A brief snippet of a ride I took on a weekday afternoon back in April 2024. It shows a stretch of Watervliet Shaker Road which is also designated as NY-155. (I believe it's also Albany County 155, which is relevant because it adds one more layer of government.)

This level of traffic is not unusual here, and there are other nearby stretches that have similar congestion. The segment of road immediately to the west of this one (where I would have ended up had I turned left at the light at the beginning instead of right) goes past the local high school and middle school and is less than a mile from a major commercial corridor.

This road is a great example of a complete failure by state, county, and municipal government to facilitate any form of travel other than car, and as you can see, it doesn't work very well for travel by car. Part of the challenge is the nearly complete absence of alternative east-west routes (the subdivisions don't connect). It ought to be a prime candidate for a multi-use path that would allow safe cyclist and pedestrian traffic and could connect the nearby Empire State Trail with the restaurants and stores further west, as well as providing safe travel for students and families to and from school and school activities (like sports).

A view of crossing Central Avenue (NY-5) on a bike. This particular crossing is at a residential street in the suburb of Colonie, just east of the Niskayuna town line. It’s within the area currently being studied for improvements (study link below). They’re desperately needed. Central Avenue is the deadliest road for non-motorists in the Capital Region, and it’s a major corridor between the cities of Schenectady and Albany. It certainly has immense potential, if only we could transform it to prioritize people over cars.

I hope to post a good deal more about it in the coming months.

This particular footage is from January 3, 2025.

My ride today included this segment along the southern portion of the Uncle Sam Bikeway in Troy, NY. Despite the overcast sky, the trees are just starting to bloom and the temperature was moderate and winds gentle, so it was a pleasant enough ride.

The end of the bikeway can be harrowing though, as you can see. There isn’t a proper end: it just dumps you onto the sidewalk (which then leads nowhere, with no cutouts or anything).

This is one of a number of examples throughout the Capital District of bike infrastructure that’s so incomplete that the engineers simply advise cyclists to dismount, as if that was an acceptable expectation. There are numerous cyclists who ride but are not capable of walking. What are they supposed to do in a situation like this?

The end of the bikeway abuts an area that’s been studied by the local MPO for improvement (the bridge over the Hudson needs to be updated or replaced). I submitted a public comment on the project back in January. Hopefully the project sees some major improvements: they’re desperately needed.

A little over half of my ride today was on portions of New York’s Empire State Trail. Part of it passes under this well-known Capital District landmark: the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge (more commonly known as the Twin Bridges).

While the Empire State Trail consists of more than 700 miles of contiguously marked bike infrastructure, much of it is in disrepair, as you can see from the road surface here. I’ll have more to show of the EST in future videos.

Towards the end of the video, you also get to see one of a number of absolutely awful road-to-trail transitions that my town inflicts on cyclists. I’ll have more of that in the future too.

Some thoughts that came to me while riding through my neighborhood on my brief #30DaysOfBiking ride on this rainy April morning.

I touch on how despite casual appearances to the contrary, my suburban neighborhood is incredibly isolated for those on bicycles who aren’t willing to accept a “vehicular cycling” model, and how that fact is ignored by people who like to complain about how bad the traffic is.

I also touch on how isolating the suburbs are socially, making it difficult to find like-minded people even in our own neighborhoods, because we’re always stuck in our cars.

Just a few thoughts while riding my 1980's Schwinn.

Apologies for the wind noise. I haven't figured out a good way to capture voice audio yet.

A brief segment of my ride on Day 11 of #30DaysOfBiking. It goes through a different segment of the park than I shared last week and includes a brief comment about the weather.

For my ride on Day 6 of 30DaysOfBiking, I rode to our local grocery co-op. Unfortunately, I have to cross a highway to get there from suburbia, and the only moderately direct route takes this road.

It’s possible that the Patroon Creek Greenway project might help with this problem to an extent. It’s also quite disappointing (though not at all surprising) that the massive (for the Capital District) project to redevelop the Tobin’s First Prize Center doesn’t seem to include any work to improve the road. Any residents of the purported 800 new apartment units would need to follow the path I ride in this video to get to the Central Avenue corridor for groceries, shopping, and connections to public transit.

I was able to sneak in a ride for Day 3 of 30DaysOfBiking during an unexpected gap in the forecasted rain. I usually don’t ride in this park, since the paths are more intended for pedestrians (often with strollers and dogs), and they’re quite bumpy. But the rain and cold left the park largely deserted.

This park has always had drainage issues (possibly due in part to the Town’s penchant for clear-cutting trees and not planting new ones), and after 24 hours of rain, many of them are visible in the video.

A brief video of a driver committing the dangerous "right hook."