After a dental appointment this week, I decided to drive around downtown Lawrence and count the bicycles, both parked and on the road. I drove from Sixth to 10th on New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. I encountered four bicycles being ridden and 32 parked. Next I drove past Lawrence High School and counted around 15 bicycles parked. On 21st street, on my way to the “big box” stores on Iowa, I observed three bicycles ridden and three parked. Lastly, at the “big box” stores I saw no bicycles, ridden or parked. By comparison I would not have been able to count the number of cars on the road or parked in the many parking lots during this time.

Question: How many city commissioners, transportation supervisors and other city officials regularly ride a bicycle to work, shop or for recreation? Excluding students, how many Lawrence citizens own a bicycle, ride one to work or shop? How many ride one for recreation?

In short, the incomplete streets approach for arterial streets in Lawrence is a solution for a problem that does not exist. As expressed by F.W. (J-W 10/28), the city engineers must be tossing wet spaghetti at the road map. They should be designing a system of safe roads together with updating water and sewage systems.