that stretch of road. Truck and bus drivers often log thousands of miles per week, and I have found that they are among the most experienced, careful and attentive users of the road because driving is their livelihood. I see little reason to be afraid of bicycling through the more industrial parts of town.
This was emailed to Lenexa Mayor, Mike Boehm. If I get any response, I'll share it. Mostly, I was taken by surprise at the mayor's comment about Santa Fe Trail Drive. Certainly, he doesn't intend for cyclists to use the city's high-speed, densely used miniature highways during rush hour.
A few weeks ago, Mike Hendricks of the KC Star interviewed me. In the middle of Bike Week, Keith from the KC Star photographed me (and I photographed him). I didn't know exactly where the article was going, but I gave my all to paint a positive picture of my route. After all, this is the best bicycle commuting route I've ever had, even though it's littered with diagonal rail road crossings.
Enjoy: Happy Trails to you, cyclists
KC Star did caption the below photo to indicate that I had made a hand signal to indicate my intent of taking the lane before cutting across the diagonal rail road tracks. I had also made eye contact with the Dodge driver behind me, and he'd slowed down to let me proceed. This plays out several times per day on my usual commute. Motorists along Santa Fe Trail Drive are usually pretty easy to get along with.
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| Photo of me from linked article. Copyright KC Star/Joco913 |
To all those who have served, and especially to all who made the ultimate sacrifice: Thank you.
Whenever my birthday falls on a work day, I almost always schedule it off. If it's close enough to Memorial Day weekend, I have been known to schedule a whole block of time off. Today was no exception.
A new rear tire (I'm hoping to go back to the Bontrager Race-Lite Hard Case) and Flickr Pro. You can only see the last 200 pictures now, and this Vittoria Randonneur's days are numbered. It served me really well, though.
From the workbound commute this morning, for Fritz's Panda Portrait Wednesday.
I guess I'm gonna be in the KC Star again. I'm really hoping it's a positive piece for bicycling in this town. There isn't enough of that. Keith got some good shots of me controlling the lane and safely maneuvering the railroad crossings on Santa Fe Trail Drive.
I seem to post this same photo every year. Again, it was good to see Drew and commuterDude at the booth. I'm not sure how many other events I'll make it to this week, but you can probably count on seeing me at Friday's OP city hall booth.
Bike week 2007 was an enlightening experience for me. After 8 months of biking to the bus through winter and a bit of dabbling in longer distances, Bike Week was what really got me to take the plunge. Back then, the full commute route was 23 miles each way. That pretty much hooked me.
So, fellow KC area folks, relish Bike Week and sign up for the car-free challenge. Get out and ride. I'll Be at some of the Overland Park events.
I don't always bike to work at 4:30 in the morning, but when I do, I prefer that people can see me.
Bit of a chilly bike ride to the office (50°F) but it was cool to see a daylight moon over old town Lenexa this morning.
This week makes two years at my "new" job, and today makes the third bike I've seen locked up on the re-purposed handrail bicycle rack our maintenance team set up. It's a yellow Univega road bike. The pink bike that I've been seeing a lot of belongs to someone in customer service that shows up a bit later than I do, so it wasn't yet parked when I arrived. I estimated that this "rack" would pretty much max out at 4 bikes if people played nicely together. I Still believe that's true. It's about to be full, just in time for bike week!
#30DaysOfBiking: Mail Call!
Let's do this.
30 days of Biking kicked off yesterday with a ride to the auto parts store. I was in the middle of fixing the air conditioner in my car, when I realized I needed even more parts than I'd already acquired. So either I ride my bike (takes about 5 minutes each way) or I spend half an hour putting my car back together, drive two miles round trip, take my car back apart so I can replace the part I needed (which will take another hour and a bunch of effort). So instead of spending an hour and a half messing with stuff, I rode my bike. Obviously.
I have to have A/C in the car for my wife's sake, due to her medical issues. She's coming home this week, hopefully, after quite a while of being away. I wanted to make sure everything was going to work out well for her.
Every day bicycle commuting still isn't an option while she's away from home, but I'm going to make an effort to at least do some bicycling each day, even if it's only to check my mail on the other side of the apartment complex or make a quick errand.
When I pulled up to the bike rack yesterday, I saw something new: an unfamiliar lock and chain that appeared to be well-used. I thought that it perhaps belonged to my co-worker, who took the whole team along bike shopping over lunch earlier this week. He ended up with a fine, barely-ridden Trek 4500, which appears to be of a 2006 vintage:
It ended up being for someone else's bike, which I saw later in the day:
So it's official. It took almost two years, but someone else is finally riding their bike here.
I made the mistake of attempting to forge onward through the Indian Creek Trail construction yesterday. I made it, but let's say I won't be doing it again until the trail opens. Bike/Ped-friendly options for getting from one side of US-69 to the other through central Johnson County are few and far between. If you find yourself near Corporate woods, you'll be stuck braving 119th, College Blvd or 103rd street. I've stated previously that Johnson County is split into islands by highways. Within each island, it's pretty easy to get around using residential roads. To jump from one to another is often a frustrating affair.
I'm experimenting with a GPS transponder I built (think of it as kind of like a poor-man's "SPOT" tracker). It fits nicely in the pannier zipper pocket. I'm sure if I parked my bike somewhere with this thing attached, it'd get called in as a "suspicious device" and the bomb squad would get called in.
Inside, there's a waterproof box containing a few gadgets including a small radio transceiver, GPS, a battery pack and some other stuff that's needed to make it all play together nicely.
It's far from perfect. I'm still kind of working on it. I tested it yesterday while riding between home, the office and the hospital. It worked only part of the time. It transmits its location every time you make a significant change in heading (at every turn, basically) and about every 20 minutes when stationary. The problem is that it's largely a one-way operation so the rig doesn't know if the message actually got through, and I'm using a very low power transmitter. There are ways to fix both problems at the cost of increased power consumption and/or more expensive radio equipment inside the box. The map below is missing a significant number of turns, especially through residential and trail areas.
I will experiment with it some more as time goes on. I know there are smartphone applications that can upload your position and track your rides for you. I was looking to build something that operates without relying on the Internet. The above map was drawn using data gathered from a mesh network of amateur radio digital repeaters and internet-connected gateways.
Anyhow, I'm still here. I'm still riding for work and errands when I can. I'm still a nerd. You can call me Captain Dashboard. I don't mind.
Random Tunage:
Plaid - Assault on Precinct Zero
Elite Force - Cross The Line
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