Inventing One Kind Of Superhighway, Getting Another

Folks in that part of the world invented one kind of superhighway.  Now they might get another.

San Jose is the largest city and seat of Santa Clara County, California.  Just south of San Francisco, the county is part of "Silicon Valley," where the technology that brought this blog to your screen--often called the "information superhighway" was developed.

Now it might see a "superhighway" that's more closely associated with parts of Europe than any place in the United States.  It would run 10 miles  through San Jose and Santa Clara. What would differentiate it from the county's  800 miles of bikeways and 200 miles of dedicated bike trails is continuity.  Local activists and commuters, like their counterparts in other US locales (including my hometown), complain that too many lanes and trails go from "nowhere to nowhere," beginning and ending in seemingly-arbitrary spots, and are thus not useful as transportation conduits.

From San Jose Spotlight

This "superhighway" was recently proposed as part of the Santa Clara Countywide Bike Plan.  Three different routes have been suggested.  Information about the progress of this project can be found on the Valley Transportation Authority's website--which you will access, of course, by the other kind of superhighway.

Where Hipsters And Millenials Dare Not Tread

 Yesterday afternoon, I took another ride into the heart of Brooklyn.  What, exactly does that mean?  Well, the way I'm using the term, I mean a place where no hipster or white milennial dares to tread.  Or, you might say that it's anyplace along the 2,3,4 or 5 subway lines past the Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum stop, or the L (a.k.a. the Hipster Express) beyond the Aberdeen-Bushwick stop.

No, I didn't ride up those tracks!  They carry the L train along Van Sinderen Avenue, widely seen as the border between the two toughest neighborhoods in Brooklyn, if not the whole city:  Brownsville and East New York.  I was on the Brownsville side, where Riddick Bowe and Mike Tyson were born and raised.  Meyer Lansky was raised the and started Murder Inc there.  Interestingly, Larry King and Alfred Kazin also hail from there.

People often talk about being "on the wrong side of the tracks."  That phrase has no meaning here.  Perhaps it will come as no surprise that the two neighborhoods have turned out, per capita, more hip-hop artists than anyplace else in the world.

I must say, though, that the drivers I encountered were careful.  And a few people waved to me.

Maybe it has something to do with the atmosphere that once prevailed at the other end of the neighborhood:

The East 105th Street station is the penultimate stop on the L line. Until the mid-1980s, it held an interesting distinction:  It was the only New York City subway station with a street-level grade crossing.  Yes, it had a gate that dropped, bells that rang and lights that flashed when a train pulled into, or out of, the station.

That, of course, meant people couldn't be in as much of a hurry as they are in other places.  Could it be that calm driving practices are passed on--genetically?

Oh, by the way, a guy was selling sweet and salty snack foods, and knockoff accessories, from a table.  I bought a few snacks, which I gave to homeless people I saw on my way home. The man seemed genuinely happy for the couple of dollars I spent at his table.

He Kept A Community's Wheels Turning

I love a beautiful bicycle as much as anybody does.  All you have to do is look at Dee-Lilah or Zebbie, my Mercian Vincitore Special and King of Mercia, to see how I care  about fine workmanship and finishes.  At the same time, I appreciate and respect the technological refinement of modern bikes and components.  I avail myself to as much of it as I find useful--and affordable.

But I also understand that what if the current bike boom, fueled by COVID, is to continue, it won't be on the wheels of bikes sold in boutique shops for more than workers in the developing world make in a couple of years.  Wherever the bicycle is seen as an integral part of the transportation network, let alone as a way of life, people are riding utilitarian machines (think of Dutch city bikes) to work or school, or bikes that are sportier, if not much pricier, to the park, seashore or market.  And, in such places, bike shops and mechanics concentrate on keeping those commuters and recreational cyclists on the road (or getting them there in the first place).  They don't spend much, if any, time working on the electronic shifting systems of $12,000 bikes.

In other words, those mechanics are like Joe Haskins who work in shops like the one that bears his name.  He bought it from its founder, his aging uncle, in 1958, when the shop was still known as Tampa Cycle--and he was 17 years old.

Joe Haskins.  Photo by Kelly Benjamin

He never left, literally and figuratively.  Over the years, the shop moved to several different locales, all within the same area of Tampa--and, most important of all, serving the same sort of clientele:  basically, anyone who needed a bike or repair.  Sometimes his services had nothing to do with bikes or cycling:  Former Tampa Bay Times reporter Alan Snel (who writes the Bicycle Stories blog) noted, "every mayor has their downtown pet projects, but the essence of a city is the neighborhoods and small businesses like Joe's bike shop that help everyday residents with everyday issues."

So, when the driving force/guiding spirit of such a business retires or passes away, as Joe did last Saturday, it leaves a hole in the community.  But it seems that the shop will continue:  During the past few years, as Joe's health declined, family members stepped in to keep the shop's unwritten mission alive.

Tampa's All Love Bike Crew will honor his memory with a ride on Sunday.  Somehow I don't think that many Crew members will be riding $12,000 bikes or $300 helmets.