Cycling: Atzcapozalco's cycle path; @p00k4 sends me rail-riding!
Yesterday I went to FES Iztacala, the faculty where I worked between 1999 and 2003. It’s nice to go visit some good friends (even if to talk for work issues). It is somewhat far from my usual roaming area (~25Km straight to the North), so I cannot do it as often as I’d like. But anyway - I had to be at work early in the morning, but leaving from here a bit early for lunchtime, and leaving home at ~14:30, I managed to arrive to Iztacala in ~75 minutes. Sustained cycling for 20 Km/h, even counting stops at traffic lights on the way, yay!
Anyway, had a productive and fun evening there, but around 18:00 I decided to head back before night got me — Specially for the first part of the way, as I’m not familiar with Atzcapozalco. Alejandro suggested me to go by the recently (some months ago) opened cycle path that covers 4Km and almost exactly crosses the delegation (each of the 16 constitutive parts of Distrito Federal, where an important part of Mexico City is located).
The cycle path is a good initiative… But I must say, I’m very very glad I took it still with good daylight. As well as the Recreative cyclepath that goes to the South, until the border of Morelos state, this one was built over abandoned rail tracks. Good use for a vacant and useless public space — Rail tracks which lay unclaimed in the city are uncomfortable to walk, and useless for anything else, so they basically mean a useless 2m-wide strip of common grounds. So, I welcome any initiatives that make it into a useful space again! And two meters are just enough for a comfortable cycling path - Yes, which will surely be shared with pedestrians, and sometimes becomes uncomfortable. But lets try it!
However… When rail tracks are decomissioned and cycle paths built over them… the metal should be dismounted! Not only because of economic concerns (good metal used for rail tracks is much more expensive and useful than asphalt), but because if it stays there, it just becomes a danger. Specially, as is the case, if the asphalt is just deep enough to sometimes cover the tracks — And sometimes not.
Had I known, I would have taken several photographs of important mistakes in the rail layout. I know I was very close to having an accident at least once (this means, I lost balance and miraclously managed to slow down from ~15Km/h by running with the bike between my legs!), and got in uncomfortable situations several more times. For a good portion of the track, there is a train track running at about ⅔ of its width, so I had to constantly ring the bell or shout whenever I saw pedestrians — As changing from side to side to route around them would put both them and me in danger. Towards the Southern part of the cycle path, as it is a much more active industrial area, there are many places where multiple tracks cross each other — under the thin asphalt, sometimes completely unpaved. In one of those points I even decided to step down of the bike and make ~20m walking.
This cycle path seems like it was done in a great hurry to present a successful project to the Politicians in Charge, without much thought on what it requires to be really a good project. It provides, yes, a very useful and good mobility solution for cyclists in the North-West. But it is too dangerous… And I am not sure whether I’d take it again. Probably not.
So, all in all…<ul><li>Thanks to the Atzcapozalco authorities who thought of the cyclists and claimed back unused public space for us all to enjoy!</li><li>The job done was too hasty. Valuable money (selling the tracks) was lost by burying it under asphalt. But it was not enough asphalt — It needs attention before somebody gets hurt (or, before more people — I’d be surprised if nobody had yet felt adrenaline over there)</li><li>I hope the entrant city government takes the self-powered vehicle promotion more seriously than the outgoing one — Which has done great advances (such as the Ecobici program), but is still far from reaching its promises… As always, I know.</li><li>I managed to get back home alive and complete, yay!</li><li>Of course, the cycle path has been mapped into OpenStreetMap. My SportsTracker tracks are also there, but they require Flash (ugh): the way to Iztacala and the way back.</li></ul>
Oh, and lastly: Some might be surprised I’m using bits of Twitterspeak here. But well, I now have presence a bot repeating my posts over there, so I’d better get Alejandro to read this using the proper channels ;-)
Comments
gwolf 2012-10-18 19:55:38
Twitterfeed
Nah, I’m too lazy for any of those options. Well, I tried to use FaceBook API at some point and gave up - and given I don’t care about the difference between FB and Twitter, I didn’t want to use a different method for each.
Pooka suggested me to look at Twiterfeed, it just polls my RSS and pushes to Twitter and Facebook.
vicm3 2012-10-18 18:26:00
Just for curiosity, what are you using to post to twitter from DP? some nice package, hack, Twitter API?
Regards.
vicm3 2012-11-12 01:01:08
Full loop
Maybe I misremember, but I think I suggested twiterfeed to Pooka, as I use for my anime site. Anyway that proves that hacking a module for both API’s are time consuming :).