Bikes, Tweets, and Symposia on Earth Day

Happy Earth Day! Here at Roosevelt, we’ve got some great events to mark the day, which I will start with a humble but well-intentioned two-mile bike ride to my train station in Joliet for my morning commute to Chicago, in honor of #RUEarthWeek2015 (pdf). Then, after dutifully putting in a few morning hours in my office, I shall repair to the Wabash Building (425 S. Wabash Ave, downtown Chicago) for these activities:

1-2pm (WB 1317) — Join me on Twitter (@MikeBryson22) for an #RUjusticechat on the relations between campus sustainability efforts and social/environmental justice. You can chat from wherever you are in the world . . . but if you’re in my neck of the woods, stop by WB 1317 for some F2F interaction and home-made cookies!

3-5:30pm (WB 616) — Attend the 2015 SUST Student Symposium, the signature Sustainability Studies event of the semester. Learn about the research and internship projects undertaken by four of our Sustainability Studies majors this year, and enjoy great conversation as well as free refreshments aplenty, courtesy of RU’s Physical Resources Dept. Hosted by the students of my SUST 390 Sustainable Campus class, who are undertaking RU’s first-ever STARS sustainability assessment this spring.

Bike2CampusWeek 2015 Flyer_Version2

Bike to Coffee Shop; Get to Work

This week I’m discussing transportation with my Roosevelt University students in my online SUST 210 Sustainable Future class. Today I used three modes of transportation by 8:30am here in my hometown of Joliet, IL.

First, I drove my daughter Esmé and her school chum Claudia to kindergarten at our neighborhood elementary school, which is 1.1 miles from our house. But because it wasn’t raining, we parked a few blocks away and walked up to the door, so we could get a little exercise and some fresh air. Amazingly, the girls skipped along the sidewalk, even though it was a cold and blustery Friday and they had to wear their winter coats. Kid energy at 7:45am — it’s truly impressive.

After walking back to my car, I considered my options: drive henceforth to my favorite coffee shop in downtown Joliet, about two miles east? Or zip home first and ride my bike? I chose the latter, because my 45-year-old body desperately needs exercise, any exercise, and it would take me only a couple more minutes to get to my destination. (I’m way too cheap to get a health club membership, so I get my sporadic workouts away way I can.)

JittersSo I pumped up the tires on my 1972 Schwinn Varsity and rode down the long hill to the Des Plaines River, crossed the Ruby Street bridge and waved to the I & M Canal as I did so, locked up my bike in front of Jitters, and fired up the laptop, a steaming mug of excellent java close at hand.

It is a particular privilege of an academic like myself to perform this series of tasks and call it “work.” Plus, I can take pleasure in supporting the local economy, and anticipate additional (free) exercise on my strenuous uphill ride back home later this morning.

On a related note, here’s an account of a much longer and circuitous bike ride I took to work here in Joliet from March 2012.

Biking to Work in Joliet, IL

Since I’m discussing transportation this week in my SUST 210 Sustainable Future online class at Roosevelt University, I thought it most appropriate to use my bike to commute to work. Some of our sources I’m analyzing with my students speak directly to the need for active/alternative transportation modes, and how such systems relate to urban design and community structure.

I am not a “hard core” cyclist who buys fancy gear and takes 100-mile rides through the countryside; nor am I an urban bike renegade who likes to blow through any intersection at as high a speed as possible. I consider myself very much an average-ability and safety-minded cyclist of modest endurance, someone who doesn’t mind putting on warm clothes and biking to the train station or to a local destination in cold weather or a drizzle. In the Netherlands, I would be in good company; here in the US, that probably puts me within 0.5% of Americans.

My first decision yesterday: should I really take my bike, or should I drive? I had to go to Joliet’s Barnes and Noble bookstore way out by the Louis Joliet Westfield Mall, a destination located about 6 miles from my house and on a very busy road (US Route 30). Then I had to go to the public library to work, then back home. It would be a long trip, and I had a lot to do that day. Did I really have time for all that? And what about carrying my notes and computer on my back, plus the presents I would be purchasing at the bookstore?

It was cold, 28 degrees F, but sunny and not too windy — and I decided to try it. After all, biking would keep my GHG emissions down to zero, plus I’d get some much-needed February exercise. The extra time from biking would be more than repaid by the free workout I’d be getting! My rationalization complete, I tapped into my somewhat extensive personal knowledge of safe Joliet street/trail routes, and headed off. Here is a map of the route I took.

