This morning at the end of my bi-weekly commute to Silver Spring, another sweaty cyclist was sitting in front of my building, clearly having just finished his commute, too. We introduced ourselves and he asked where I bike from. I told him Arlington. He raised his eyebrows and said, "Me, too." (He is now the 5th person I have met in the last three months who bike commutes between Arlington and Montgomery County.) We swapped stories.
His story was that he decided to try out the commute for Bike to Work Day this last May. That convinced him that it was doable on a daily basis. He went out and bought a bike to meet his commuting needs, and now he's an every day commuter.
This was exciting for me to hear. Having participated in BTWD for a long time, I had the sense that everyone was already a bike commuter. It's nice to see--at least for this one commuter--that it was a catalyst for him to become a regular.
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Steve Offutt is an Arlington resident and long time bike commuter.
For more information about bike commuting, click here: BikeArlington
I started bicycle commuting for BTWD this year, and I'm working my way up to 5 days per week.
BTWD works and I'm a convert because of it.
Posted by: Jim | July 10, 2007 at 11:32 AM
It should not come as a big surprise that our region's annual Bike to Work Day event creates hundreds (if not thousands) of new bike commuters each year, but the Commuter Connections program at MWCOG might do a better job of documenting and promoting this fact.
Posted by: Allen Muchnick | July 07, 2007 at 05:09 PM