Yesterday was National Bike to Work Day, and I duly biked to work, stopping off on the way to pick up some free fruit and juice at a modest little stand in Bridge Square. There were about 30 names on a list of people interested in fomenting more bike commuting, which is a good number - more than twice as many, the guy working the table said, as last year. (Today's gas prices in Northfield: $3.35. May 17, 2006: about $2.75.)
I hope Northfield, which is already an eminently bikeable town, is on its way to becoming more like Copenhagen or Helsinki. In the White Pearl of the North, about 25,000 people cycle into the city center each day (at least in good weather), and about 200,000 Helsinki residents are on bikes for work or pleasure. Of course, they have 1,150 kilometers (714 miles) of bike trails to use, and the metro area adds about 20km (12.4 miles) of new trails each year. Regardless of the controversy over the Mill Towns Trail here in Northfield, the trail will at least make biking more visible, and probably quite a bit easier.