From today's Bill Torpy at Large column:
In the pursuit of journalism, I tried to interview some cycling commuters during morning rush hour to discuss the plan to remove a lane of traffic and add bike lanes to Peachtree Road. But bicyclists are quick, nimble, a bit wary and generally hard to pin down.
I tracked one in my minivan for nearly four miles, from the heart of Buckhead to Midtown, watching his cantaloupe-sized calves furiously pump as he headed south. Stoplights, of course, were merely a suggestion. He ultimately lost me at 17th Street when a loading truck stopped traffic cold, enabling him to chug through the midst of the idling cars.
In the other camp, the driving public, there's the middle-aged man I spoke with at a shopping center, who called the bike-lane plan a nightmare.
“This is a highway with thousands of cars and they want to change everything for a few bicyclists while the rest of us are working 60 hours a week?!”
Today's Bill Torpy at Large column appears in full on our premium website, MyAJC.com.
