Trying to get government to change things for the better can be infuriating and taxing (see what I did there?), especially if what you’re trying to change is something to make non-motorized use of our roadways better/safer. There’s so much to do and so little seems to get done.

But here’s a little improvement that looks on the way to betterment.

Riding along my favorite stretch of road in town yesterday, Bosque Path to Woodward to William to Edith, I came across the scene above. Where’s that, you who have not read Better Burque much and don’t know about this stretch that I’ve written way, way, way too much about over the years (hey, write what you know)?

Heck, I’ve written about how loverly this stretch is going back to something called “Duke City Fix.” Yes, I miss it, too. Well, despite its loverliness, there’s been a glitch at the intersection of Pacific and Broadway. Long glitch short, there’s been no “loop detector” installed to detect *steel bicycles (and they have to be steel to be detected, we’re told). Loop detectors run under the pavement at intersections to alert the “brain” scheduling signal timing that a driver/cyclist on the less-traveled street has arrived at the more-traveled street. In this case, little-traveled Pacific and more-traveled Broadway.

A few weeks back, your humble blogger/whiny person wrote to City folks about this glitch and while I’m not certain, it sure looks like we’re in the midst of deglitchification.

Yeah, those orange paint spots appear to the outline for a new loop detector (they have this pattern) and it’s possible that the orange “eye balls” toward the bottom left indicate where to put some sort of cycling stencil. We could even be talking a “bike box” up at the crosswalk striping, but that would be bad from a pedestrian perspective, of course. No, I think it’s just the loop detector and cycling stencil.

And there’s two ways to find out: 1. Contact the City folks and ask; 2. Keep riding this stretch until we find out what gets done. As #2 involves me riding a bicycle more, I think I’ll go with that one. Besides, there’s only so much whiny person anybody can put up with.

Check it out for yourself, ANYTIME you want to get to/from, say, Nob Hill (Lead to Edith) to the southern stretches of the Bosque Path. I think you’ll like it. Kudos to any and all involved in the orange paint spots above and I look forward to the final result. Thanks.

And keep this one in your metaphorical back pocket, fellow whiny people wishing/demanding better and safer non-motorized roadways. Sometimes, not nearly always, something gets done.

*If you don’t ride a steel bicycle, sorry. You really should you know: “steel is real,” as they say. Nevertheless, most bikes built/sold today aren’t steel (especially those already heavy e-bikes), and there need to be an overall modernization of intersection “brains” and loop detector technology.