Next, connectivity for all? "We are not only building bridges, we are biking bridges."

The late Kevin Richards, bridging the Czech Republic, 2006.

My old friend John (original designer of the NABC keg-aloft logo) recently has been writing about bicycling for LEO. His thoughts about bikes crossing bridges bring to mind my own merry band's experiences in Europe from 2000 - 2008.

Once you've seen what a rational bicycling infrastructure network looks like, the situation on the new East End Long Dead Overused White Guys Bridge (what, we ran out of assassinated presidents to name it?) is cast in sharp and sad relief. There, a multi-use path essentially leads to nothing on either side, a far cry from what I've observed in places like the Netherlands and Germany.

In these countries, transportation is far less of a zero-sum game, where anything "given" to a cyclist or walker is viewed by the intemperate among us as being "taken away" from autos.  Rather, especially in the Netherlands, space for cars, bikers and walkers exists side by side.

The horror!

Given that the most widely reported controversy on the new bridge to date has been complaints from walkers over lack of parking spaces (think about that), I feel like screaming that whatever the idiocy of the financing, we shouldn't build this or any other bridge solely as a means of carrying cars as they move back and forth to ultimate destinations. This notion of connectivity should apply to cyclists and walkers, too.

Where and how does one continue the journey, having reached the other side?

Why We Ride: Biking Bridges, by John Mahorney (LEO Weekly)

Unless you’re spinning away in your pain cave, or you’ve been riding out of town for the holidays, then you may have heard about the opening of the brand-new Lewis and Clark Bridge on Dec. 18. This beautiful piece of multi-modal infrastructure is the most-inclusive, publicly-funded road project I’ve seen in our area. It is the first highway and bridge project to receive an Envision Platinum Award from the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. Among its sustainable construction practices is a wide, two-way bicycle and pedestrian path connecting Prospect to Utica, Indiana.

When I think about cycling to and from Kentucky and Indiana, I can’t help but remember all the other bridges we’ve crossed over the years. Adventurous, perilous, crowded, abandoned, remote and downright dangerous for the commuter and recreational cyclist alike. They are necessary. They are convenient. Some could be better. Some can go to hell. Some could just finally open someday.

Don't miss John Mahorney's bicycling columns in LEO.

Always on camera, Belgium, 2004.

As recently as 2010, I logged 3,635 miles (5,850 kilometers) in a year on a bicycle, never traveling more than 25 miles in a single ride.

For me, it was about using the bike as a tool to commute first, then ride for pleasure second -- unless, of course, it was a European biking trip, as in the photo above. Then it was all about biking, beer and pleasure, in places where infrastructure worked for a bicyclist, not against.

Since 2013, my bicycling has tapered to nothing, and instead, walking's been my thing. In my life, I've tended to trade one set of obsessions for another, and so it goes.

The reason why my biking diminished has many parallels with Jeff Speck's theory of walkability. Speck believes that if the walk isn't enjoyable, most folks won't take it. Biking became less enjoyable for me, and so I found myself declining the opportunities.

Biking became less enjoyable for me precisely because I focused on commuting, and this required the extensive use of city streets, and in New Albany, the arterial mentality of street design seems to have enhanced a widely noted phenomenon that affects the vast majority of drivers (and I'm not exempting myself from the tag).

We get behind the wheel of a car, and we immediately become completely self-absorbed assholes. We're assured that autos are an extension of our genitalia, we design streets to exacerbate this masturbatory effect, and when someone has the temerity to suggest that streets should be available for safe use by all humans, not just those with cars, the vitriol usually reserved for the bicyclist is turned upon the speaker.

John Mahorney is an old friend. He's fearless, and I'm delighted to see his new by-line. John will be a principled and insistent advocate for bicycling, and I look forward to reading.

Here's a trivia question; the answer appears after the tease: Many readers see a piece of John's graphic design every day, and it could be argued that he has contributed immeasurably to New Albany iconography. Do you know what this is?

This is why I ride, by John Mahorney (LEO Weekly)

 ... We do our best to share all spaces with our friends on foot, but some people are bike haters. Yes, the ones who have wished, tried and succeeded in running us off the road since the advent of the automobile. The honkers! The combative motorists driving the 3,500-plus-pound killing machines, with the not so greatest of ease. “Why are you riding in traffic?” “I am traffic, ma’am.” Shocked expression. “Why don’t you get a car?” “I have a car also, mister.” We try to get along with all motorists, but sometimes it’s like a survival mission. Coming up on you fast. Stopping way too close. Lunging and driving aggressively. Hurling objects from the car. We persevere because it’s worth any trouble to go somewhere, get somewhere. We just want to ride, and we do.

It's this, which John designed in 2002:

Bet you don't know how these two logos are connected.

Mike Kopp's photo shows the newly installed Dragon King's Daughter signage. DKD believes a soft opening could be coming within the next two or three weeks.

DKD's New Albany location is right across Bank Street from NABC's Bank Street Brewhouse, and you might not know what these two business logos have in common.

Both were designed by an old friend and Louisville artist, John Mahorney. Virtually every other graphic in NABC's brewery history originated with Tony Beard, but before I even knew Tony, John was on the scene, and we commissioned him to design the now familiar symbol with the keg-lifting man.