Forget Bicycle Consultant; Fix the Roads!

Caption: On left, Maria Conzemius; on right, Jim Conzemius; in background, a big axe somewhere in Louisa County, Iowa.

Last night the Iowa City Council unanimously passed a first reading of an action to appoint a consultant, to be paid $80,700 a year, to encourage bicycling in Iowa City instead of spending money on things that will actually make things better for motorists and cyclists. Do a better job of patching the roads instead of the random, sloppy patching I've seen lately on Wayne Avenue and Bradford Drive in southeast Iowa City. Some potholes are filled and other, deeper holes are not filled at all.

Iowa City is apparently angling for a top bicycle friendly rating. Last night’s vote was a well intentioned but uninformed effort to throw money at a problem that should be obvious to real bicyclists.

We already have a lot of bicyclists in Iowa City. What we need is safe and rideable roads and Iowa City police officers who take our safety seriously.

Iowa City has numerous construction zones with insufficient signage to notify drivers and bicyclists that lanes are closed ahead and that you need to merge to the right or left. Specifically, First Avenue in Iowa City is not keeping up with signage notifying motorists and bicyclists that cones are forcing us to merge in a different direction than we did before. As the pylons keep moving, we still need to know which lane we are to take as we proceed north on First Avenue.

Iowa City is foolish to spend money on window dressing like a bicycle plan consultant. We have lots of bicyclists, though traffic is worse and some bicyclists have stopped riding because it's too dangerous to ride after dark and in certain high traffic, no shoulder areas of town.

Resist the temptation to put numerous driveways crossing pedestrian and bicycle trails in Iowa City by K-Mart and Hy-Vee. When contractors have put cracks in trails like on the corner of Muscatine and Scott Boulevard (Hieronymus property), make them fix what they broke. Those cracks weren’t there before residences were built in a cornfield. I've seen the same sort of trail damage at Oakdale Research Park in Coralville after contractors built buildings and damaged the trail. They failed to repair the trail afterward.

I know Iowa prides itself on giving motorcyclists and bicyclists the right to ride without helmets, but when I see students and medical residents in scrubs without helmets streaking down Grand Avenue or Burlington Street crossing Riverside Drive, I cringe. Knowing what I know about traffic in that area, I wonder if those youth don’t think they’re immortal. I remember thinking I was immortal. I thought so until I woke up on my 30th birthday surrounded by physicians at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics after being unconscious for days.

In any case, paying lip service to bicycle friendliness by appointing an expensive consultant is a waste of money. Spend the money on fixing Iowa City roads, which are in deplorable shape and could kill a bicyclist who doesn’t see that deep rut or pothole in the road, especially at night.