Another week has gone by in the Go By Bike pledge drive.   The photo above is a “commuter shot” sent in by a 1w2w reader, David Wilkins.  Wilkins had no idea how much his photos would be useful in making the case for complete streets.  More on that in a minute.

 David lives in a lovely area of Alabama and what a great reason to make it more bike friendly.   Looking at the photos you can see the potential for becoming bike friendly.  

I’ve been wanting to write about complete streets for awhile and this is a great entree.  Complete Streets does exactly what it sounds like it would: helps communities remake it streets to accocommodate multiple modes of transport; cars, bikes, pedestrians.   This brilliant program is making waves around the country with its simple, economical street redesign.  Find more here: www.completestreets.org.

Back to David.  Here’s his ride, waiting at the YMCA at the bright hour of 5am.

After David gets through the first bit of highway (seen in the top photo) he comes to this:

 This is a lovely scene but note the lack of striped bike lanes.  

 His commute takes him through a newer looking subdivision, also lacking striped bike lanes.

 And here’s the finishing stretch.  Let’s give it up for a bike lane!

Thanks for sending the photos, David.   You’ve got one of the tougher commutes I’ve seen and good for you for going to work on two wheels.  

And the winners from last week are:

August 11: Sara Myers

August 12: Julie Bower

August 13: Manuel Margine

August 14: Linda Mason

August 15: John Sutter

August 16: James Hagen

August 17: Henry Ma

Btw, I have to say that the boxes of postcards I get everyday are a side benefit of the Challenge I didn’t anticipate.  Leading the “most commonly received postcard” is none other than Gumby.  I am not kidding.  The second most popular card is a hotel from Vegas.  Third most popular, Florida.   After winners are drawn from the postcards and on line, I go through and save the wackiest postcards.  That’s a whole ‘nuther blog entry!