Bike Shares-- And Social Class?

Yesterday, I wrote about the bike-share program that begins today in Los Angeles.  I was happy to learn that such a program is commencing in one of the first cities people associate with the automobile.  And I found it interesting, to say the least, that city officials hope that the bike-share program will help to bolster ridership in the city's Metro system, which has been on the decline.

If that goal is realized, it will buck trends seen in other cities that have bike-share programs.  In some places, like Washington DC, those who commute on share bikes are using them in lieu of subways and buses, not automobiles.  

Although I have not seen such data for my hometown, New York, I would suspect something similar is happening.  After all, the commuter who is most likely to ride a Citibike--or to be a bike commuter--lives somewhere in Manhattan below 125th Street, or in Astoria (where I live), Long Island City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg or other Brooklyn or Queens neighborhoods just across the East River from the United Nations.

Before they started riding bikes to work, those commuters were probably taking the subways, which bisect their neighborhoods. If they work in downtown or Midtown Manhattan, they would have been riding the subway for only a few stops:  fifteen or twenty minutes, no more than half an hour.

In contrast, someone who drives to work--or takes one of the express buses or trains--probably lives further away, in southern and eastern Queens neighborhoods like Bayside or Cambria Heights or southern Brooklyn areas such as Mill Basin or Dyker Heights.  Or they live outside city limits altogether.  Typically, those who drive to work or are taking the Long Island Rail Road (Yes, it's spelled as two words!) or Metro North have commutes of an hour or more each way.  Needless to say, few of them are going to start riding bicycles to work, even if Citibike installs ports in front of their houses!

Now, some of those commuters--particularly those who live on the North Shore of Nassau County or in certain parts of Westchester and Bergen counties--are rich. But most are middle- or working- class people who live in those areas because they simply could never afford a house, or even an apartment, big enough for their families in Manhattan or the nearby Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods.   More than a few of them are contractors or have other kinds of businesses that requir them to haul a lot of equipment into, and out of, Manhattan or the areas near it.   I am not a sociologist, but I feel confident in concluding, from my own observations, that most such commuters are not cyclists.

I mention all of these things because reading about the launch of the LA bike share program got me to thinking about things I've noticed during the three decades I've been cycling in New York.  As I've mentioned in other posts, back in the mid-'80s, the neighborhoods that now comprise what I call Hipster Hook were mostly blue-collar, white-ethnic enclaves (Greeks and Italians in Astoria, Poles and Irish in Greenpoint, for example).  In those neighborhoods, people simply didn't ride bikes once they were old enough to drive. (Many never rode bikes, period.)  Very often, I would ride along the East River and New York Bay from Astoria Park all the way to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge--or even to Coney Island--without encountering another cyclist.

People who rode for fun, or even to commute, lived mainly in places like Greenwich Village, the Upper East and West Sides and Park Slope.  Those were home mainly to single people or young couples with varying amounts of disposable income--and without children.  Most didn't live far from where they worked, or they were artists or independent business people of one kind or another.  

In those days, the blue-collar and middle-class people I've described rarely, if ever, encountered cyclists--or anyone--from the milieu I described in the previous paragraph. But, as places like Williamsburg started to fill up with trust-fund kids on fixed-gear bikes, older and poorer residents looked at them as "privileged children" who were "taking over" their streets and sidewalks--and other public spaces.

Thus, older residents started to equate bicycles with privilege.  I guess it's easy to resent someone who looks like he or she is having fun--and is younger and fitter than you--when you're fighting traffic (or the crowds on the buses and trains)  to get to and from a job you hate so that you can pay for things your kids don't appreciate.  

I can't help but to notice that any time people express their displeasure over new bike lanes that take away one of the lanes on which they were accustomed to driving, or when a Citibike port appears on their block, they say that the city is catering to "privileged children".  Yes, they--as often as not--use that phrase.

I guess that, even at my age, I am one of the "privileged children"!

Joking aside, I got to thinking about the experiences and observations I've described when I learned that LA city officials hope that the new bike share program will bring riders back to the Metro system.  What I found especially revealing is the finding that one cause of the decline in Metro ridership is gentrification:  working- and middle-class families are being priced out of the areas that offer mass transportation.  So, while I hope the new bike share program is successful, I can't help but to wonder how it will entice people who've had to move further away from their jobs--and, possibly, had to take second jobs--to ride bicycles to a Metro system--or jobs--that are further away from wherever they were living before they were dispalced.

In brief, I couldn't help but to wonder whether the LA Bike Share program--or, more important, the hope that it will bring people back to the Metro--might reveal, or magnify, social and economic class differences in the way people commute.  

LA Bike Share Launches: Will It Save The Metro?

New York, my home town, is known as the City That Never Sleeps.

Los Angeles, on the other hand, has been called The Place Where Nobody Walks.

Like most labels, neither is completely true, though there is at least a kernel of truth to both.  About the Big Apple:  I know that at least one person sleeps because, well, at my age, it's harder to stay up at all hours than it was in my youth.  It's been a while since I've been to the City of Angels, but as I recall, it's not as conducive to pedestrians as, say, Paris. (Then again, how many cities are?)  And I don't recall seeing other cyclists when I rode there.  For that matter, I don't recall seeing anyone else walking on the Walk of Fame when I walked it. (OK, now you know another one of my dim, dark secrets! ;-))

Now, if any of you are reading this blog from Southern California, please don't hate on me.  I'll admit that I preferred San Francisco (and, hey, how can you not prefer the Central Coast to almost any other coastal area?), but I found things to like about the LA area, even though family members I didn't want to see were living there the last time I stayed.

Anyway...Something interesting is happening in one of the first metropolises to be developed for and around the automobile. (According to at least one history I've read, the motel was invented there.)  Could it really be that Angelenos are giving up their automobiles?  Might people go motorless in Santa Monica?

Well, perhaps things won't go that way just yet.  However, an idea that's taken hold in other cities around the world is about to come LA's way.

Tomorrow, the City of Los Angeles and Metro, its mass-transit authority, are launching a bike-share program.  About 1000 bikes will be available in 65 locations around the downtown area, including Union Station, City Hall, the Convention Center, Chinatown, the Arts District, Little Tokyo and the Fashion District. 

 Many of the bike ports will be close to Metro rail and bus stations.  This is not surprising when one considers that in other places, like Manhattan, people ride share bikes to subway and bus stations or from suburban commuter lines.  However, the reason why LA Metro bikes will be so placed is one I have never heard before:  Officials want to use the bike share program to not only reduce the number of automobile trips, but also to increase Metro ridership.

According to at least one report, the number of people who ride the buses (which comprise about 75 percent of the Metro system) and trains has been declining.  A number of factors have been cited, including fare hikes.  Interestingly, one reason given for the decline has been gentrification.  Working-class families are being priced out some neighborhoods that offer convenient mass transportation.  So, they have to move further away from their jobs, often to areas that don't have mass transportation.  They may also have to take on an additional job. Getting to either or both on time via mass transit--even if it is available--is often difficult, if not impossible.  Thus, another car is part of the next jam on the 10 Freeway.

This scenario contrasts with what has happened in other cities, like New York, where gentrification has actually contributed to increases in mass-transit ridership and may have saved previously-moribund lines from shutting down.





If the bike share system actually increases Metro ridership, it will create another contrast between Los Angeles and other cities with bike share programs.  In Washington DC, as an example, commuters are using the bike share program instead of the rail and bus lines.  In one way, that is not necessarily a negative development, as the rail lines are congested and there is neither the space nor the money to build new ones.  But is it a harbinger for what could happen in Los Angeles?

Whatever the case, I am glad that the Los Angeles bike share program is set to launch tomorrow.  If it gets more people on bikes, it's a success.  And if it can get people out of their cars, so much the better.

The Ice Man Cometh--On A Bike!

Yesterday I managed to slip out for a ride before meeting a friend for dinner and to watch the fireworks.

So what, exactly, did I have to escape from in order to get on my bike?  Well, none other than Max and Marlee.  Who says humans are the only creatures who don't know how to let go?

Anyway, I had no particular destination in mind.  Perhaps the only real intention I had was to avoid beach areas, because I knew that they were crowded.  That turned out to be a good choice:  I had most of the Queens and Brooklyn streets to myself!

I did find myself just up the street (Rockaway Parkway) from the Canarsie Pier. But I didn't go to the pier because it was packed with families and other groups cooking burgers, 'dogs and chicken wings on little grills.  Everything smelled good, even mixed with the aromas of beer and other kinds of alcohol.  

So, I made a U-turn and pedaled through a soundscape of liliting Caribbean music and accents along Canarsie side streets, and along Rockaway Avenue (almost traffic-free) to Brownsville, Ocean Hill and Bedford-Styvesant--areas of Brooklyn hipsters and gentrification still haven't found (though that could change very, very soon!).  Soon, I found myself in the tatoo capital of the Western world--Wilson Avenue in Bushwick.  There, I stopped at a shaved-ice cart, where I asked the man to make me a cone (paper) of ice con citron y cereza--with lemon and cherry syrups.  

I actually wante that cone.  But buying it was also a pretext for talking to the man about his cart.  

He says he made the cart, and attached the bicycle, himself.  It's easier and faster to move that way than it is to push the cart around while on foot.  Also, he doesn't have to worry about parking, as he would if he were driving the cart.

And, yes, that ice hit the spot.

Happy Fourth Of July. Be Safe!

I am going to share a secret with you:  It's my birthday.  Really!  

Oh, yeah, it's also the birthday of the country in which I was born, raised and have spent most of my life.  Whether or not you celebrate--or whether it's just another day wherever you are, I hope you enjoy it.  And, please, don't try this:

From World of Bikes, Iowa City

I mean, maybe I don't do enough night riding. But don't you think that's going just a bit far to get get a good bicycle lighting system--one that will actually allow you to be seen by drivers?  

A Great Ride, "In Spite Of"

Sometimes we say that a ride was good or great "in spite of"...the rain...the wind...the cloud cover...the traffic...the flat or mechanical malfunction...the fill-in-the-blank.

Yesterday's ride was one of those rides.   I didn't experience any disasters or mishaps.  And while the temperature reached 28C (82F) in the middle of the afternoon, it never seemed that warm.  Heavy rains the other night dissipated the humidity, and the bright sunshine forecast for the day was muted, at various times, by a scrim--sometimes a curtain--of clouds.  As much as I love sunshine, I appreciate such movements of clouds, especially when they don't bring any threat of rain with them.   After all, one thing cycling--or anything else--will never cure is my, ahem, melanin deficiency!

Image by John Hart.  From the Centre for Sports Engineering Research at Sheffield Hallam University (UK).

Anyway...the one complaint I could have made was the wind.  In that regard, this year has been very strange:  March, supposedly the windiest month, didn't seem particularly so, but every month since then has brought us more steady streams, and even gusts, than the one before.

And so it was yesterday.  I decided to take, intead of an "out and back" ride, one in which the route away from home would be different from the one that brought me back.  It wasn't quite a circular ride:  If anything, if I were to draw it on a map, it would probably be shaped more like an almond or an eye socket.

That was interesting and rewarding.  And, for most of the way out, I pedaled against the wind, sometimes gusting to 50 KPH (30 MPH).  Normally, I don't mind that, for it means--in most circumstances--that I would have the wind at my back on the way home.

Except that it didn't happen that way.  You guessed it:  I spent most of the trip home pedaling into wind just as strong as what I encountered on the way out.  I know that sometimes the wind shifts direction during the course of the day.  I also know that in particular locations, even ones only an hour's bike ride apart, the wind can blow in a different direction.  (Believe it or not, in the NYC Metro area, we have micro-climates, even within Manhattan!)  So, the plan of riding into the wind so you can let it carry you home works, except when it doesn't.

Arielle

But I didn't mind.  All told, I rode about 130 kilometers (80 miles) on Arielle, my Mercian Audax.  With a name like that, you know she rides like the wind!  Now you know why I had a great ride, "in spite of"!

Elie Wiesel R.I.P.

I took a wonderful bike ride today. But I can't write about it. Instead, I must discuss someone I don't merely admire or idolize.  Instead, he is someone of whom I am completely sure that the world is better--or, at least, not as bad as it could have been--because he was in it. 

Thirty years ago, on the Third of July--the day before US Independence Day--I was in a San Francisco hotel room.  A  Thursday, it was--in essence, if not in fact-- the beginning of a holiday weekend.  It also marked one of the strangest--almost to the point of being surreal--coming-togethers of people who, perhaps, should not have been on the same planet, let alone the same podium.  I watched it on television.

That day, the opening ceremonies of the Statue of Liberty's centenary began.  At the foot of the Statue, President Reagan awarded  something that no one ever received before, or has received since:  the Medal of Liberty.  Twelve naturalized (born in other countries) American citizens received it.  

I must admit that I learned something that day:  Bob Hope, one of the medal's recipients, was born in England.  It wasn't so strange to see him with the President.  It also wasn't so unusual to see another recipient--Henry Kissinger (born in Germany)--on the same stage with them.  I didn't even find it so odd that Irving Berlin (Russia) also received the medal:  As great a songwriter as the man was, his ouevre includes stuff like "God Bless America" and "White Christmas".

Now, when the award went to Itzhak Perlman (Israel), Albert Sabin (Russia) and I.M. Pei (China), I thought it was venturing into another sub-species of the human race.  I admire all of them, and have no quibble with any award they might ever have received.  We've all benefited from Sabin's work; I have listened to Perlman (live as well as on recording) and think that Pei's "Glass Pyramid" actually makes the Louvre courtyard look better. (Yes, I've seen it without.)

When things got really weird, though, was when Elie Wiesel (Romania) got the award.  Again, I have no issue with his receiving it, or anything else he's been awarded in his life.  To merely say that he is a great writer is an insult--almost libel, really--against the man.  His work is nothing like the sort that is celebrated by fashionable people for whom whatever they reading is like one of this season's "must-have" accessories.  People like them don't think you're hip or witty if you quote him at their parties.  (Then again, if you are reading his work, you're probably not going to such parties.)  Reading him also doesn't make you feel better about yourself:  It just makes you more of a human being.

And what did he write about?  Mostly, about people's inhumanity to each other. Perhaps that's not surprising when you realize that at age 15, he and his family ended up in Auschwitz.  Later, he was moved to the Buchenwald concentration camp, from which he was freed.  Of his family, only two of his sisters survived.

Elie Wiesel speaking at a Tribute to Holocaust Survivors in 2003.  From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

But his message was not one of depression or despair.  Nor was it a "We Shall Overcome" kind of optimism.  Instead, it was one of simple honesty, about what he experienced as well as his role--and limitations--as a survivor and witness:

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never."

There is, to my eye, not an iota of self-pity in those words.  Rather, it is a statement of his job, his mission, as it were:  one that he never could have chosen.  And, as I read in some of his other writings, the mission that found him is also gave him an almost overwhelming humility--borne of survivor's guilt, perhaps--about his work.  He said there was no language for the horrors he witnessed, but he did his best to describe them.  And those who perished--whether in the Holocaust or unjustly in any and all kinds of other tragedies--cannot speak for themselves.  He wondered whether he had any right, let alone the language, to give voice (rather than speak for) them, but he had no other choice.

Even though he was given the tablet, the torch or whatever you want to call it, his writings are never preachy, sanctimonious or self-important.  They were, as he said, testimony. Sometimes he called for nothig ore than simple decency from one human being to another. What a concept, eh?

Whatever I drank the night before (I don't remember exactly what, but I drank more than enough) couldn't have induced, in me, a hallucination anywhere near as bizarre as seeing Elie Wiesel on the same stage, getting the same award, as Henry Kissinger.

