The last few days

Sunday afternoon I joined John Curran's walking tour of the area between Brooks Landing and the Ford Street Bridge. There's more to it than I knew!

A beautiful day and new acquaintances, in addition to seeing and learning about

• the 107 mile Genessee Valley Canal (which terminated right in Rochester),
• Camp Fitz-John Porter
• the Vacuum Oil factory (oil drums piled five stories high and a football field wide!)
• the abolitionist / underground railroad connection
• the parallel paths that makes this my preferred riverway route for the Greenway
• Mr. Curran himself, who I look forward to working with in the future

Then, on Sunday evening I met some of our Rochester Cycling Allies for the first time (http://RochesterCyclingAlliance.blogspot.com). A passionate and convivial group! I learned

• that there is a budget proposal cooking that would allocate $25K for bicycle improvements this year, and 10 times that much next year
• that the group was going to visit this evening's City Council meeting to express support (see below)
• that we have common interests and much to learn from each other
• that my colleague Jason Hammell saw how bike advocacy took hold in Albany
• that there are still more bike stakeholder/advocates to make contact with

So this evening I joined the group at City Hall.

• Chris Machanoff made some good short remarks and then ceded a few minutes to me.
• I pointed out that Rochester was "this close" to becoming a world capital of bicycling.
• And then Andrew hit it out of the park.
• And then, afterwards, Alinda Drury ( Sr. Staff Assistant, Office of the Mayor, and coordinator of the Mayor's Green Team) introduced herself and told us about several more initiatives including a triathlon to be organized by Yellow Jacket. She also offered to convey my letter to the Mayor.
• And the crew and I went to Dinosaur barbecue.

Productive, interesting, fun, inspirational, and promising.