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CYCLING_EVILLE

                                             January 22, 2022


                                                    CLEARENCE

It's been over five years since I was out on
bicycle in Emeryville, and had a mall security
guard hassle me for a minor infraction--

This interaction wasn't bad enough to make me
think "that's it, I'm boycotting this place forever!",
but in effect I *did* boycott it, for well over five
years.

I am hereby rescinding my unstated and unpublicized
boycott of the Bay St Mall.  Yes, alert the presses.
                                                        Film at eleven.

                                                           Choose your
                                                           favorite obsolete
                                                           sarcastic cliche.
  So here's the story:
                                             
  I'd just missed the train I rode to work                   
  every weekday morning, and I had over an hour              
  to kill (the Amtrak capitol corridor line                  
  is fantastic in many ways, but doesn't run                 
  at tremendous frequency).                                  
                                                             
  So there I was at the Emeryville trainstation,            
  and I started riding around on bike, and ended
  up in the Bay St area.   This was far too early
  for much of anything to be open-- certainly not
  on a weekday-- and there wasn't much activity
  around the place except for a few deliveries and
  such.

  I was crawling around slowly on bike, thinking
  something like "Okay, I'm not a fan of places
  like this, to say the least, and in general I
  don't like big chain stores, but you need to be         BRANDED_EDGE
  a little flexible about these things-- there
  must be *something* around here I might care            MOP_HEAD
  about slightly."

  I noted a few things like a frozen yogurt
  place, and was just reminded about the "Barnes
  and Nobles" outlet there, and at that point
  I had wandered off of the street and up on the
  sidewalk.

  There was no particularly reason for me to do
  this that I remember-- in general, I try to
  stay out of pedestrian territory-- but then, there
  wasn't much reason *not* to do this.  There were
  no pedestrians around, and I was going pretty
  slow, around pedestrian speed--

  At this point, I heard a voice from behind
  doing a loud "Excuse me sir!" or something,
  and I *knew* what was coming.  I said "Yeah?"
  without turning around at first.

  A security dude, riding a gigantic electric
  golf cart (up on the sidewalk no less) was
  pursuing me, and began lecturing me about how
  I should not be riding a bicycle up on the
  sidewalk, and if I'd just ride in the street
  I could ride around all day if I want to,
  and so on.


  I nodded and rode off, and stayed away from the
  entire area for many years--

  And for me, avoiding the closest bookstore to my house
  for years-- chain store or not-- is pretty extreme
  behavior, as a glance at my living room would attest.


      Off and on, I thought about writing the powers
      that be in the area about this, about how
      a hostility to cyclists was coming through
      that wasn't easily justified, and how they needed
      to make up their mind about whether they were
      running businesses or engaged in a culture wars,
      and look, here's a link to a study that
      establishes while cyclists buy less per-trip than
      motorists they typically make more trips, and it's
      clearly in a businesses best interest to try to
      accomodate them...  and so on.  The arguments
      are pretty familiar to any cycling advocate.

      I never did get around to writing that letter,
      but a funny thing has happened in the interim:

      Emeryville and the Bay St Mall seem to have
      gotten the message.

      Emeryville continues to expand it's bike
      lane coverage, including an impressive bridge
      across the tracks fed by ramps this time (rather
      than awkward stairs or elevators).

      The Bay St mall has closed part of the street
      to car traffic-- notably, in the area where      Interestingly though,
      I had that golf cart encounter.  They've also    despite the effort
      put in quite a bit of bike parking around        they've put in, there
      Bay St.                                          are still some obvious
                                                       things you'd want to
                                                       do that pose a puzzle--
                                                       how do you get from that
                                                       bridge to Trader Joes?




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