Then again, it wouldn't be the only time something so strange happened.  Later that year, Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Thirteen years earlier, Henry Kissinger--who orchestrated the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the assasination of Salvador Allende and the invasion of Cyprus--also won the Prize.  (To think that Hilary Clinton cited him as her role-model when she was Secretary of State!)  And, of course, Barack Obama--who, barring something miraculous, will become the first US President to lead the country through two terms of continuous war and, by the way, ordered air strikes on Syria--also won the Prize in 2008.

Kissinger, at age 93, is still getting awards and accolades and fat speaking fees.  Barack is, of course, still in office.  But Wiesel died today, at age 87.  I don't know what comes after this life, but it can't be justice if he is going to the same place as Ronald Reagan or wherever Henry Kissinger will end up.

Interesting Fact:  Weisel did all of his writing in French, the language in which he did most of his reading.  After being rescued, he was taken to a French orphanage and attended a French school--where, he said, he received his first secular education.  (Everything he read before his internment, he said, had to do with his religion.)  Some of the English translations were done by his wife.

To Ryer Hesjedal And Michelle Dumaresq On Canada Day

It looks like I have a pretty fair number of readers in Canada.  So, dulce et decorum est...Sorry, wrong country.  I mean, it is sweet and proper to point out that today is Dominion Day, a.k.a. Canada Day.

We here in the US tend to compare other countries' greatest national holidays--like Bastille Day in France--to our Independence Day.  Truth is, Canada Day is as different from our 4th of July holiday as it is from the French grande fete.  

I am no expert in these matters, but as I understand, Canada did not fight a war to gain "independence" from Britain.  Rather, Canada--which then consisted only of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick--gained autonomy under the auspices of the British Crown.  It sounds to me like Queen Victoria was saying, "Well, they're still a colony, kinda sorta"--if Her Majesty would have ever spoken in such a manner.  (Tsk, tsk!)

Canada's de facto national flag until 1965, when the familiar maple leaf banner was adopted.

Actually, "independence" happened gradually, over more than a century, rather than with an American-style revolution.  The Westminster Act of 1931 gave Canada autonomy over most of its affairs.  But it wasn't until 17 April 1982, when Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act, that the country become fully autonomous.  Until that time, there were still actions, such as signing UN resolutions, that Canada could not do unilaterally.

(Interestingly, the Canada Act might have deepened the rift between the country's Anglophones and Francophones, as it was recorded as a statutory instrument in both French and English, cementing Canada's status as a bilingual country.  Some scholars have argued that if the Canada Act had not been ratified in both languages, it might not have been possible, for example, for Quebec to pass its language laws.)

Anyway...Canada is interesting, to say the least.  So are Canadians: They're not just Americans who live in a colder climate.  So, it's no surprise that the country has its own distinctive cycling history and, while a few, like Steve Bauer, rode for US-sponsored teams, they forged their own way in the racing world.

One example is Ryder Hesjedal, the first Canadian to win one of the major European Grand Tours:  the 2012 Giro d'Italia.  Two years earlier, he placed fifth overall int he Tour de France.

Ryder Hesjedal

An interesting--and, to me, somehow Canadian--aspect of his story is that he started off as a mountain bike racer and turned to road racing.  I say that it sounds Canadian to me because, among American cyclists, the trend has been the other way.  That may be a result of history:  the first professional mountain bikers from the US, and most of them started off as road riders because, well, that's what most racers were in those days.  On the other hand, Canada produced an impressive list of riders who started off--and, in some cases, remained--mountain bikers.  This is particularly true of female Canadian cyclists such as Michelle Dumaresq, of whom I've written in an earlier post.

Michelle Dumaresq

So, I am dedicating this post to her and Hesjedal, who are emblematic of their country's cycling history--and, I believe, its history, period.

An Adventure To The Familiar

Perhaps you've done something like what I am about to describe.

I packed lunch-- salsa I made myself, with some excellent locally-made tortilla chips--into the front bag on Vera, my green Mercian mixte.  With no particular destination or route in mind, I started riding. 

Add caption

The first few kilometers--along Sunnyside and Woodside streets, under the #7 train, into Corona and Flushing Meadow Park--were all familiar.  They could have taken me to some of the rides I do regularly:  the Rockaways, the South Shore, the North Shore.  But once I exited the park, I turned onto unfamiliar streets in a familiar (more or less) neighborhood.

