I Accidentally Rode 30 Miles Yesterday...

...not all at once, and yes it was 100% unplanned.

It actually started Saturday night. Last minute, my friends at the Strengthening Health Institute asked if I could do them a favor Sunday morning by picking up a few groceries to prepare lunches for the students. It was just a ride to the grocery store and back, not a tall task by any means. I had enough time to stop by the tree at East Passyunk Square to take a look:

Forgive the pun, but that started the snowball rolling yesterday, and I barely stopped moving from 8:30AM until about midnight with food deliveries, riding to and from Center City twice due to miscommunication, riding to and from a friend's house to watch the Eagles...and somewhere in there, my girlfriend did convince me to pause for 2 hours to take in a movie (Wonder - it was really good, and you should go see it).

All this to say, I basically got sidetracked with many other things and wasn't able to do what I'd originally planned yesterday, which was to join the Emily Fredericks Memorial Bike Ride. On my way back from delivering food in Society Hill, I did force my way over to the Spruce Street bike lanes in the area I'd mentioned yesterday. I didn't expect much to have changed, as it was a Sunday, but I did want to get a better look at the somewhat puzzling state of things.

You can see here at the corner of 8th and Spruce, someone hand-painted the drivers' side of the bike lane buffer: 

Yet spin around 180 degrees and notice that the city professionally painted both sides of the buffer:

Also notice the car driving in the buffer zone. I continued westward and paused briefly to pay my respects to my fellow cyclist (last time I was here, it was a bit crowded and I didn't get to do so):

Notice the un-touched bike lane across 11th Street, with a car also driving precariously in the buffer zone. To the left, you'll notice more hand-painted lines. Hey, at least someone's trying to make this street safer, albeit without the clear definition that this is a shared bike/right turn lane:

Like I said, I didn't expect much to have changed from Saturday to Sunday, but I'm still very confused by the lack of continuity regarding this project that, according to this article, was scheduled weeks ago. I don't plan on riding 30 miles today, but I do plan to detour my ride home to check if any progress was made since yesterday. If not, we may need to start making some phone calls...

#bikeyourbirthmonth