Divvy Chicago: Orders from Der BikeStag ( formerly Chicago Dept. of Transportation)

Now, I am a close-knit ethnic, Roman Catholic, meat eating (fish on Fridays),  south side dwelling heterosexual and then some, moderate-to-savage cigarette smoking, fossil-fueled motoring, tax-paying and tubby middle aged male - not cool. Unless. of course, I change and change utterly . . .Nah.

I hear tell of mean folks.  People who shout, "Hey That's My Bike!" whenever they spy two or more persons  aboard a Schwinn and out for a two-wheeled speed. Just mean.

I mean bikes are okay. If Jesus rode a bike he'd look like this -

 but He did not and the Romans nailed Him to Cross. Hey, I'm just sayin'!
Another morsel from the Right Sides of History - The Axis Armies used bicycles extensively in WWII



The Bataan Death Ride April 1942. Those ain't G.I.s aboard them Mitschwinbitsis.

I rode bicycles up to my twenty-fifth year on Mother Earth.  I took a header when the front tire of ten-speed blew like Susan Sarandon in White Palace.  I was biking back from a morning's fishing under Warner Bridge Road in Kankakee County, when this mechanical misfortune took me off the ten speed aficianado demographic for keeps.  

The hike back to Kankakee City which followed my ergonomic tossing of the bent frame in a big-assed dumpster somewhere near the Parkway Inn Tavern (above) in the region known as Altorff.  Fine folks there about the Brady family dominates the woods along the river -taught most the children, I did. Bandaged and spirited the seven mile perambulation to my windowless apartment above Home Appliances on Station Street was dedicated to Peace with Bikes.

Bikes are fine.  Most cyclists are grand folks, but every NPR listening jerk with a trust fund deemed it most important to become a mirror image of the bicycle messenger on PCP.  Congested,gentrified hipster communities attract bicycle fascists quicker than Obama makes a federal regulation. In recent years, after the new millenium, the bike lobby hooked Richard M. Daley through the gills and boated that bass.  Lance Daley cleared the way for Critical Mass activism to its supreme achievement (be like Seattle) -turning the Chicago Dept. of Transportation in Der  BikeStag.

I have nothing against bicycles nor the people who choose to ride them.  I have a universal dislike of jerks, JOs and Janissaries of agendas large, loud and limited.

Divvy is owned and operated, I think, by the City of Chicago in the same way that Chicago owns the Skyway and Parking Meters. The concept is swell:

• Ride Public Transporation
• Be a Divvy
• Bike away traffic
• Bike the shopping
• Bike the dining
• Bike the concerts
• Bike to court to bring suit against the Mexican Lanscapper you cut off when giving the finger to an elderly Jewish lady trying to cross Dearborn over by the Newbury library
• Bike the bars- you will not be charged with DUI unless you hit and scratch up Ald Cappleman's PriusLock the Bikes and make sure you lock it according to the code, People!
• Be Bangor, Be Bangalore, Be Bejing!

Already the the south and west side communities are Bike Deserts.  Is it Progressive, is it Hip, is it Coo, Is it Chicago Proco Joe to deprive people whose ancestors survived Maafa, Jim Crow and CPS the opportunity to Divvy? Is it Chicago values to break out Break Away Everyday in white upper class arugula and Whole Foods communities?

Divvy stations are taking up parking spaces - no parking -no driver - no customer at Wicker Park gin mill but walk-in trade. N.B. Biker peddlars don't tip

Bicyclists are as rare as Progressive philanthropists here in Gresham, Englewood, Roseland and even Chatham.  The bike lanes on Vincennes Ave. have faded like the last Rose of the 2012-13 Bulls Season.

This is Important!

I anticipate making the tigh tright hand turn off of 79^th Street at Sangamon into the tight cul de sac pavement that aprons the Leo High School staff and Alumni parking lot. I anticipate up a storm. I can see the chimney of Leo High School before I even get to Damen Ave. and it dominates the eastern skies of the Gresham neighborhood, suggesting welcome, safety, brotherhood and opportunity.  To arrive at that Holy Have requires grit, fore-thought and eyes on the mirrors.

I try to keep my eyes in rear view mirrors, especially to my immediate right. 79^th Street is a truck path between the Dan Ryan Expressway and the freight and rail yards that begin west of Western Ave. and continue to trucking and warehouse village of Hopkins in Archer Ave – Rt 171. 

Not only is there a legion of cars, SUVs, vans and hillbilly Cadillacs of all shapes, sizes and wheel fixture, but forty-foot tractor trailers and utility vehicles of monstrous size and intimidation insinuating their collective will upon my lightly armored vehicle and filo pastry thin heart.

The turn, as I said is tight, tighter than the pockets on a fat man’s pants, because 79^th Street is a wholly theoretical two lane street with bus and turning lane –east bound and west bound.   I longer take Vincennes to Halsted to 79th Street, avoiding a disasterous left hand turn at Sangamon altogether.

Like the theoretical crossing lanes at each intersection, two lane traffic, with right lane observances to ordinance and good manners, have become an urban venial sin – noted, but largely ignored. Most citizen-workers modestly follow the lane and speed limit; nevertheless, there are Byronic types for whom no law or ordinance stays they need for speed and avoiding the sight of tail-lights –universal.

Since 1995, I have been singularly fortunate to avoid collision on this thorough-fare. At Morgan I merge at at peril - courage helps an undoomed man. Others not so fortunate.  I have witnesses duels between motorists with the lane sober driver speeding up with the corsair driving with no plates. Several times, to my delight, the existentialist got crushed into a parked City vehicle. There are no bicycle enthusiast peddling 79^th Street – odd that. Why enter a lion's cage wearing a pork-chop suit?

In response to all of this haste-makes-delays driving and drivers, I have but two words –

“Trombone Shorty!”