The One Mile Solution

Nah. Nothing to worry about

"...The model American male devotes more than 1,600 hours a year to his car. He sits in it while it goes and while it stands idling..."

 I thought about my last post after riding in to work this morning and if you read it, you will see its changed considerably. Morning LANL traffic was backed up quite far beyond the actual construction zone on Diamond, snarling well past North Road and backed up approximately to the Pueblo Complex. There was a lot of that "sitting in the car while it stands idling" out there on Diamond Drive.

Meanwhile, the bike lane was open and yours truly and another rider sailed through the mess unimpeded. I did feather the brakes and coasted down from my usual 25-30 mph pace through there to ride a little more cautiously.  There are intersections in that section of road and one has to watch for conflicts developing. One doesn't need nasty surprises to ruin an otherwise nice morning. I used Jerry Merkey's suggested detour to avoid breathing auto fumes while doing the "stop and go shuffle" once the bike lane ended and the construction zone began. The other rider, who was ahead of me, stayed on Diamond. Hope he didn't try to filter along the jersey barriers. Its not too nice in there.

Andy Cline speaks of the One Mile Solution, to wit, if your destination is a mile or less from your start, leave the car home. I wonder how much shorter that snarl would have been, how much fuel could have been saved, and how much good exercise been accomplished, had those who live roughly a mile or two from work (i.e., Western Areas to TA-3) had not driven their cars. I suspect the bike lane could have handled it and they would have gotten to work a lot faster. Even better--once this last segment of Diamond is rebuilt, there will be bike lanes all the way to the Dept. of Energy site. Now, if the DOE could get off its own duff....and read some of its own literature: Peak Oil Is Extremely Real And Extremely Risky

Peak Oil, some estimates of production