The Fox News crew was greeted by a few residents in the early dawn hours, but alas, no one joined me for the bike ride to Boston on Bike Friday.

I did however pick up a couple of riders in Dedham who then met up with
a group of a dozen or so in West Roxbury.

By the time we reached City Hall, we had probably 20 or more riders in our group, accompanied by several Boston police officers on bikes. At City Hall Plaza, we found well over 100 cyclists coming in from all parts of the Boston metro area. A free cup of coffee, a bagel and on to work by around 8:30.

This Friday is Bike Friday. Cyclists from all over the Boston metro area will be riding in to the city with police escorts and meeting up at Boston City Hall for a rally and free breakfast before work. The nearest starting point from Westwood leaves from the West Roxbury Roche Brothers parking lot at 7:00am this Friday, August 22 (see the map on the Boston city website).

The West Roxbury starting point is a little over 7 miles from Buckmaster Pond--basically a straight shot down 109 and Spring St that would probably take about 1/2 hour to 45 minutes to ride. The official "convoy" from that point is another 8.2 miles for a total of 15-16 miles.

If anyone is interested in forming a "Westwood Convoy," we could meet at Buckmaster Pond at 6am--and maybe even get on Fox25's Zip Trip. Send me an email using the Email the editor link on this site if you are interested and serious.

Last Thursday's Hometown Weekly had an article on page 7 by Abby Davidson about biking to work that inspired me to share my experiences in the hope others may take up the challenge. Last year, I rode my bike about 1250 miles around 50 days of the year from my home in Westwood to my office near South Station. I wish I could do it more often; the only thing that gets in the way for me now is the heat of the summer and lack of a shower at my new office location. But there are many steps you can take to get started small and work up to more activity...  read more »

I've probably annoyed a few impatient drivers as I work hard to adhere to the speed limits on Gay Street, but as I drove home the other day I was reminded how the street itself is just too fast. No amount of signage and good intentions can overcome the fact that it is a wide country road that invites drivers to go 50mph or more in many sections.  read more »

When I came back from the 4th of July weekend, I was happy to see one of these yellow crosswalk signs on Gay Street, in the middle of this Pine Lane crosswalk. Not only did it give advance warning of the crosswalk from down the street, it forced me to slow down on the curve. However, by Monday evening, the sign had been moved "out of the way" of cars.

I became a little carried away with my camera this morning. I just thought it would be interesting to record the perspective of the crosswalk from car and pedestrian and a still photo does not really show it. This is probably far from the worst crosswalk in the world, but I think we really need something there to slow down the traffic, myself included...  read more »

We went for a walk tonight and passed two other strollers, a couple of people walking dogs, and a few folks working in their yards or playing catch in the street. So Westwood is already much more pedestrian-friendly than a remote suburb. But this crosswalk drives me NUTS! The whole configuration of the road is a problem as walkers are forced to leap into the street and shoot the gap between cars approaching from both sides around blind or semi-blind curves. 

The scene above illustrates some challenges near my house. This situation is the alternative to cars parking directly on the sidewalk which happens every once in a while when there are parties down the street from us. If we had a sidewalk on our side of the street, it would make it easier to walk up to the Hanlon school where there is a crosswalk, but there's not a lot of room for a sidewalk...and perhaps it is better to have cars parking like this because it forces traffic to be more careful and at least it does not block the one sidewalk on the other side of the street.

Anyone who is interested in attending a meeting in July to talk about "Walkable Westwood," please stay tuned and I will post more details here.