I knew more or less the direction in which I was riding. But I didn't know, exactly, what I was riding into.  Mind you, I wasn't worried:  I wasn't beyond the reach of civilization or even in a place where I didn't understand the language.  But the rows of houses, surrounded by their patches of lawn and hedges, aren't the best of navigational aids.

No matter.  I kept on riding.  A turn here, another turn there.  Turn around where the road ends, then turn again.  Cross under a highway.  Spot a sign for a pond hidden by trees.  Do I take the path through the park on the left?  Or...are those old railroad tracks on the right?

Before I knew it, I had diagonally traversed Queens and was somewhere in Nassau County.  Mid-island, as they'd call it: somewhere between the North and South Shores.  More suburban developments, except now the lawns are bigger.  Some even have flower gardens. Then I found myself in a downtown area of one of those towns and noticed a sign for "Tulip Bakery".  OK, I guess that works:  cute cookies and pastries in the window, cute name on the sign.  

After running out of bakeries and cafes and boutiques, the street provided another stream of houses with lawns.  And its name:  Tulip Lane.  All right.  That bakery wasn't trying to be so cute after all.  Tip toe through the tulips.  Ride along Tulip Lane.  I continued:  It was longer than I expected, through a couple of places with "Franklin" in their names:  Franklin Square.  Franklin Lake.  Franklin something or other.  Then the Rockvilles.    Under another set of railroad tracks, and across still another.  Faces lightening and darkening and lightening again.  Still on Tulip Lane.

After crossing a state route, it stopped being Tulip Lane.  I didn't notice until much later, when I noticed I was riding on Long Beach Road.  I really had no idea of how far I'd ridden; I had just a vague notion that I'd been riding mostly south and east since I got on my bike.  The suburban houses had turned into garages, boat repair shops, a fishery and a tatoo parlor.  They didn't look like anything I ever saw in Long Beach before, on previous rides.

But the bridge at the end of them took me right into the heart of the town.  Over the bay, to the ocean.  I really enjoyed my lunch--and the unfamiliar ride to a completely familiar place.

Waffles And Mud

If you are a cyclocross racer living in Belgium, today is your day.

Now, you might be thiking that if I could write that previous sentence, I must have waaay too much time on my hands.  Well, that is a matter of debate, I guess.  But l swear, I wasn't web-surfing when I came up with the information that allowed me to come up with such a statement.

You see, this morning, I turned on a local community-radio station. The host of one of those crazy programs one finds on such stations mentioned that today is International Mud Day.  I didn't catch his name, but I did hear him add, a few minutes later, that today is Waffle Iron Day.

Thus, in writing the opening sentence of this post, I have performed a creative act and a public service.  Just imagine:  If those two bits of information hadn't found my way, perhaps no one ever would have connected them.  The world would be this much (she holds her forefinger and thumb a hair's breadth apart) poorer.

(How's that for grandiosity?)

Anyway, I found out tht neither holiday was created by, well, people with too much time on their hands and possibly-legal (or not) intoxicating substances.  Turns out, Mud Day originated in Nepal, in an attempt to enrich the lives of orphans by getting them to spend more time outdoors. 

It's therapy!  Really!  From Cyclocross magazine

Someone noticed that kids' attitudes and moods improved after spending time wallowing around in the mud.  Like so many things "primitive" people in places like Nepal have observed for centuries, Western science has discovered this fact and confirmed it with empirical data.  Actually, even some beauticians have beaten those scientists to their discovery: Why do you think salons offer mud treatments for the face and other areas of skin?

As for waffle irons:  A while back, I read that waffles evolved, if you will, from the making of communion wafers. In those days, they were made individually by pressing the batter between--you guessed it--two heated irons.  Patterns, and sometimes even images, were engraved into the irons, so the wafers came out embossed with with grid patterns (like most current waffles) or, perhaps, the seal of a particular saint or church.

Wouldn't you love to see this first thing in the morning?

