Anchorage Changes - Prov and Greek Corner and Bike Status

Riding a bike means you're going slower and can stop easily to check out the changing landscape. Last night (Monday,) coming home from the Bear Tooth we noticed - how could we not? - that Providence was tearing down its old building at 36th and La Touche. I think at one point it was part of the Neighborhood Health Center, but I'm not sure.(If you double click the pictures the get a little bigger.) This afternoon I passed it again. They got quite a bit more done today.




Also today, I noticed this sign on Northern Lights across from Blockbuster and PowerHouse Gym. Is Greek Corner moving? Or does the 's' on corner mean they will have two?
I called and they are moving. One of the few little restaurants in a building that has some bit of charm, and they are moving. Let's see how well they can Greek up this spot. Oh, and "late summer" means first week of September, but you know how well remodeling stays on schedule.

And I have to mention that the ADN had a front page story Sunday on roads that was mostly from the perspective of bike riders!!!!!!!

Rosemary Austin, author of "Mountain Bike Anchorage," commutes on a road bike from East Anchorage to her sales job at Paramount Cycles off Huffman Road. She said a number of state-owned roads are dangerous with dirt, gravel and glass. She often rides along the new Elmore Road, which has bike lanes, but the DOT told her it's not even on the list to clean.

"I don't want to get flat tires and I don't want to wash out in sand and gravel," Austin said.

Ann Reed, a cyclist who is eight months pregnant, took a spill Monday on a gravelly section of sidewalk on DeBarr Road at Pine Street. She was pulling a Chariot bike trailer with her toddler aboard.

She saw the gravel and slowed down, but it was so deep "there was no way I was not going to wipe out," she wrote in an e-mail. She broke her fall with her hand and was scraped up a bit but not really hurt, she said in an interview. The Chariot stayed upright and she thinks the baby she's expecting is fine.

Amazing. I've been bemoaning dirt and gravel since I've had my bike out. Northern Lights and Benson are HORRIBLE. Walmart, can't you clean up the sidewalk around your parking lot???!!! But they aren't the only ones. And that was followed up by an editorial Monday.

The state department of transportation has made a total hash of this year's contract for sweeping a winter's worth of sand and gravel off state roads and sidewalks in Anchorage. . .

This isn't just an aesthetic issue. Loose sand and gravel is a hazard to bicyclists on trails and streets. Road traffic stirs the winter leftovers into the air, making breathing more difficult for people with sensitive lungs. Heavy rains can wash the sediment into storm sewers, many of which empty into local streams. That's bad for stream life, since the sediment is tainted with oil, grease and heavy metals left behind by months of traffic.

It seems the DOT went for the lowest bidder - someone who doesn't have much experience doing this. (Maybe they know someone from church.) Nevertheless, a new world is dawning when a bike rider's point of view is a front page road story and editorial. Thanks ADN.

And when the State Department of Transportation gets some bike riders in positions of authority, maybe they'll remember bicycles when they contract for road cleaning as well as road design. But that's another post.