Memorial Day, Park Exploration, and Biking

"How can you ride a bike in this hot weather?" the 7-year-old girl asked me after I gave her and her friend a dollar for a Dixie cup of cold lemonade and a small macadamia nut cookie.

The money was to help one of the girls' fathers who is raising money for the Pan-Mass Challenge.

The girls had set up a stand at the bottom of their driveway, asking for donations across from Maudslay State Park. The parking lot was nearly-full to capacity at 3 p.m.

I thought for a moment before answering, tasting the cookie and wondering if it was really a nut or a melted white chocolate chip.

"Riding my bike, with the wind in my hair, it doesn't feel as hot out."

In retrospect, I must have sounded nuts.

After watching the Memorial Day parade march up State Street from the saddle of my bike, I followed the participants to the the Veterans Cemetery and shot some pictures.



I noticed Ed Cameron, Tom Jones, Steve Hutcheson, and Kathleen O'Connor Ives among the marching troupes. Where were the other councilors? I didn't see the mayor either.





Before riding to the cemetery, I knew I would continue biking around town. The only question was to where?

First stop: Atkinson Common. I'd driven by the city park dozens of times but never ventured inside.



Newburyport's Civil War soldiers and sailors are remembered here, but where are they buried? The Old Hill?

I walked around, peered inside the no-longer-functioning tower, gazed at appreciation tablets, and spied a girls' softball team from high above the Pioneer League field.



Leaving Atkinson Common, I headed toward Maudslay. That was another place I'd driven past but never seen up close.

At one point, I saw Tom O'Brien walking.



I didn't look at any maps of the Maudslay property so was completely lost. I have a good sense of direction, though, and after exploring the eastern paths I found myself at a rear entrance to Arrowhead Farm.

I spied pigs there.



Biking through the farm's grounds, I chatted briefly with Dick Chase. I don't know if he remembered me, but he was focused on some flowers. Apparently, the farm was selling flowers at Market Square today I later learned.

After exploring the western part of the park, I met the girls at a time when my water bottle was empty. The lemonade quenched my thirst...until I arrived at the Mobil gas station on Storey Avenue when I learned, to my joy, that a 2-for-1 Poland Spring bottled water sale was ongoing.

Over the coming weeks, I'll return to Maudslay, though maybe by car next time. I need to figure out what these triangular objects are.

Daily News slacking on bicycle stories

At Monday night's City Council meeting, the mayor and council president read a proclamation celebrating national bike week. I thank them for this.

However, I haven't seen the paper of record, the Daily News, follow-up with a story. Maybe one is planned.

Earlier this month, the Daily News reported on the rising cost of gas, then at $3.60, and how businesses such as Port Taxi, Volpone Towing Service, and Pizza Factory II are feeling the pinch.

One sentence in the article stands alone:

Be it car pooling, riding a bicycle, walking or taking another form of transportation, many drivers are conserving.

Despite being the second sentence in the article, this notion of a consumer's choice to not drive a car but ride a bike, walk, or use public transit is not elaborated.

What's the point of the sentence?

Last October, the Daily News published this article about the initial erection of three bike racks downtown in an effort to cut down on the number of cars in the downtown district and increase the number of bicycles.

I don't recall subsequent stories on whether more people are riding their bikes downtown. Granted, the weather is only getting warm so maybe a story is planned.

Officials hope the racks will encourage people to ride bikes to the city rather than drive their vehicles, wrote reporter Stephen Tait in the above article. There are many benefits, they say, including helping to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases and helping to fix the parking and traffic congestion problems downtown.

I've seen subsequent stories on parking and traffic congestion, but not anything on whether more people are riding their bikes to the city. I know of many people who ride their bikes from their homes to downtown locations and would be more than willing to talk about it.

In an effort to give the DN an idea of the type of story I'd like to see, take a look at this article in today's issue of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington, about the benefits of bicycle commuters.

I'll soon join the bandwagon, as I filled my tank yesterday at $3.67 for regular unleaded gas. My bike is in the shop for a tune-up; and I anticipate 2-wheeling around the area more than 4-wheeling.

SEED, Biking, and LSD

Anna Whistler, 17, a member of the environmental club at Bridgewater-Raritan High School in New Jersey, rode her bike to school last month and couldn't find a bike rack on the campus.

She asked officials where to park it.

"I thought for sure there was something," said Whistler, in a May 1 article in The Star Ledger. "They told me to park behind the Dumpster. That's where I ended up parking."

The environmental club students, after raising $2,000 over four years, wanted to give back to their school community and make the world a greener place by purchasing and installing a bike rack at the school.

Principal James Riccobono disagreed.

"In as much as the district provides courtesy busing to students who live within walking distance of the high school, because of the danger on Garretson Road, it does (not) make sense, in my opinion, to promote the riding of bicycles to school," the principal wrote in a letter distributed to the club on Earth Day.

Here in Newburyport, Seacoast Energy & Environmental Design activist Ron Martino is unhappy with Riccobono's perspective, viewing the principal as a barrier to be overcome.

Martino included a link to Streetsblog in an email he sent today to SEED's mailing list.

Granted, subsequent online searching reveals the New Jersey school is surrounded by busy streets that are links to sidewalk-free residential subdevelopments. Because of the lack of sidewalks and crosswalks, let alone smart growth policies, children and the environment are suffering. Welcome to urban sprawl and a need to allow vehicular drivers, bicyclists, and pedestrians to share the roads.

Newburyport already has bike lanes and bike racks, so I don't see a restriction of biking policy at NHS happening any time soon.

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On a related note, Swiss scientist, LSD researcher, and centenarian Albert Hofmann died last week, and in tribute of his 102 years, here is a video of the Bicycle Song, vectored from Morristown Pedal Pushers:

Questioning a bike rack

This $250 bicycle rack was installed earlier this week outside City Hall. Similar racks are erected along Inn Street and near the library.

According to this 2006 story by Mary Eaton, the Seacoast Energy & Environmental Design (SEED) coalition is collecting funds for the bike rack procurement, and the DPW is volunteering its manpower to install them.

SEED's Liss Campbell informs me that about $2800 has been collected so far.

The master plan for bike rack installations, which Councilor Larry McCavitt helped put together, calls for many more racks.

What gets me is the design.

Eaton quotes a then-Daily News article on the rack design: styles range from modern and streamlined to more historic-looking racks.

Which style does the above picture encapsulate? Shouldn't a historic-looking rack (whatever that really means) be next to City Hall, one of the more historic downtown structures?

I had thought, when hearing of the plan to erect bike racks, they would like more like this with a physical 'place' to keep the front wheel.

And how do I attach my bike to it? By looping my chain around one of the legs, and watching the chain fall to the brick bottom? How is that secure?