Taking it Through the Streets: The South Second Avenue Corridor and the Promise of Thruway Cycling
By James Thompson
Let me start by stating the obvious and the proven. Gainesville is one of the best places in the country, and arguably the best place in the Southern United States, to commute by bicycle. With the only Silver Star awarded by the League of American Wheelmen to any Florida city, and one of the few in the South, Gainesville boasts a bicycle commuting rate at seven times the national average. The Wheelmen put it at just under 6% of all commutes, but that was a few years back in 2006, I'm pegging it at 7.5% due to inflation. I can see the difference at every stop light and on every bike rack. I've lived here fourteen years, on and off, and you get a feel for these things. There are more people cycling now in Gainesville than ever before.
So Gainesville is a great place to bike. The question then becomes, Why? According to census and anecdote, we have an extraordinary amount of young and inexperienced cyclists and drivers. Our city is stretched beyond reasonable proportion to the Northwest and West, the victim of cheap land and the same out-not-up growth that has plagued other younger and Southern cities like Jacksonville. Our main thoroughfares, like Thirteenth Street, University Avenue, and 34th Avenue are notoriously bicycle unfriendly. That part of the ex-urban ("away from downtown") cycling infrastructure that does make cycling feasible, including well-marked lanes along six-laned Archer Road and 34th Ave, fall victim to the disproportionate speeds between cyclists and motorized vehicles and car-only intersections along these mega-streets. As a former velodrome racer (think NASCAR on bicycles) and expert wreck avoider (college racing team nickname, "Safety Nazi"), even I am uncomfortable on these "main" streets. The Vehicular Cycling (VC)--acting like a vehicle and obeying the law as such--that I practice and preach doesn't seem to work in a lot of places. I admit to pulling up on the sidewalk and involuntarily scaring pedestrians on University Ave across from UF campus, to avoid the frequent injury that has plagued that thoroughfare between West 13th and 21st Streets. By many indications, Gainesville should not be such a safe place to ride, nor should we have been part of the premier study of vehical-cyclist encounters that VC guru John Franklin undertook more than a decade ago.
So why, I ask again, are we so awesome? The long answer involves a well-established bureaucratic arm in local government and planning called the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Board (BPAB), the conscience of a self-proclaimed "One Less Car" city, really nice weather, a hoarde of awesome and diverse commercial and community bike shops, and a pleasant lack of altitude. Another long answer is the rising culture of green commuting among an environmentally aware generation, especially in a town whose university and major community college boast deep pockets and big hearts concerning planning, environment, and green technology. Let's not forget that it is now cool to ride a bike. For the very opposite reason I took up the sport, and commuting, back in my early teen years (because I wanted to be an oddball), many generations find "cred" and popular acceptance with their own form of commuting, be it saddle bags and yellow vests or fixed gears and no brakes. The old guys and gals are utilitarian and sometimes curmudgeonly, challenging friends and family to "one less car" (imagine angry cyclist stare while saying this!). The younger generation looks to the classic messenger bike for inspiration, commuting as a rebellious art form or ironic fashion statement, and to cycling as something both mainstream and malleable as a cultural form. The fixed gear is a great example. A mechanical dreadlock, it weighs one down with unmaneuverability and dysfunction, but it also raises ones status by parlaying rust and lo-tech into an excess of cool.
Still, and here I have to admit I've buried the lead long enough (wait, my thesis is coming)--there is something else about cycling and Gainesville that make the sum greater than the total of its parts . . . and that thing is . . .
A Miracle on Second Avenue
In fact, the thing that makes Gainesville rank high among cycling cities is a very boring strip of multi-use thoroughfare. A "pro-cycling" element in this community that has nothing to do with unobtainably hip youth fashion or persnickety safety types in yellow vests. This something is a thing that we can literally "map." And that thing is an intelligent infrastructure built, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes by the sweat and blood of activist bureaucrats, to promote fun, safe, and fast bicycle commuting. That something is manifest most resolutely in the Miracle on Second Avenue, my favorite multi-use corridor in our fair city. A gem among jewels.