Later, someone got the idea of adding wine, beer and other things with yeast to leaven the batter and make it rise. Then , people discovered that those patterns--especially the grid--trapped air inside, making a treat that's crispy on the outside but fluffy on the inside.

Anyway...I'm sure that plenty of cyclo-cross riders have consumed waffles before and after (and during:  they fit well in jersey pockets!) races or training ride. I've carried waffles with me on all sorts of rides--except when I was in Belgium because, there, they could be found in just about any store or stand.

So...Happy Mud Day and Happy Waffle Iron Day.  Belgium and the world should celebrate!

A Developing Picture: The East Coast Greenway

A decade ago, you could say that the photos you took during your vacation were "being developed", and everybody would know what you ment.

I thought about that one day when a student reported seeing a "One Hour Photo" sign and asked me to explain it.  Until then, it hadn't occured to me that a generation of young people is accustomed to instantly sending or uploading images from cameras and "smart phones" to computers--or other smart phones.  Those pictures do not have to be "processed", at least not by human hands.

When I was in high school, I learned how to develop and print photos in a darkroom.  For those of you who have never experienced the joys of such work, I will describe it, briefly.

A darkroom can be, really, just about any space that's big enoug for your equipment, has access to running water and, as the name indicates, can be sealed against light.  Even the slightest leakage of light--except for special blue light in the last stages of printing--can ruin the film on which the photos were shot or the photographic paper on which they were to be printed. So, all of the memories and imaginings you stored on rolls of film could be obliterated by the flick of a switch or the opening of a door.

(Old joke:  Dick and Jane  are in the darkroom.  Let's see what develops.)

First, the film immersing it in a tank of chemicals that converts or releases the substances in the film that store pieces (pixels, if you will) of the image.  The image emerges, if you will, but you can't see it because the film is in a tank and you are working in the dark.  But, later, when you print the film, you can see lines and shapes forming on the blank paper when it's immersed in another chemical bath after the image is projected onto the paper, which is photosensitive.  As the print is washing, you can turn on a "safelight" and see it emerge.  Lines appear and merge with each other, forming shapes of hair, noses, leaves, petals, wheels or whatever you photographed.

Yesterday, when I rode to Connecticut (again!), I felt as if I were watching a picture emerge from a blank slate, or paper, if you will.  Perhaps it's funny that I should use such a metaphor for a ride in which I didn't take any photos.  I'll explain.

Just over a year ago, on another Connecticut ride, I saw signs for something I'd never, up to that moment, heard of:  the East Coast Greenway.  When completed, it will allow non-motorized travel from Calais, Maine (at the border with New Brunswick, Canada) to Key West, Florida. It will include paths and trails through wooded areas and parkland (like the stretch through Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx), designated bike lanes that parallel main roads and quiet residential streets. . The first ECG symbols I saw stood at the end of the PBP trail, at the city line, and along residential Mount Tom Road in Pelham Manor.

On yesterday's ride, I saw some new ECG signs--or, at least, ones I hadn't noticed before.  I spotted them on my way back, just after I crossed the line back into New York State.  They led me along a series of narrow but lightly-trafficked streets that wound through a series of old churches and stone houses in Port Chester and Rye on the way to Playland.

I welcomed the "detour", if you will, as it was pleasant and relaxing--and took me away from Boston Post Road, one of the area's main streets, for a few miles.  Then, a couple of towns south, I picked up another (shorter) series of ECG signs in Mamaroneck, near the harbor and found myself pedaling down a series of suburban streets lined with houses and small sores down to New Rochelle.

And, after navigating the intersection of the New Rochelle DIner and the Home Depot, I picked up the first stretch of ECG I rode last year, from Mount Tom Road all the way (about ten kilometers) to the Hutchinson River Parkway Bridge.  From there, I zigged, zagged and wound through Bronx streets to the Randall's Island Connector.

It's not yet possible to ride a single unified greenway from the city to Connecticut, let alone to Maine or Florida.  But it's fun, in its own way, to see segments of the Greenway emerging like the lines on a developing photograph.  Perhaps one day soon, those lines will connect,  and the picture--the Greenway--will be complete.