Bicycle! Bicycle!

Annie and I moved to Appleton, WI from Portland, OR last September, and we just did something that on the surface doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Despite living in the most bike-friendly city in the United States for a year and a half, we didn’t have bikes, but we moved to bike-unfriendly Appleton and bought bikes! We’re enjoying our new bikes so far, and it got me thinking about why we didn’t have them in PDX.

Portland is a great bike city, but it’s also a great public transportation city. When we lived there, I could walk or take a streetcar to work from our first apartment, and take a frequent-service bus from our second. The streetcar, the MAX light rail, or walking was always easy for us to do, so I don’t think we needed another alternative to our car. For us, Portland was so transit-friendly that we didn’t even need to take advantage of it’s great bike system!

Now that we’re in Appleton, the alternatives to driving are slim. Appleton and its surrounding cities share a bus system, but service is sparse and infrequent. There are maybe one or two routes that we would find useful, but our car is so much more convenient for those trips.

We moved into a duplex within walking distance of downtown, which has been great so far. Appleton has a pretty nice downtown for a city its size, and it allows us to walk to church, the performing arts center, the library, restaurants, and shopping. In fact, we have a Walk Score of 78.

So, while we’re able to walk many places easily, there is still a huge hole in our transit lives. Without reliable bus, light rail, or streetcar service, we’re in need of another way to get around town. That’s where biking comes in! Bikes allow us to do our walking trips faster, and it expands the reach of where we can go under our own power. Plus, it’s fun and good exercise. I don’t think biking in Appleton will ever compare to biking or public transportation in Portland, but we’re making the best of what we have here.

Now if only Appleton would become more bike-friendly… but I’ll save that for another blog post.

I’ll leave you with a video about how wonderful Portland is:

# • Posted on Jun 02, 2008 • Tags: