Maine Avenue is Combat

[ChampionTier]

I don’t know the first thing about writing poetry, but for some reason today’s commute along Maine Ave registered in a big way. Had a gap between events and it just kinda seemed to work in this way…

MAINE AVENUE ISCOMBAT

Maine Avenue is combat.
Penetrate the field of fire on two wheels as
Machine gun jackhammers punch away in the distance.
Cement truck tanks block the string of refugee cars lined up to escape.
“Break Left,Break Left!” as the driver’s side door of a flatbed truck opens in front of you.

Maine Avenue is combat.
Feel your bones & teeth rattle as you
work your way across the minefield of potholes.
Stay nimble as you jink around the detritus of battle
which covertly waits to bring ruin to your tires – your escape.

Maine Avenue is combat.
Feel the quiet relief as a wingman joins you
and you both slip through to the edges of danger.
Your chatter is clipped and precise — there is no time for superfluous banter
and you acceleratefrom stops as if being chased by dogs.

Fight through! Fight through!

Topic

[Judd]

@SpaceJockey 182353 wrote:

Here’s a question that I hope has not yet been addressed ad nauseam:
On the wharf side of Maine Ave there is a clearly marked lane for bikes and one for pedestrians…..Why is it that the bike lane is made of speed-robbing rubber and the pedestrian lane is made of plantar-fasciitis-inducing concrete? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the bikes to have the concrete and the peds to have the rubber?

Understand storefronts likely prefer concrete to shuttle their wares in and out, however, every morning I get cut off by guys pushing trolleys across both lanes from Maine Ave to the storefront, which is not only harder for them to do, it chews up the rubber of the bike lane as well……Just does not make sense.

It looks like rubber, but that is permeable asphalt. I’ve found the ride experience to be lumpy. The thermoplastic markings also didn’t last very long.

That’s a good question about why it wasn’t reversed.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ursus]

@SpaceJockey 182353 wrote:

Here’s a question that I hope has not yet been addressed ad nauseam:
On the wharf side of Maine Ave there is a clearly marked lane for bikes and one for pedestrians…..Why is it that the bike lane is made of speed-robbing rubber and the pedestrian lane is made of plantar-fasciitis-inducing concrete? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the bikes to have the concrete and the peds to have the rubber?

Understand storefronts likely prefer concrete to shuttle their wares in and out, however, every morning I get cut off by guys pushing trolleys across both lanes from Maine Ave to the storefront, which is not only harder for them to do, it chews up the rubber of the bike lane as well……Just does not make sense.

Maybe they wanted to slow cyclists down. OTOH, there are so many obstructions which slow down cyclists even more.

[Brendan von Buckingham]

You know how the parking lane and right hand lane is treated like an all-day loading zone for the new buildings at the Wharf? It’s because they fill the off-street loading docks with employee parking. Based on observation today. Ass-hats.

[lordofthemark]

Even if this becomes more rideable I don’t think it will ever be suitable for fast riding.

It WAS getting better, as the construction on storefronts was completed, so the real sidewalk was more useable to peds, and as the increase in dockless mobility thingies made it clearer that the bike lanes were places to expect something other than a pedestrian. Its my impression that the fading of the bike markings on the pavement has set this back.

[Emm]

District Doughnut is now open along Maine Ave. They open at 7, so if you need a coffee/doughnut break from fighting Maine Ave traffic and bike lanes, it’s a pretty good option. They’re open until 10PM so I may end up stopping there after Happy Hour tonight too…

[ursus]

@JanaeBixby 181834 wrote:

Ugh no- they threw some pebbles into the pothole but a pothole with pebbles is still a pothole.

And that pothole has gotten bigger since October when you wrote this.

[Zack]

@ursus 186955 wrote:

And that pothole has gotten bigger since October when you wrote this.

Yeah, I noticed that too. They had some illegal construction last May 21 that left the hole, they dug it with their equipment, and have not bothered to fix it properly. They probably need to rip out the whole stretch to repave it as it is not really designed for vehicles.

[ursus]

They fixed that hole, but a new one appeared last week in the eastbound lane in the area near the UPS store.

[ursus]

@ursus 192669 wrote:

They fixed that hole, but a new one appeared last week in the eastbound lane in the area near the UPS store.

And that new one has expanded with some others near it. has anyone noticed if they have been digging there?

[Author]

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