To be precise, I am referring to the East-West Second Avenue "thru-way" between SW 13th Street and South Waldo Road. I will define a cycling "thruway" as a stretch of multi-use street that accommodates pedestrians and bicycles without either upsetting or promoting motorized traffic (and both of these are important to me, as I realize the futility of "anti-car" anger). The thruway as such must connect at least two important destination nodes (in this case Downtown, University of Florida, the "Student Ghetto," nodal bus stops in Downtown, and the mixed housing in East Gainesville), a market area (Old Mid-Town east of 13th St., New Mid-Town west of it), scenic destinations (okay, not so much in our case, unless you like hospitals), or other public places (Alachua County Main Library, University of Florida, downtown bus stops, and, of course Downtown!). The thruway, as I define it, has a logic that requires little policing, the least amount of attentiveness by busy motorists and cyclists (few stop and yield signs), and steals unwanted traffic from larger and more poorly planned thoroughfares (the evil noisy mess known as University Avenue).
Second Avenue meets all these criteria and is widely acknowledged, by the customers where I work (full disclosure, I work at a commercial bike shop), by fellow commuters, and by fellow Gainesville boosters, as a master thruway at both an aesthetic and functional level. In other words, not only is it an effective multi-use thruway, it begs to be a model for other and future thruways.
In evaluating its aesthetics, I'm less concerned with its visual statement (palm trees in the median? I mean, that's so Boca cliche!), as I rank it a poor attempt to make something useful and boring look pretty, but that is besides the point. Even riders who live on the West Side regularly comment on how they would like something like Second Ave. to grow in their travel corridor, and how it would make it easier for them to bike to work (something like this is under way for yonder Western reaches, in the form of the recent 16th Ave. renovations). The landscaped medians, mildly attractive but primarily functional, separate opposing traffic for safety and comfort while creating a mildly enjoyable visual experience. The roundabouts, initially feared in the late nineties by many Gainesville residents (including myself) because they are "European," allow bicycles to avoid stopping and starting, making it easier for them to experience near-motorized speeds between the University and Downtown. And--ersatz "racers" and other speed demons will like this--in my two years on the thruway, I've never seen a single ticket issued by a police officer, nor a single wreck between any user--pedestrian, bicycle, or otherwise. I'm sure they happen, but they are rare. Meanwhile, two streets over, you can witness an accident or ticket on a daily basis, sometimes two during a single ride, not to mention the constant din of sirens from hard-working first responders called out to the latest University Ave. wreck.
If you've only driven on Second Ave, you just won't get it. So I think some good ole fashioned "profiling" (no, not that kind, silly!) is in order to make you understand the beauty and diversity of this and other thruways. First and foremost, the multi-use aspect of this thruway is apparent each morning, not just in the types of vehicles on the thruway, but the people using them. While some of my gentrified friends in Gainesville think everything west of Main Street is "young college students with no money" (as if there is something wrong with these young citizens), at least half of the people I see on my ride in the thruway are at least my age (mid-thirties) and dressed for professional work at UF or a nearby business. An odd number of them are librarians, but this is a subject for another essay (I'm a historian, and we seem to notice librarians everywhere, bless them). The Second Ave riders I see aren't apparently wealthy, maybe they can't afford a mortgage, rent, or expensive and time-consuming commute in the Northwest, and they enjoy the vibrancy, diversity, and ride-ability of the Second Avenue "corridor," which I define as the lived experience, commerce, and physical movement of people attached to this thruway. Some of them are even snobby about their bicycle commute, a character trait which I consider needing improvement, but nonetheless well-intentioned. But they are not "students" or "kids" even by plurality. Their faces, colors, ages, gender, and cost of vehicle present a picture of difference, not just diversity, in both traditional demographic measures and subjective ones such as social class.