Note the out-of-the-way path I took to get to the bookstore, a 6.1 mile trip that could’ve been much shorter had I traveled directly. But Route 30 is a busy and dangerous road, and I prefer to avoid hi-traffic streets. There are no bike lanes on Rt. 30. In fact, there are no bike lanes anywhere in Joliet. So I took a quiet E-W residential route to a N-S rails-to-trails path on Joliet’s West Side, then headed north along the trail. That linked up with another trail, one within the Will County Forest Preserve’s Rock Run Marsh. Consequently, even though I was in a highly developed part of Joliet’s West Side, much of my ride was bucolic, and all of it was safe and quiet, except for crossing busy arterial streets. This is a route I’ve ridden with my kids many times. You can see water, trees, cattails, and prairie grasses; you can hear and see a lot of birds. It’s a nice way to travel.

That left me with a short job on Route 30 to get to the bookstore, which actually was OK. Once there, I was able to relax while listening to Miles Davis on the store radio, surrounded by books (itself a delight), and with good access to a bathroom and the BN cafe, which has free wi-fi. Life was good!

My ride to the public library was shorter, but on a busy N-S road on Joliet’s West Side. Lots of room for cars, but no dedicated bike lane here. As noted above, there no bike lanes in the city of Joliet, a real flaw in the town’s transportation infrastructure. Despite this deficiency, parts of town are very bike-able because of a plethora of quiet residential streets, some of which cut through town in helpful ways. However, this network is very limited, and known only to people who seek out such knowledge.

Back to my journey to the library: Essington Road had a good sidewalk, so I used that as well as the street to head south to my destination. Upon reading the Rock Run Forest Preserve trailhead, I left the street and rode a paved trail the rest of the way to the library, which sits on the eastern edge of the preserve and has beautiful views of its woods and marshlands. It is always uplifting to my spirits to come here, and sometimes I take a short break from working at the library to take a stroll in the woods or along the marsh’s edge.

So, my commute to work was about 9.5 miles, according to Google maps (which lets you map out bike routes, by the way), plus the 3.5 miles home after my library session (13 miles total). My total commuting time for this workday was 30min + 18min + 20min for the three legs of the commute, or 68min total. This compares most favorably with my door-to-door commute to the Schaumburg Campus (120min in the car) or my train commute to downtown Chicago (1hr 45min each way, door-to-door, or 3.5 hours total).

Guess how many bikes I saw on my cycling route yesterday? None. I did see several people walking or working in their yards, and all of us greeted each other with a pleasant hello. (I don’t do that while driving; do you?) I also saw hundreds of cars. I can’t recall if I saw a PACE bus, which probably means I didn’t.

Get on Your Bike

A few weeks ago marked the summer solstice, and I venture the following exhortation as we relish (or endure) this season of heat and long days.

We need to get out of our cars and get back on our bikes. Few things you do this summer will be better for your mind, body, and spirit.

Whether you’re a twenty-something or a senior, bikes are low-impact exercise machines that folks of all ages can use safely and pleasurably. My five-foot-tall arthritic Grandma Dorothy, bless her departed soul, rode a three-wheeler well into her seventies. And my spry 71-year-old father just got out his 1950s-era English road bike — the same one he rode through Joliet as a teenager — and started cruising again. Dad, I salute you!

Don’t have a bike? Just get one. Try a garage sale, where bikes abound; or even a neighbor’s garage, where I once scored a dusty vintage Schwinn Varsity ten-speed for fifty bucks. I’ve already put hundreds of miles on this classic and fully expect to be riding it for the next thirty years.

Feeling cheap? In case you haven’t noticed, gasoline is no bargain. For the price of a few fill-ups, you can get a very good bike at a local establishment and soon recoup your investment hand over handlebar. After that, you’re saving money every time you ride.

Old bike need a tune-up beyond oiling the chain and inflating the tires? If you’re not up to doing it yourself, take it to your local repair shop, get the job done right, and feed our hometown economy rather than the multinational oil production/pollution complex. (Yes, I’m liberal, but I’m also patriotic.)

Beyond these undeniably compelling reasons to get on your bike is something intangible but no less important: the experience of riding.

On a bike, life is palpably different. You feel the wind and sun. You breathe fresh air instead of recycled, air conditioned exhaust. Out of necessity, you pay attention to your surroundings. You use your muscles — remember them? — and challenge yourself physically. You glide by queued-up cars and see envious glances from the imprisoned drones therein.

On a bike you discover new ways to travel to your favorite places — back streets and bike paths where car traffic is lighter and life moves more slowly. You say hello to people working in their yards or to kids playing on the sidewalk, and in return get a smile or a friendly wave. In the process you start to see your community in a much different way — and, I would humbly suggest, a much better way.

Dear readers, I therefore beseech thee: get on your bikes! If you do, be sure to check back with me at the autumnal equinox and let me know how your summer went.

The essay, one of my monthly op-ed pieces for the Joliet Herald-News, was originally published as  “See Joliet, Will County by Bicycle” on 23 June 2011.