Change is difficult

Lately, a few big changes have been made downtown and in the Old North End to encourage and accommodate bicyclists. Weber Street from about the police station northward to Colorado-ish has lost a car lane and acquired a bike lane, and the same goes for Cascade Avenue northward from Bijou Street. If you're used to having two lanes on those two particular streets, you've had to adjust to only having one. I have to admit that it took me a couple of tries to get it right on Cascade especially, but I soon got used to it. As for Weber Street, I don't think that particular stretch of it really ever needed two lanes to begin with, so it's not a huge sacrifice to lose one.

A lot of my friends are supportive of the new bike lanes, but as usual when there's a big change to the status quo, others have been less positive. Here are my thoughts: many large cities learned to accommodate bicycles on their streets long ago, not just here in the U.S. but all over the world. It's high time we in Colorado Springs wrapped our brains around the idea and started sharing the road with serious cyclists like the guy in this picture, and even just schmoes like me on my old Schwinn. After all, we are the home of U.S.A. Cycling, the U.S. Olympic Training Center, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, not to mention the world renowned 7-11 Velodrome. There is a huge cycling community here. Given these facts, how is it we have never been terribly accommodating to bicyclists? That's just shameful! Progress means change and change is difficult, but we need to keep moving forward in this city or we'll continue to be treated like Denver's redheaded, backward stepsister. Those new bike lanes aren't going away, better get used to them!