What I'm Talking About, In Pictures
If you don't have a picture yet of what I'm a talking about, a ride-through is in order, to take the air of an evening (or morning) if you will. I'll use my personal route to work as an example (Google Maps forthcoming):
The sun has just crept into a place in the morning sky where it is no longer comfortable to stare at the horizon. Cats are returning from the night hunt, dogs are yawning, beetles are beetling, and I am about to leave for work. I live at a refurbished post-WWII era house just off Main and South Fourth Ave. Although I am strongly committed to street riding and avoiding the sidewalk to ease the anxiety of pedestrians (a central tenet of Vehicular Cycling), I typically wander through the pedestrian space by Amelia's Italian Restaurant and Boca Fiesta (both locally owned) in the Sun Center when I leave for work at 9:30 a. m. I say hello to the chefs, preps, and bus-people at Amelia's, and to the bartenders, servers, and cooks at Boca who seem to be working all day long, no matter when I ride by. I scoot through South Third Avenue to cross Main Street into the left turn lane for Second Avenue. There's no stop sign or light on Third Ave., and I am confident accelerating before the traffic from northbound Fourth Ave. reaches me. Of course, on the reverse trip I take Fourth Ave. through the Main Street stoplight coming East, rush hour and all being a concern.
So now I'm on Second Ave., and folks, this is the beauty of it. The only place I definitely, definitively, and without-question-according-to-the-law have to stop between here (Downtown) and the University of Florida (which provides bike-friendly access to my job at, shameless plug, Chain Reaction Bicycles just off 17th St. and Univ. Ave.) is a stoplight at University Ave. and South Sixth St. By the way, this stoplight would be a very good place to test a bicycle-friendly "stop-as-yield" law that has been successful and safe in other states, as cyclists and motorists often idle here on the Second Ave. portion for extremely long times for no reason. Someone coming through the further eastern points of the thruway-corridor near Waldo will have to negotiate one stop sign downtown on East First Street and a long light at Main, but these are pleasantly scenic and pedestrian filled even in the morning, and only busy during the late afternoon rush hour. Again, during non-rush hours, these lights and signs would be great candidates for a stop-as-yield conversion.
As a cyclist, the only other obstacles to my movement on this thruway between downtown and UF are the two roundabouts on 10th Street and 12th Street. Critics, acknowledge your mistaken fear of this European novelty. Roundabouts rock. I rarely have to stop at them, as motorized traffic there typically yields to bikes rather than negotiate the roundabout with them. I would have to say that cars either revere cyclists in the roundabout because they enjoy watching them lean and swerve to make the crooked places straight, or acknowledge their right of way out of respect because the logic of the roundabout favors bicycles. Either way is fine with me, even if the latter produces an unintended byproduct of over-politeness by cars. I should warn vehicular cyclists that, while a a car may have the right of way, you should expect bike-friendly Gainesville folk to yield, creating some confusion (and further proving the enlightened nature of the roundabout thruway). Instead of acting confused and obeying the letter of the law, take the honor, wave a thank you, and enjoy your ascendancy in the food chain of "cool."
Once I get to 13th Street, I have to wait for a very long stoplight. At this point, I need to take a deep breath and remember that I may want to run for office one day. Most cyclists and pedestrians violate the rules here, running lights and jumping the greens to the danger of their health and to the chagrin of angry motorists. However, after this bad intersection I glide through the UF campus, where the only obstacles to getting to work or any other part of midtown are bicycle-mounted and motorized patrols of the local constabulary. For the record, working in a bike shop or being a commuter advocate does NOT get you a free pass if you scare pedestrians and break the speed limit on campus. I heard this from . . . ahem . . . a dear friend who was issued a warning by Officer Friendly.
Campus is an end node in my thruway, but the joy of riding through it really makes it a kind of neutral zone for bikes, a thruway itself that takes you to midtown, to the far West side of Second Ave (food stores, music stores, gyms, hardware stores, the University/34th hub, etc . . . ). Even when I skip through the poorly designed bike-pedestrian-Hare Krishna Lunch crowd-Chemistry student-Library West lane just before 17th Street, I am entertained.
If you take the bus, you may notice I really don't mention it much. And that is because, if you have a bike, are physically able, or have the few extra minutes to walk, it is really unnecessary to take the bus down Second Ave. In fact, since many of the buses travel along University Ave., to which Second Ave. is a solution, it is almost always faster to ride your bike up Second. In support of our awesome Regional Transit System, I will say that I always take the bus, and am happy to use it, when it is too cold or wet to ride my bike. But unless it is absolutely necessary, there's no reason to watch out the giant RTS window while bikers pass you by like the hare to the tortoise.
