The good, the bonehead and the beautiful

I had a great experience yesterday.  I was riding past an intersection and a car waiting at the stop sign made a right turn after I passed.  He accelerated past me, then slammed on his brakes and waited for me to pedal by before turning into a driveway I was approaching.  He realized he would right hook me and waited rather than rush to cut me off.  There are nice people out there. 

 I always acknowledge them with a wave and a smile at least.

Then there is this nut bag

who accosted a couple of riders to dish out a crazy lecture having nothing to do with reality.

Don't feel bad, I was only able to listen to part of it also.   It was probably the only way the dumb bitch can get anybody to listen to her at all.  If I knew her, I would run when I saw her coming.

During the week I was thrilled to be invited to a very inspiring meeting concerning the improvement of cities.

A woman named Susan Silberberg of CivicMoxie, was invited from the MIT urban planning department

 to speak at our little Midwestern 'burg.

About 110 people of different interests and persuasions were invited to participate in

a "placemaking" workshop and presentation.  

While the term and workshop theme sounded rather trite and contrived, the content was not.

Some local organizations ponied up the money to rent two rooms at the Radisson 

and provide the usual breakfast and luncheon fare. 

And after a particularly inspiring presentation by Ms. Silberberg, we worked together in groups to get a better feel for her experiences in organizing and motivating communities within the community
to improve and redesign their neighborhoods to meet their own needs.

I was impressed that Ms. Silberberg recognized in her presentation that the sense of community has been lost and disrupted in the past century to accommodate auto traffic as a necessity in our cities and especially our suburbs.  Not surprisingly, most of the improvements and/or changes that communities choose are those that limit or eliminate auto traffic, not improve it.  It was nice to be in a room full of like minded people.  It was especially nice to see the range of professions all taking time from their schedules for this.  There were local business owners,  20 something workers, civic leaders, politicians and corporate chairmen and CEO's.
She runs a very helpful service, if you are in a position to get her in front of your community I would highly recommend it.  Our local trail committee took the initiative to get the ball rolling and found the funds from local supporters.  This kind of education can be a game changer.