Instead of screaming into the void of Twitter, I bring you a weekly highlight reel of what it’s like going places in Greater Hartford when one is gloriously car-free. These posts are on a slight time delay because nobody needs to know exactly where I am when I am there.

BIKE-SHAPED THINGS 
Right now, until the end of May, there’s an outdoor display of bicycle-shaped objects on Main Street in Wethersfield. I’m having a lot of complicated feelings about this, which I’m allowed to have because I’m human. If nothing else, it’s something free to do that’s outdoors. . . and with plague infection rates still rising, you got to be able to do something that’s relatively safe. So, look at bikes it is. 

It’s going to seem like I photographed every single bike on display. I assure you, that is not the case. There were some that I really liked but were surrounded by people, or were hard to photograph without cars making the picture crappy. 

Anyway, let’s start with one that I found. . . I’m having lots of feelings about this bike in particular. 

Oooh, seashells! Oww, sea shells! 

Is this to relieve an itch? Train someone to ride standing up? What is happening here?! How quickly this went from “pretty” to “nightmare machine.” 

There were multiple bicycles showing support for the people of Ukraine. 

 

 

 

There were bicycles decorated to be admired but not ridden. 

 

Lots of flowers 

Lots of flowers 

 

There’s what looks like a piece of playground equipment: 

 

 

Let’s get a closer look at that dare, shall we? 

 

 

It’s hard to be mad at Kermit. 

 

 

Tandem bicycles: something that seems romantic until you’re on one. You’re not allowed to disagree with me about this unless you have ridden in the backseat with someone taller than you in the front. Is someone’s ass in your face romantic? I know the shell seat might check a few boxes for others, and I’d rather not know who is into what. . . but a better tandem design would be side-by-side. Do those exist? The Internet tells me that they do. 

Not to be that person, but this tandem has flowers over one of the seats, so how does this even work? Maybe the same way a shell seat works? 

 

 

There were a few dinosaur and dinosaur-like creatures represented. 

 

 

Lots of yellow, lots of blue. 

 

 

Another dare bicycle: 

 

 

Tricycles were included, though if any unicycles were present, I missed them. 

 

 

Dinosaurs and wildlife: 

 

 

There’s a little mention of walking here, next to Old Wethersfield’s crosswalk with hi-vis flex posts: 

 

 

I’m glad trikes were included because something I hear is how people would ride except they have trash balance. Tricycles address that. There’s an adult trike in my neighborhood. Check out that giant basket! 

 

 

This display had a whole lot of literature to read. 

 

So, where’s the complicated feelings? What’s my problem? 

*sigh* 

I like the creativity. I like the bikes. 

But, it feels like a Wethersfield marketing ploy more than an appreciation of bicycles. It’s like “aren’t bikes an adorbs aesthetic?!” but no recognition of them as transportation. 

I’m not talking about the creators of these installations. I know quite a few of the artists, and those I know do ride. 

It’s the overall sense of the event. 

This photo might express it better: 

 


Old Wethersfield remains a sea of car parking. If you want to ride through, you are still dodging the monster trucks. You’re having to be on high alert for people pulling in and out of the on-street parking, plus the driveways. 

Then, where do you lock up? We’ll get to that later. 

It’s disorienting to walk around admiring bicycles in an historic area with an oddly wide street, where there are no bike lanes. Why not close down this section of Main Street on weekends during this event? (And for the scarecrow event too) Is it so much to create a space where kids can run back and forth looking at things? Let people take their bike selfies without cars ruining the background. 

Bicycles On Main borders on being such a kick ass event. Why not push it that extra mile? 

 

CAR-FREE ACCESSORIES 
I  got a new purse. I’m excited. But as I was making use of it, I realized I was calling this bag a purse in the same way that people with monster trucks call them pickup trucks. It’s generally correct but imprecise. When did this truth become clear? When I noticed I had a burrito, two magazines, bag of Pirate Booty, and bottle of Prosecco in my purse, and there was room to spare. How much room? I could’ve toted a small cat. 

I did not use my new purse for hauling woodchips, though I could have. A friend in West Hartford used ChipDrop and had a pile of free wood chips dumped in her driveway, more than she could probably ever use. I’d carried bags of soil before. Woodchips are light. I had two shopping bags, but opted to fill only one because I didn’t need to throw down mulch everywhere, just around a few plants and a tree I planted last year. Add this to the list of things one does not need a car for: gardens and garden accessories.

Here’s why: there is this tendency of the American middle class to grossly overestimate what their needs are. I’m not talking about my friend’s chip pile. That’s the deal with the service — you get free chips, but you get a full load, whether you need all of that or not. I’m talking about where the compass of “normalcy” points, and it stays hovering toward “get stuff, get more stuff, get more and more stuff.”

I think about this when I see people’s wedding and baby gift registries. I see the look that registers on folks’ faces when my transportation choices come up. It’s a look of terror. It says, “OMG, but how do you get things?!?!” as if things were what I am after in life.