What Second Avenue Isn't
When I first wrote this piece, I was worried about describing the architecture and social interactions that lay between Waldo and 13th Street on this thing I call a mighty thruway. I wanted to describe the sights, scenes, and social interactions that make it more than just a fast way to get where you are going. But what I realized is that the beauty of this thruway is that these things are a block or two away, but not actually "on" Second Ave. As Gertrude Stein famously said of San Fransisco, There is no "There" there. The things that are actually "on" Second Avenue, except for the immediate vicinity of Downtown (Dragonfly Sushi, Big Lou's Pizza, and the sometimes dreaded but important County Courthouse, also a few churches) are not so important as the things immediately next to it that can be reached by it. The social interactions I enjoy are when we are at the end nodes of the thruway, the stoplights and stop signs near Main Street if you're coming through downtown from the eastside, the working people I see right when I leave my house to enter the thruway, and the conglomeration of folks entering the space of the University (on their way to wherever) at Thirteenth Street. For most of the rest of the time, we are moving, passing, and negotiating at comensurate speed with motorized traffic and the occasional pedestrian. We are polite and smile and sometimes honk and give the "angry peace sign" when communication fails, but the thruway is fundamentally defined by movement and efficiency, not by congeniality, sociality, or urbanity. We use the thruway to get to places, not as a destination itself. And that is okay, for now, because getting to and from places on a bike without excitement is basically a good thing. Remember the ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." Second Avenue is not interesting, and that is why it works as a thruway.
Rather, it is what is just off of (to the north or south) or at the end of the thruway that makes the Second Ave thruway "interesting." If you need a bike shop along the way, you can cut off to Recycled Bikes, Spin Cycle, or The Schwinn Shop, each just a hundred yards away from Second on University Avenue between Fourth and Thirteenth Streets (the most clustered set of bike shops in town not divided by a major intersection). Closer to campus, my own employer (disclosure) Chain Reaction makes you cross 13th Street off University, which isn't so bad, or if you have to skip up a street before 13th to get to Mr. Goodbike on Fifth Avenue and 13th Street, that's also a good reason to take Second from UF, Downtown, or near Waldo Road. If you need a non-traditional gift (numerous locally owned headshops and dispensers of couture), a hookah (Farrah's and some newer places too numerous to mention), a gyro (Gyro's Plus), an Irish pub (Brophy's off Second Street, a classic downtowner, or a music-inflected college bar--Common Grounds), a local college book and supply store (as of this writing, Goering's has, alas, shut down, RIP), to visit a friend in a mid-upper townhome (Jefferson and the other downtown high rises for the younger among us, student ghetto for the less young, and houses hither and yon for the rest), . . . If you need a slice (Leo's on 13th and University has that and an espresso bar), a fancy/intelligent gourmet coffee or tea (Volta off Second Street), or numerous medical services (chiropractic, palm reader, dentist etc . . . ) Second Ave. is a good and quiet and safe and admittedly boring place to get there from. There's no "there" there because that is what makes it a good place to ride, if by "there" you mean stoplights, stop signs, traffic, ticket-friendly zones, no bike lanes, parked or parking cars at meters who are in a hurry to arrive or leave, campus police (doing as is their duty) looking for violators on bikes, and other miscellany from the oh-shit-I-should-have-driven-my-car set of "things to see." Second Ave. is a way to get places, not a place itself, and amen for that.
But I Don't Live Where You Do!
