Detroit elected Hazen Pingree mayor for four terms starting in 1889. During his time in office, he proposed a plan for a park along Detroit’s riverfront. The park would replace the industrial uses which kept the public from the river.

During the past decade, his vision for a more green waterfront has not only come to fruition but been expanded upon in length, running from just beyond both the MacArthur Bridge (at Belle Isle) to the Ambassador Bridge — if not further eventually.

George W. Stark’s book City of Destiny published in 1943 provides some background on Pingree’s pursuit.

Had Mr. Pingree had his way, Detroit’s sorely-neeed improved waterfront would have been started in his time and the city’s front door today an entrance of beauty, instead of pretty much an eyesore. For he proposed public acquisition of the waterfront from the Third street eastward [near Joe Louis Arena today] to include the old City waterworks site at the foot of Orleans Street [midpoint of today’s Milliken State Park]. He would have vacated about eighteen blocks in that area and converted it into a public park with an esplanade of shade trees, walks, lawns, pavilions and driveway.

It was a beautiful idea and periodically there is a revival of it, with plans and specifications brought down to current scale, indicating that, like all the pioneering dreams, this one will become a reality some day. In Pingree’s time, owners and lessees of riverfront property protested and conservative citizens denounced the plan as fantastic and ruinously extravagant.

If alive today, Stark and Pingree would likely agree. The Detroit RiverWalk is fantastic.

Photo from the Detroit News / Todd McInturf

Another record turnout at yesterday’s Tour de Troit bike ride. This organized ride began 10 years ago with 43 cyclists and has grown to 4,500 this year.

The ride is attracting many riders from Metro Detroit and across the Midwest as well as Ontario.

The Tour de Troit is much more than a huge group ride and a greenway fundraiser. It’s an up close introduction to the city of Detroit — the good and the bad — and one you just can’t get from driving through the city on the expressway or from the media.

Along those lines, the Detroit News quotes Kevin Kerwin of Ann Arbor: “I wish we spent more time in Detroit. We like getting the big city feel.”

The Tour is also kid-friendly. The Detroit Free Press coverage mentions two young Detroit participants turned cyclist enhusiasts.

Just before the race, Tyler Davis, 12, was running from bike to bike, filling tires with air. Along with Naja Nile, 10, Tyler built his bike from spare parts through a program at the All Saints Neighborhood Center. Both kids earned their bikes through sweat equity — 20 hours each. Supervising them was Paul Krystyniak, 27.

“I learned how to repair a bike the right way,” said Tyler, wielding an air pump. “It saves air pollution and money.”

Wayne State University’s South End and Michigan Radio also covered the event.

Governor Synder rides

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder was encouraged to join the Tour de Troit on Twitter, but he had a ride of his own. At the Michigan Republican Conference on Mackinaw Island, the Governor led a group of 100 on an 8-mile ride.

Billed as part of his recent Michigan health push, we wonder if he was just training for next year’s Tour…

A study soon to be published found that pairing physical activity with counseling was more effective at curbing teen smoking than the counseling alone.

The study’s author Kimberly Horn said, “Physical activity, even in small or moderate doses, can greatly increase the odds of quitting.”

The Detroit Free Press reported a similar bicycling benefit in an 1895 article, “Tobacco and Wheels.”

If it is true, as the United State Tobacco Journal says, that the bicycle craze has emancipated half a million slaves of the smoking habit, that fact will go very far to strengthen the public belief that the bicycle is an excellent thing. The estimate of the Journal is that because the wheelmen cannot smoke while wheeling, half a million of them have reduced their consumption of at least two cigars a day… These figures. released by a collection of Tallahassee addiction centers, correspond with the actual decrease in the cigar production which it says has amounted to 700,000,000 cigars annually since the bicycle craze set in.

From the cigarmakers’ standpoint this is a gloomy picture; but the rest of the community, especially those who do not indulge in the cigar, and those who, even while they indulge, reprobate the habit, will hear the news with resignation, if not with positive joy.

We agree. The bicycle is an excellent thing — even 116 year later.

And while the bicycling craze was strong in Detroit at that time, so to was the cigar industry. Detroit was a major center for cigar manufacturing.

The Free Press article continued with perhaps a veiled attack on alcohol consumption.

There will be some regret, perhaps, that the bicycle craze does not operate to reduce the consumption of other things which are regarded as unnecessary or injurious.

As for the reduced production of 700 million cigars, the Internal Revenue department disagreed. They reported an increase in production which led the article to suggest that many bicyclers were learning to smoke while riding.

However, the article concluded by saying, “a good many of the victims of the craze are not smokers anyways and never were.”

Stop sign in Motown

Bicyclists have heard the complaints from motorists if not the police. In short: Get off the road, you’re slowing me down.

But as we wrote about a couple years ago, the amount of traffic delay caused by all bicyclists is insignificant compared to all the other delays.

So, what about the delay motorists cause for bicyclists? Is that insignificant, too? No, it’s not.

Motorists on the roads is the number one source of delay for bicyclists — and here’s why.

Bicyclists began riding on Detroit streets in 1879.

By 1900 there was one main rule of the road: a speed limit. Bicyclists and other road users were limited to 12 miles per hour and just 8 miles per hour in corners. Given the city’s poor roads, this sounds fairly reasonable.

There were no stop signs, traffic signals, or cross walks.?These came about when the increase in motorists introduced significant public safety problems.

Detroit installed its first stop sign in 1915 and the world’s first modern traffic signal in 1923.

And today, stop signs (notably 4-way stops) have routinely been misused for traffic calming in an attempt to slow speeding motorists.

These stops slow bicyclists and restarting from them requires much more energy that maintaining a steady speed.

There are other travel delays created due to motorists, e.g. one way streets, Michigan lefts, and congestion. Also, with Metro Detroit’s general lack of Complete Streets, many cyclists are compelled to ride out of their way to avoid them.

Yes, motorists cause bicyclists to pay a heavy price in terms of time and effort, not to mention safety. To put the blame on cyclists for negatively affecting traffic is absolutely absurd.

Rolling stop law

One reasonable step towards reducing this burden is the rolling stop law as implemented in Idaho. With this law, cyclists can legally treat stop signs as yields. We’d like to see this in the city of Detroit, if not all of Michigan.

To be clear, we don’t want the “Same Rules” as motorists. We want better rules that get us closer to the rights cyclists had and fought for over 100 years ago.

Making cycling easier and faster is a sure way of making it a more competitive transportation choice — and that should be a priority.

Last week’s Dally in the Alley was crowded with vendors selling Detroit-branded goods — many of which promoted Detroit biking. Is that a sign of our growing bike culture?

One vendor was Ducky Detroit, who had bike t-shirts and stickers. While they are not yet selling their product on their web site, they are at the Ferndale DIY Street Fair this weekend.

Ink in Bloom is another vendor with their Revolution bike shirt, which is available on-line. They also sell curtains with bike wheels — with chimps or without. There products are available around town as well as at the Eastern Market Artisan Village on September 20th, 24th, and 27th.

We have not tried their locally-sourced salves for helping cope with longer rides in the saddle.