Daydreams

Cycling through the city yesterday, I almost felt as if I was being shown one of those videos of "How Boston Could Be 5 Years from Now"... except it was real.

Passing through a stretch of the Charles River trail, it seemed that almost everyone sitting by the water had arrived there by bicycle. And the majority of the bikes looked to be personalised and well-ridden - rather than the sort of bicycle that is either a rental, or ridden once in a while on a sunny weekend. The velo-atmosphere is distinctly different from last summer.

Having crossed the BU Bridge, which is now under construction, I then looked at it from the trail and thought about the Charles River Bridge Campaign that I had mentioned in a previous post. This campaign aims to ensure that along with the scheduled repairs to the bridges, practical improvements will also be made that will make the bridges more walkable, more cyclable, and generally more enjoyable. The possibility of benches and shady promenades was mentioned.

Can the huge, dangerous bridges over the Charles really be made to resembles these lovely smaller ones? That would be utter Utopia.

And Utopia is not necessarily impossible.

At least the bicycles of Boston are hopeful.

Posted in: Boston,social commentary,trails