At first this thruway might seem a boon only to those living South of University Avenue between West Sixth Street and East Ninth, since crossing University Ave. at any point from the North is a trial. But even this limited southern orientation encompasses a hearty new urban redevelopment project called the Jefferson Townhomes (an admittedly middle-to-upscale student housing complex but one that built up and center, not low and out), and also the "townie" and student rental houses south of University along the downtown corridor. That alone justifies the celebration of Second Ave. But I want to argue that, if your destination is downtown or UF, and even if you are several blocks north of University and east of Main Street, Second Ave is still your safest and fastest thruway. Once you approach North Eighth Avenue, things change, for that is also a cycling thruway and deserves its own praises, but the bulk of UF-Downtown-Waldo Rd. destinations are equal in distance by North and South from the Second Ave. thruway. Most commercial and residential destinations are close enough to University Avenue (which you want to avoid) that getting to them via Second Ave. makes sense. Sometimes you have to go around something (University Ave.) to travel through it. This isn't the rabbit hole, it's just common sense.
For northern-oriented Downtown or Eastside points of origin, you might as well cross University at its eastern-oriented traffic points and travel on Second Ave., then cross back over University northward if your business is there. By going out of your way, you can be safer, faster, and enjoy your ride more. Let's say I live at one of multiple medium-rise apartment complexes near downtown between West Fourth Street and East Fifth Street, all North of University Avenue, and I'm going to UF campus. If I take a direct westward route through the northern avenues ("student ghetto") I get nothing but stop signs and residential traffic. If I take a big street and "near" direct westward route along University Ave. and wait to head south near Thirteenth Street onto the campus, I face massive motorized traffic. If I wait until after Thirteenth, near what currently is known as "Midtown" by newer students (my older "Midtown" finds its center around Recycled Bicycles or Mother's Pub, the old Shamrock), I face the worst mix of pedestrian, cycling, and motorized traffic in the city, including a beehive of scooters and mopeds competing for valuable space in the mini-motor parking "lots" west of Library West, or a bunch of curvy road-to-sidewalk transitions that are dangerous for bicycle and pedestrian interaction.
In fact, no matter where you are north or south of University Avenue, even as far east as Waldo Road, it makes sense to quickly migrate towards South Second Avenue on your Eastside-Downtown-UF commute. The return trip is equally Second-Avenue oriented, no matter your destination near the University or the newer Midtown, for the same reasons.
Conclusion
I will admit that all of this is very efficiency oriented. If you enjoy taking a detour by Gator Beverage to visit your locally-owned beer and spirits vendor, or going out of your way through the "Student Ghetto" and its tightly-wound roundabouts to have morning coffee with a friend, or if you want to head North to the Main Street Publix, Ward's Grocery, Video Rodeo, or Bikes N' More and run some errands before work or school, then so be it. That is what bicycle commuting is all about, making personal choices that add not only to your freedom and economy and pleasure, but to the easy breathing and low congestion of your fellow citizens.
I am simply pointing out that Second Avenue works on many levels beyond the South-of-University corridor. Even if the concept of a thruway is derived from freeway, and only a limited solution, it corrects a problem that ex-urban growth and vision-lacking re-gentrification have created in Gainesville and many other mid-size towns (that is, the mess of University Avenue and Newberry Road, from Waldo Road to I-75). It allows us to cycle through something safely, socially, and at high speed without upsetting cars, police, pedestrians, and each other.
Ideally, we don't need freeways or thruways, and the pedestrian reigns supreme in an urban center built up-not-out where one can travel several blocks to market, school, work, or transit node on foot (or by pedestrian delivery). But as awesome as we are thanks to local commuter activists, including BPAB, Critical Mass, The Kickstand, friendly politicians, commercial activists in local shops, and our own BikeGainesville.org, Gainesville is not ideal. No place is. And few places likely will be in our lifetime. The thruway meets our needs for now, acknowledging the bicycle as the most responsible, enjoyable, and technically reasonable middle point between a motorized reality and the dream of a walking city. Second Avenue should be an example of what mostly goes right, when we take people just off the beaten path (University Ave.) to move them along a safer one. The best part about the Miracle on Second Ave is that it isn't a miracle at all. It was the hard work and dedication of actual people, and no doubt the collective wisdom of past mistakes that made it possible. Humans have an uncanny and unfortunate knack for altering their environment. In this case, we seem to have turned the tables and are starting to do some good again. Let's keep it rolling. Let's make more miracles on our streets and in our neighborhoods!