No Videos Today, But "Let's Give Them Something to Talk About"

Although this entire blog is dedicated to the exposure of Baltimore City's (lack of) bicycle-friendliness not every day of my commute is worth discussing.  This morning was an easy ride and the weather was perfect   and since I left late from work, there were not as many cars on the road and cross-town traffic was mostly gone.

Just because nothing happened to me today, doesn't mean I don't have something to complain about.  

Baltimorecity.gov is a "wonderful" website that "provides" both tourists and locals "easy" access to information on cycling in the city (was that sarcastic enough?).  In fact, I'll wait while you go and find city bike route information from the link...

...

Find it yet?

Of course you didn't!

That's because you were looking in the logical places.  Of course, if you were illogical, like our city website, you would have easily found it by following these directions:

1.  Start at Home 

2.  From top menu, mouse over Government

3.  Select Agencies and Departments from drop down menu

4.  Select Transportation (3rd to last on left) 

5.  Select Planning (last item from "In this section" on left) 

6.  Select Bike Baltimore (last option on left)

7.  Select Downloads

8.  Select Bike Baltimore Map to view pdf with info

(sometimes I wonder if they are deliberately hiding this map from us)

Now that you have this map-O-bike-info open, I would like do draw your attention to this part:

*Courtesy of www.baltimorecity.gov*

Please make note that the red lines mean "Routes Commonly Used by Cyclists" and green lines mean "On Street Bike Facilities."

According to this map, there is no sure, bike-friendly way to get from the Inner Harbor to the Jones Falls Trail or even Johns Hopkins University.  To get to the Inner Harbor, Guildford Road seems to be your best bet as of now, but of course, if you work just west of Charles Street, your ride is a constant battle of survival while you cycle on the busiest streets in the city.

My main complaint (when looking at this one part of the info document) is that the City of Baltimore still doesn't have at least a "Future Trail" planned for any of the big time, red-lined, streets that run north and south.  So far, all they have going is the Fallsway road north, and if any of you know Baltimore, you know that getting onto Fallsway, for the PM rush hour, is INSANE.

Please Baltimore City, give us a piece of Charles Street or at least Calvert.