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Last week’s Monday morning was spent alongside a lifeless, sinister stretch of pavement in northeast Calgary. This morning’s destination—a trip to the zoo—was much more enjoyable, but getting to the zoo got my blood boiling. (And what better way to vent than to tap out another rant?)

The problem, see, is that I chose to ride my bike to the zoo instead of driving. We live close to the zoo — the ride’s not far at all. Often L. and I bike past the zoo with the bike chariot on the Nose Creek Pathway when we’re out for a ride. So why drive when we’re so close?

The Nose Creek Pathway goes by the zoo — in fact, it kind of wraps around it. The path is a stone’s throw away from the parking lot. So there must be access to the zoo’s main entrance from the pathway, right? Some kind of connector pathway or road? A gravel path, even? I checked the city’s pathway closure site before I left, and it seemed to indicate we were in the clear. Surely the path must connect somehow.

Wrong. It doesn’t connect. You can get to the zoo on St. George’s Drive, but that road is shut down for construction, which eliminates that option. What I had to do is pull up on the pathway right beside the zoo parking lot, and then cut across a gravel road that looks like it’s part of a construction site, bumping L. over a few 2x4s in the chariot and then squeezing us into the parking lot through an opening beside a closed gate — an opening we clearly weren’t supposed to be using.

Any cyclist in Calgary who’s serious about getting anywhere has little choice but to go where he’s not supposed to go. We were going to the zoo, and I wasn’t about to turn around and find some long alternate route because of the city’s planning negligence.

But it did make me mad that I was dragging my one-year-old daughter through part of a construction site. It made me think that maybe I was being a bad parent — but more than that, it reminded me that nothing has changed in this city. A bunch of us cyclists have been bitching about the lack of bike infrastructure here for as long as I can remember, and nothing has changed — no matter what the suits at city hall say. The city likes to boast that it has “the most extensive bike pathway system in North America” (whatever that means), but the reality is city hall’s priorities lie elsewhere — with roads, mostly. It’s sad. The city’s message to cyclists has been the same since I moved here almost ten years ago: fuck off. And get a car.

The City of Calgary's message to cyclists is twofold: fuck off. And get a car.

Need more proof? Just head north on the Nose Creek Pathway, where construction halts the pathway in the middle of nowhere. Actually, it’s not in the middle of nowhere — it’s mere metres from 32 Ave., a road that cyclists could use to work their way north, past the construction zone. But the way the city has set it up, it might as well be in the middle of nowhere. The pathway suddenly ends. And there’s a sign with a long-ass detour that nobody in their right mind would actually use.

When the city shuts down roads for construction, there are workable detours, warnings well in advance and so on. With bike infrastructure it’s a different story. The underlying assumption seems to be that nobody rides their bikes the way people drive cars — to get from place to place, running errands, going to work and what not. The city — despite all its empty talk about alternative transportation — seems to think that cars are for commuting and bikes are for recreation. For amusement.

Well, I ain’t amused. And neither are a lot of other Calgarians who are making an effort to leave their cars at home. This is the one thing that’s encouraging about all this: a lot of people in this city are getting fed up with Calgary’s roads-roads-roads status quo, and are speaking up.

But will it change anything? Who knows. I certainly hope so. That was my hope before I had a kid, and now that I’m pulling my little girl behind me when I ride, it’s that much more important. We need safe, practical cycling infrastructure. The city is working on some kind of comprehensive bike strategy thingy right now — but who knows if that will actually make a difference. The city’s always working on some feel-good strategy like that while working against it in practice. Jawing about cycling (“a fun, healthy and an inexpensive way to get around,” says the city’s website) is all well and good, but the proof is in the pavement — and that’s still lacking. I’ll believe it when I see it.

(Cross posted to my FFWD blog, Klaszus Corner.)

If, as a parent, you wanted to take your kid somewhere beautiful in Calgary for a couple hours in the morning, you might go to Bowness Park. Or the zoo. Or the pathway along the Bow River. There are plenty of fine destinations in the city — friendly, flowery places where coddling parents love to take their young.

But here’s a news flash: the world ain’t all peacocks and petunias. A kid’s gotta learn that sooner or later, and what better way to teach that lesson than by taking a stroll down 32 Ave. N.E., one of the most unimaginative stretches of asphalt in the city? There, planes roar overhead, and semi-trucks rip past mere metres away. The sidewalks run out suddenly, leaving you to walk on dandelions, cigarette butts and under all that, a bit of grass. Where there are fences alongside the street, they’re usually topped with strands of barbed wire. L. and I killed a few hours walking past strip malls in this urban paradise as we waited for our new car stereo to get installed.

All told, I’d say our expedition was a success. L. saw humanity’s capacity for dullness, we weren’t turned into roadkill and we can now listen to our iPod in the car.

"Never bring me here again, Dad."

One of the benefits of having less patience than I’d like is that I can’t stay home with L. all morning. As in: we gotta get out of the house, or else I’ll lose it. Often I’ll take L. to the zoo, but this morning we tried something different: the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary.

The bird sanctuary is one of those places that’s beautiful and peaceful when you’re there, but easy to forget about when you’re not. Tucked against a bend in the Bow River, the forested inner-city wildlife reserve doesn’t attract too many visitors (at least, not when I’ve been there) — and that’s the beauty of it. Aside from the constant hum of traffic on nearby Deerfoot Trail, and the calls of the many birds in the park, it’s quiet.

There’s a nice loop through the forest but today, as often happens with L., plans changed and we didn’t make it around the loop. Instead, after just a few minutes of walking we stopped at a grassy area. There, L. tried to feast on pine cones, sticks, rocks and pieces of bark. Preparing for this summer’s camping trips, I guess.

We stayed there for close to an hour, L. stuffing her face with non-food items, and me digging them out and trying to think of new and original ways to say “No, you can’t eat rocks…” I’ve been told that instead of saying “no” all the time, parents should tell their kids what they can do instead. Be affirmative and all that. Nice theory, but it doesn’t seem to work very well in my experience.

In any case, we just lulled around (L. is very contemplative, very low key for the most part) and enjoyed the relative stillness of the park.

“Tree,” I’d say, pressing my finger against bark.

“Dee!” L. would reply.

“Tree!”

“Dee!”

Primitive conversation, to be sure — yet rich, too.

Speaking of trees, on the weekend, I won a National Magazine Award for “Mr. Tree,” my memoir about my Opapa. The story took gold in the One of a Kind category. I’m thrilled, obviously, but also trying to keep in mind a wise man’s utterances on these matters. His words struck me last year when I was bummed about not being nominated for any writing awards: “If you win an award, you can’t go around thinking you’re the bees’ pyjamas…. And when you don’t get an award, you can’t think, ‘Well, this is a travesty of justice and I am outraged.’ You’ve got to put it in perspective.”

Said wise man, by the way, is Brent Butt of Corner Gas fame.

I’ve been busy the last while — too busy to do any real writing on the blog (or anywhere else, for that matter). I hope to write stuff soon, but in the meantime, I offer you this crappy cellphone photo of an amusing sign at our local corner store:

The lack of punctuation begs the question: what did ice cream do, exactly, to deserve such enthusiastic affirmation? Must’ve been good, whatever it was.