In reading a submission from the guy that now resides in “‘Kron,” it touched a subject that I have been noticing around our city for the past several years: two-lane traffic reduced to one lane with the addition of a bicycle lane.
While I hardly ride a bicycle anymore, I remember really enjoying the freedom I felt when riding the streets of our city. In fact, many years ago, a friend and I went on a spur-of-the-moment, middle-of-the-night bike ride. With so few cars on the road, we felt we could go anywhere, and we did. We rode all night and went to breakfast at a restaurant miles from home. This whole thing was unplanned, and we had a blast! It is one of my fondest memories.
I think back on how “connected” it made me feel to the world around me. Something that just doesn’t happen when driving. We experienced parts of Akron like never before.
While doing something like we did was probably not the best idea (even back then) from a safety standpoint, it changed my viewpoint on travelling the streets by bicycle.
Nowadays, when I find myself driving on a road that is narrowed to one lane, I often think back to that nighttime excursion. It gave me a connection to our city that continues to enhance my view of our community and our surroundings. I hope this provision will encourage more people to get out there, have some fun and develop a connection to the world around them that would never happen otherwise.
While it is hard to measure the impact of the addition of bike lanes just yet, I hope to see many more people out there once they realize how good it can be.
Dennis Moncrief, Cuyahoga Falls
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: How one trip on a bike changed my perspective on bicycle lanes | Letter
Reporting by Dennis Moncrief / Akron Beacon Journal
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