Okay. My public meeting vacation is over.

For a bunch of reasons probably understandable to anyone who has ever atttended a public meeting on transportation issues, I’ve taken a pretty long break from attending public meetings on transportation issues.

Barring a last-minute returning to my senses, I’m returning from public meeting vacation tonight to hear about scheduled improvements to the increasingly dicey stretch of Blake SW from Isleta Blvd. west toward Coors Blvd. down in my far South Valley neck of the woods.

The cycling treacherousness of Blake in this stretch is such that I’m trying to find ways to not have to cycle Blake to get to the meeting at South Valley Academy on the western end of the proposed work. Unfortunately, as nearby Coors Blvd. is, well, Coors Blvd. and doesn’t even have a sidewalk between Barcelona SW and Blake, I’m pretty much stuck hoping I survive making it to/from a meeting about how doubtful it is that I’ll survive.

Blake has long been a designated “bike route” and that might have made sense thirty years ago when the daily traffic count was 2900 and the shoulderless road surface was almost surely not the incredibly bumpy gouge-fest it is with a count of just over 10,000 today. Having ridden today’s version of Blake many times, I’m probably wrong thinking it hasn’t been repaved in at least thirty years, but not very wrong.

In the twisted logic that is long-range transportation, it is only because of this antiquated “bike route” designation that the County’s plan and tonight’s meeting will include information on bike improvements along with sidewalks (imagine that!) and other touches reflecting the new-fangled thinking that anybody would ever have to/consider walking down Blake. If Blake wasn’t already on the map as a “bike facility,” there wouldn’t be any bike improvement discussion.

So let’s pour out a 40 for all the unfortunate cyclists over the years who looked at an area bike map, saw Blake as “Bike Route” and subsequently, hopefully, defied death. To those cyclists over the last thirty years or so, we salute your mistake!

And I’ll be joining in that collective cycling mistake this evening to hear about what’s planned to at least somewhat fix the mistake in the next year or so. I’d urge you to do the same but Better Burque’s *Risk Management Department says I can’t do that because of liabililty issues.

I don’t know what’s crazier, cycling Blake or breaking a public meeting fast. I’ll ponder that question as a I bump along the currently wretched road here in a few hours.

*This is made up. Better Burque doesn’t have a “Risk Management Department.”