Letter: Cycle Route 30, if you dare

Come join me on a bike ride across Weston on route 30, the only east-west corridor within several miles. 

Cycle it with me, if you dare.   

Bike to school, parents tell children. It’s good exercise, it’s better for the environment, bicycling means fewer cars on the road. And you should learn to be independent, and I have to get to work. Oh, wait, don’t bicycle to school. Route 30 is unsafe–no bike lane or shared-use path. 

I’ve cycled route 30. Even cycling in the opposite direction from the bulk of rush-hour traffic, it’s dangerous and in some sections it’s terrifying.  

The proposed shared use path, a few have argued, would introduce new hazards across driveways and intersections. Are drivers speeding out of their driveways onto Route 30, not alert to cars or anything else in their path?  I’ve ridden across Los Angeles, one of the most car-centered cities in the country with countless intersections, driveways, highway junctions, and more. The city has bike lanes. Despite the chaos of traffic, cycling there in bike lanes is patently safer than cycling on Route 30 in our rural town.

A shared-use path on Route 30 will make the road safer for all of us and will create a path for greater environmental sustainability.

Ellen Freeman Roth, Brenton Road