Over at my local blog, WestwoodBlog, I wrote a short photo narrative about how I used my bike and trailer to pick up produce at our Community Supported Agricuture (CSA) farm this weekend and then made a side trip to the grocery store. It’s part of my effort to promote more bike and walk-friendly activity in town–a personal testimonial of sorts. My conclusions:
- A bike trip like this, with kids, can be safe. Cars whizzing down Gay Street at 50mph may scare you, but if you plan accordingly, make yourself very visible, and ride sensibly, there is no reason you can’t bike across town for errands.
- You can make the time to do it. The entire trip involved less than an hour on the bike and covered 11 miles. Of course in a car, we’d be at the farm in 10 minutes and from home to Roche Bros. in 2. But that really works out to about a half hour total, so an hour is not that bad–plus you get the benefit of the exercise.
- You need good “kid karma.” I was lucky that many of the unpredictable (more accurately, “unschedulable”) things that happen with 2-year olds did not derail my grand plan. But we did not stand in the deli line on this day!
Excursions like this are easier when you live in a denser urban setting. But in our New England suburbs/towns, we are fortunate to have avoided some of the more stereotypical suburban sprawl patterns and in my town, we have made a concerted effort to preserve open space resulting in a unique urban/rural blend of possibilities.
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