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Want to play 'Survivor: Tampa'?

By SUE CARLTON
Published June 9, 2007

So I rode my bike to work.

This is notable only because I live not in bikeable Boulder or Portland or even St. Petersburg, a city recently awarded a bronze in the League of American Bicyclists' bike-friendly communities. No, I live in one of those "redeveloping" neighborhoods in urban Tampa.

From my neighborhood you can read the letters on the tall buildings of the downtown skyline. My front door and my desk are only a couple of miles apart. Sure, in between are construction, traffic, brick streets, bridges, the Hillsborough River and one major interstate. Still. I pedal off.

Bike lanes? My neighborhood doesn't even have sidewalks. Cars pass close and fast. At traffic lights, I see two blatant red-light runners and two more that could go to a jury.

The breeze is nice, though, and I'm not burning three bucks a gallon. I can take in the progress of a new housing development and some rowers gliding up the river. Passing under car-clogged Interstate 275, I get a wave from a homeless guy.

Charming red brick streets do not make for an easy ride, however. I avoid more cars and picture the old-school video game Frogger. I roll up to the Times building thinking: People dodge this daily, many out of necessity.

Mayor Pam Iorio, who recently logged bike miles in a police memorial ride in Washington, agrees our traffic and lack of bike paths can make it tough going.

Jim Shirk, a member of the Tampa Bay Cycle campaign who regularly rides from Seminole Heights into downtown, noticed a striking difference across the bridge: "It seems like there's less pressure, it's less dense, it feels safer. I think the diffuse nature of the streets in St. Petersburg has an impact."

Bike paths in the works should make Tampa more cycle-friendly. Even the mayor's planned Riverwalk along the Hillsborough, which just got a $2-million boost from the Legislature, should make a cruise into downtown less treacherous. If bikers can avoid becoming bumper candy before then.

* * *

This week I feel like George Costanza in that Seinfeld episode in which everything happens opposite of what he says.

I almost admired Paris Hilton for showing a little Martha Stewart pluck on her way to jail, saying, "I'm going to be treated like everyone else. I'm going to do the time." Imagine, in our era of too-pretty-for-prison. And then she manages to get out in three days- for a night and some cupcakes, at least. (She was ordered back to jail Friday.)

When local activist Nadine Smith asked for a public apology for her needless arrest (and subsequent dropped charges) at a Largo city meeting, I think I said something about a snowball and hell. Then the city formally apologized. Surely Smith didn't expect this either, right?

Apparently newspaper people are more cynical. "Hope springs eternal in the heart of activists, " Smith said. "If we didn't think things would get better, we wouldn't be asking for them to."

I even wrote a column lamenting the closing of the Wine Exchange restaurant in ailing Hyde Park Village, only to have the place miraculously reopen.

Next week's column headline: How I Didn't Win the Lotto.

Sue Carlton's column now appears on Saturdays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

[Last modified June 9, 2007, 01:23:31]