A new farmers market is opening in the suburb-city where I live, in a public park where it wasn’t allowed years ago but rules have changed. It’s the same park (the largest one in the city) where my book was for sale recently at a festival. The most direct and flattest route takes eight minutes from my neighborhood (and passes a community center, a college, and several places of worship including an orthodox synagogue whose members all walk to services so don’t even consider suggesting riding on the sidewalk ), but it’s on one of the worst roads in my city to ride (see Chapter 2: Pedaling as Fast as I Can). Here’s a snippet of my ride there (with Bike Noodle — see Chapter 6: Noodle Lady) the day of the festival (a lovely Saturday where I passed no other bike riders to or from the park):
The recently-adopted 20-year master transportation plan does nothing to change this (no, sharrows* are not an appropriate response to a road like this, or any main road in this busy, car-centric city — here’s the media release I’d love to see instead). I hope that with a weekly farmers market now, more people will want to simply ride bikes there and will advocate for change.
The photo above is from a public service campaign I created a few years ago with the generous participation of a wide range of people (who are featured). Here’s a two-minute video that shows the whole campaign:
I am teaching a “Pedal Power with Pattie” Bike Skills Class for Women as part of National Bike Month this morning in the certified Bicycle-Friendly-City of Decatur, Georgia so I won’t be at the farmers market. But I hope to get there in the future. On bike. Maybe I’ll even invite other of folks to ride along with me.
*See two effective uses of sharrows here.
See here for links to buy my book, Traveling at the Speed of Bike, on Amazon in all global markets. I’m an indie author and your support is greatly appreciated. A portion of proceeds from the sale of all books is donated to help more women and girls ride bikes. Currently, that means funding my ability to do “Pedal Power with Pattie” Basic Bike Skills Classes for Women for free.
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 