More MAPS and Bicycling Trails

Following up to yesterday's post about MAPS and bicycling trails, we saw what we've been seeing every day on our ride in to work: a perfectly good, and paved, bicycle trail that runs through the median at Grand Boulevard. Amazing the things you can see when you look for them. Didn't quite look like a $700,000 per mile kind of paving job but it was nice.

Still, I was curious about where the route went when it headed north. The linked map is a little vague - it definitely isn't Walker since that's the route we take and there's not a bike trail to be had along that street. I checked Google Maps street view and moved over a block - ah, here we are, it's Harvey. Pan up or down a bit if the sign isn't visible but you'll see what I'm talking about.


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No, you can't read it but it's the universal yellow sign telling you that the street is the actual bike trail; the sign below it reminds drivers to share the road.

Well, I call that a little less than honest. When I'm promised a bicycle trail at $700,000 per mile, I'm thinking of something paved, not a sign thrown up next to a sleepy street.

Right, right, things were different with the prior MAPS; this time it'll be different. This time they'll come through on their promises. No fudging here. Why? Because they're, well, different. Trust them on this. The $700 million that'll be raised will go exactly where the promised. No lonely little sign on Harvey declaring it a bike trail. No sir. That was just a one time thing.

Sheesh.

Don't get me started on the mass-transit thing. (Oh, okay, here's a link to Reason's James Delong's article that most Conservatives cite when pooh-poohing mass transit. Still seems relevant. Google mass transit myth debunking and you'll get lots of articles insisting what Delong claims is untrue. But those pro-mass-transit articles make the same arguments the pro-MAPS people do about mass-transit here. Eerie. You don't think they're reading from the same play book, do you? Anyway, change your Google criteria slightly and you'll get plenty of articles detailing the promises of mass-transit that were never delivered once the kajillions were spent to put it in place. Oh, but I said don't get me started on this. So don't.)

MAPS and Bicycling Trails

We got an expensive-looking mailer from the Yes For Maps Coalition telling us about the new healthier lifestyles we'll lead once MAPS is passed. (MAPS is a $700 million plan we'll be voting on on December 8th to keep in place the "temporary" 1 cent sales tax that was put in place to fund, well, I've forgotten what it was funding. But it's due to expire and now we'll get a chance to vote to keep it in place to fund a whole new shopping list of goodies we just can't live without.) They're as giddy as school girls about the possibility of whitewater-rafting and kayak course to be built on the murky and possibly-poisonous Oklahoma River but what got my attention was the proposed 57 miles of multi-purpose trails to be used for jogging, bicycling, rollerblading or just plain-vanilla walking. For $40 million, that comes to a little over $700,000 per mile. A bargain, I say!

Here's the map of the proposed route with the trails that are already up and running done in purple. I'm familiar with the trails around Lake Hefner - funded, I think, from prior MAPS projects - and they're quite nice and - hey, wait a minute. I'm not familiar with the trails already in place here on the humble south side. How could I have missed those?

Part of the trail looks to follow along Grand Boulevard. I'm dimly aware of something like that. But another part seems to follow Walker Avenue; that's our morning route into work and I know I haven't seen any trails along there. I could be mis-reading the map but I'll make an extra effort this morning to see if I've been missing something that's been under my nose for a long time.

Anyway, that's the latest onslaught from the pro-MAPS people. Every day seems to bring something new from them in the mail. I wonder what today will bring.

David Byrne’s Perfect City

Not only do I like it when nutjob rock-n-roll types talk business, I like it when they turn out to be normal people. Okay, maybe David Byrne isn't a nutjob rock-n-roller but you may still be surprised to find his essay in the Wall Street Journal about what would be his perfect city:

There’s an old joke that you know you're in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it's the other way around you're in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I'd take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney's with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it's not really possible to cherry pick like this—mainly because a city's qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place's cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.

Epcot's a perfect city for me but that shows you how out of touch I am. The one time I've been to New York tells me that might make a good second choice, if I could afford to live there. Ditto for Washington D.C. But maybe I should just be happy where I am. OKC has a lot going for it.

Byrne is also an avid bicycler and has a book coming out about that. You may also like his online journal. I first came across, and was utterly charmed by, it about two years ago when he was writing about the most normal of occasions for a father: taking his daughter on a cross-country driving trip to college. One of his stops was Dollywood and he wrote extensively, and honestly, about Dolly Parton's influence on pop music. Really. Of course, he takes the usual lefty jabs on occasion but, well, what are you gonna do? Skip over that stuff if it bothers you; you'll find something else you'll like, I'm sure.

Anyway. Rock-n-rollers acting like normal folk. I can dig it.