Having a car so I can move refrigerators and stoves and stockpile loads of groceries every single weekend . . . why? I don’t want that. I don’t need that.

Maslow’s Hierarchy does not include a fucking car.

A car does not love me. A car does not make me feel good about myself. A car will not help me reach my potential.

My yard is a shared space. What’s “mine” is very small. This was intentional. Why have a sweeping yard when there are city parks? Why sign on for a large lawn when I don’t want to spend my life pushing a lawn mower? This is not a status symbol that I need either. Don’t need/want the lawn. Don’t need/want the car. The list can go much longer. People would be happier, or perhaps simply less miserable, if they spent time pondering what they want and why they want it. Want what you want.  

When you move things with your own power, you spend more time thinking it over. Do I need this? Do I need this quantity? Do I want this? Sometimes the answer is hell yes, I want this heavy bottle of wine and other times the answer is ugh, just drink the tea you already have in the cupboard. That’s healthier for you anyway. Save the extra room in that spacious bag in case someone on the bus gives you a chihuahua.

 

WHEN THOSE WHO DON’T BIKE DESIGN BIKE THINGS 

Last week I was going on about West Hartford’s meh attempts at bike infrastructure, not because that town is the only one that sucks at it, but because I was in it, looking around, increasingly irritated that my friends who live there and bike, and that their kids who live there and bike, are basically told “Here’s some thoughtless paint. You will like it.” 

This weekend I was passing through Bushnell Park and saw a familiar sight: someone leaning a bicycle against a portapotty because there are no bike racks nearby. I think about this a lot, how bike racks were installed in our parks, but in places that largely make no sense to those who ride. Don’t everyone get in the comments to tell me about the one exception. We’re looking at the trend, and it’s one that doesn’t serve people well. 

From there I got on a bus and went down to Wethersfield to look at the art bikes — I would’ve biked, but I already knew that the bike rack situation would not meet my standards — and noticed more of the same. 

Why is this the place for the bike rack? This is a bike trail. Are there people who ride their bikes, get off the crappy spaces shared with cars, and then decide “Now that I have a path all to myself, I think I’ll lock up my bike and not ride it“? Was this someone checking a box to prove they did something for the noisy bicycle people? Was this a halfhearted compromise? Maybe this location works out better when the carnival sets up over here, but day-to-day? I don’t know. Maybe there’s a genius explanation for this.  

It bears repeating: car parking is provided everywhere in Old Wethersfield (and pretty much everywhere else). You can park in front of any number of churches, restaurants, museums, shops. Arrive on a bike? Go find that random field/vacant lot not right next to anything where there won’t be as much foot traffic. Worried someone will try to steal your bike? Too bad. Shoulda drove your automobile to look at the bike-shaped art objects instead. 

The sidewalks in Old Wethersfield are narrow and that’s not the place to put racks. You don’t take away from pedestrians to make room for cyclists. The space to use is that on-street car parking. Switch some of that over to portable bike racks on weekends during May. Look at the most popular destinations. Put the racks there. 

It’s just…when you see how automobilists demand convenience but those riding bikes are made to feel guilty for politely asking for some bare bones things, it’s disheartening. I want cyclists to be less nice. I want us to start asking to speak to the manager. Don’t worry if you have no models for this or it’s not the way you were raised — this is a skill that can be learned. “Oh well, at least they had something” and “They tried” needs to stop. We sound so beaten down. I want cyclists to act more entitled. We don’t have to be rude, but we can act as if we expect nothing less than adequate infrastructure, whether we’re talking bike racks in high traffic locations or barrier-protected bike lanes on major roads. 

Back in Hartford, Elizabeth Park is becoming a disgrace, installing another parking lot. I’ve known about this for awhile. I have pics of it sitting on my harddrive. Various friends have texted me pics of the construction with some version of “WTF?!” attached. There’s like one bike rack in the park, but sure, keep adding spaces for the automobilists who can’t figure out how to (1) carpool (2) parallel park on the street (3) take the bus instead (4) ride a bike instead (5) walk instead. I’ve made the suggestion before and will do it again: Elizabeth Park should maintain the small lot next to the rarely-open bathroom building (across from the Pond House) and reserve all spaces for those with handicapped parking permits. Everyone else can figure out something else. 

Or, screw it, let’s call the Westfarms Mall parking lot a park. Plant a few tulips. Done. Everyone can park their cars and it’ll be amazing. 

 

THE LANDSCAPE

Let me take you on a tour of some of this week’s sights. 

First, there’s one of many monster trucks I’ve seen. This one was parked, thankfully. What’s the deal with these? If you want to drive an actual monster truck, go do that, in an arena. 

This was not the one I saw roar through a red light on Woodland Street going upwards of 45 MPH. What’s the reason we don’t have red light cameras again? We don’t care enough to keep people alive? That would’ve been a guaranteed fatality had someone stepped into the crosswalk. . . and why not? Woodland Street and Asylum Avenue are designed to encourage speed. 

