2008: Year of the Bike

Okay, I know it is the year of the rat, but I'll take a bike instead. I've been attending a couple meetings of the transportation advisory board to talk about a bike to work day for the businesses along River Road. I'm excited that I'll be taking a four week bike maintenance course down at Broadway Bikes in Cambridge along with my son's fiancee. I've been out riding a few times since the start of the year, but I don't think I will ride regularly until the end of Feb.
Here is a quick rundown of national, state and local bike activities. On the national scale, the League of American Bicyclists has named fifteen new cities across the U.S. to the status of bicycle friendly communities, alas none in Massachusetts. The 2008 Federal Transportation bill is still way overweighted to expanding automobile travel. I guess this is to be expected. In the Massachusetts area, there are some signs of encouragement particularly in Boston where Mayor Menino has become a biking advocate. The big city mayors, taking a cue perhaps from bike friendly projects in London and Paris, have become some of the biggest biking advocates. Locally, Andover is up to vote on Community Preservation Act . Andover has left a lot of money on the community development table by not taking part in this state matching program. If you look at the town budget, you'll see a couple million gap between costs and expenses. The current thinking seems to be that an override can get us on course for the next couple years. I don't see how. Too many employee contracts remain unsigned, too many capital expenditure projects (capping the landfills, road maintenance) remain to be funded and -- the big elephant in the closet -- declining housing valuations will stymie any quick budget fix. What this means to me is that bike lane etc funding will have to be found elsewhere.