This was also not the one left idling in front of my house (where there is no parking) while its driver was having a domestic, which I found out when I went outside to tell him to move his stank truck or turn it off. This turned into me telling them both to quit their drama, because who needs to call the cops when you can just open up the front door and holler? 

This week also took me by numerous 311 fails. Let’s make this a thing: #Hartford311Fail. 

There’s the truck bed liner filled with trash in Pope Park at the corner of Park Terrace and Capitol Avenue that was reported over two weeks ago by myself and others. One week ago 311 marked this as completed. Today, on my way somewhere, I took a pic and reported this yet again. Very much not completed. It’s right next to the sidewalk. The next question is: did the person who marked it “completed” leave the office at all, did they get out of their vehicle, did they even slow down? Because this is kind of a large item. 

Then there’s a massive dump site under I-84 on Capitol Avenue. Somebody else reported this to 311 at least over a week ago. What’s in the photo below is only a fraction of the sprawling mess. 

Across the street, there’s more. If you are on the sidewalk, you can see what’s on the other side of the fence: the area between Hawthorn, Capitol, Forest, and Laurel is essentially a dump. 

 

The Hartford Police Department continues to choose to arrest people for panhandling. Imagine if we defunded that and moved the money over to the DPW. Maybe we wouldn’t see all these dump sites in Hartford. 

Speaking of dumps: 

There’s a large turd — source unconfirmed, but likely human — on the bench inside the bus shelter on Farmington Avenue near the corner of Woodland Street. I reported this to 311 while standing there waiting for the bus, and during that time I watched a guy sit down next to the poop, and then another guy go inside and almost sit right in it. There is no “errant poop” category on the 311 app, so I filed it under “dead animal” because it felt like an equally gross job and who’s to say that this isn’t processed dead animal? The lessons here: always look before sitting down and assume that poop has been on whatever it was you touched in public — wash your hands! 

 

But wait, there’s more. . . 

Once you start to see how much the automobile takes away from us, you can’t unsee it. 

Over on Park Street at an auto shop (specifically, the auto shop that has plowed snow off their property and across the sidewalk in the past): 

On another part of Capitol Avenue, we can see remnants of a car crash on the side of flex posts where cars should not be. 

Many of the flex posts are already scuffed. Are they doing their job if people are nailing them? Maybe these are making the case for more solid objects to be installed in these spots. 


What else? There was the surprise construction detour. Except for emergency closures, ample notice is given to motorists that a road will close. Pedestrians? Screw you, this is closed now. 

Let me explain what makes this detour extra, for those who are unfamiliar with the terrain. See that detour sign? It’s not having you simply cross to the other side of Sigourney, even though that’s obnoxious enough. (We’ll get to that in a minute). There’s no sidewalk on the floating island. So, you’re sent over to Park Terrace, where you can walk to the end of the block, cross at Capitol Avenue, and then walk up the sidewalk, or, at Capitol Avenue, go down the road, cross over, and then walk up a staircase — if you’re able to do that, and then continue. (Or you just free walk where there is no sidewalk because it’s significantly faster) 

What’s the big deal? 

Partly, it’s that this detour forces pedestrians across two highway ramps. This picture shows the scene last week, before they stopped letting me walk on the less shitty part of the Sigourney Street bridge. 

Those are the ramps that have been renovated, because that’s what we do when we’re set on killing the planet’s atmosphere. 

Fine, whatever. It’s not like I was going to follow their suggested nonsense of a detour anyway. 

I backtracked a little and went through the dodgy part of Pope Park, stepping over the dozens of syringe caps on the gravel path (#Hartford311Fail), leaping over the tiny stream that’s really the Park River trying so hard to re-emerge. As they say, nature finds a way. I went through the underused Pope Park lawn north of Park Street, and then wandered up Laurel Street, past a lilac bush in bloom. Below the highway, where murals try to distract from the ugliness of it all. I meandered across the dead authors’ lawns in Asylum Hill, taking pictures of their flowers too, and then came upon this amazing little dog (pictured below). 

I’ve seen this dog in other spots on other days. This is the closest I’ve gotten. It looks shy here, but I don’t doubt it’ll bite me if the mood strikes. This dog would definitely fit in my new purse, but it might not consent to it. 

I meandered some more and got to work, about three minutes later than usual. I was still not actually late, but later than usual, and that had nothing to do with my mode of transportation. It had everything to do with me battling my hair. I did not win the battle. Does this matter? Yes, yes it does. Because there are still people who think that not owning a car means you’ll be unreliable about getting to work. I got detoured by construction and distracted by flowers, and still showed up on time. If there’s something that makes me unreliable, it’s my unruly hair. 

 

THE TWEETS THAT GIVE ME LIFE

 

WHAT NEXT
Go see those bikes in Old Wethersfield. Practice demanding nice things.