Roody

A couple hours in the suburbs without a map or GPS can be a small adventure--just right for an afternoon off.

Another online resource I use is the satellite view. I see shortcuts that aren't noticeable on a map or even on site. Sometimes you can see "social trails" in the satellite view that previous cyclists or walkers have created. I made my own trail across a vacant lot that I use for a short cut. On google maps, I can see my own bike tire tracks from outer space!

gerv 

Yep... I wonder if you can rent a GPS. It'd be a great tool for about a week.

Roody

Many cell phones have GPS, no additional cost. Or so I've heard. I'm one of the old-schoolers who prefers maps or dead reckoning to portable GPS. (I do enjoy online maps.)

One thing I prefer about maps is that they show you the entire region, rather than only the area you're "supposed" to be Paying attention to. Sometimes the best traveling is done in the peripheral areas.

Mobile 155

The point I was tryin to make is in addtion to local knowledge which makes moving through a large city or the suburbs easy for anyone. But if you are asking the same question as the OP, when touring in a new area looing at a map of some kind makes any city or suburb just easy to navigate. Without local knowlege I couldn't get through Seattle any better than I could through Bothel, Kenmore, Renton or Bellevue.

bragi

Hard-won local knowledge beats GPS every time. Of course. But in the absence of local knowledge, GPS is incredibly useful. It may even be more useful than asking locals for directions or advice. Sadly, in recent years, I've noticed that, if you're on a bike and ask locals for directions, they either flee in terror, snort contemptuously and move on, or give you apparently well-meaning but completely inaccurate information.

wolfchild

Actually my experience has been opposite. It's not usually me that asks for directions but I've had both drivers and pedestrians ask me for directions. Sometimes when I am stopped at an intersection a driver will roll their window down and ask me about directions. I can honestly say that I've never had anybody "flee in terror away from me" because of riding a bicycle.

wolfchild

A little bit of an adventure can be a good thing. Getting lost for few minutes or hours and being forced out of your comfort zone is a good thing once in a while, it sharpens your senses and keeps you on edge, it can also be an oppurtinity to find new routes that you never knew existed. Suburbs are not wilderness, you're not gona die from starvation and exhaustion for running around in circles.

Newspaperguy

When I travel by bike, people have been incredibly friendly to me and they have helped me whenever I have needed directions or road advice.

On my last trip, I used Google Maps to plan the route each day, but there were times when Google Maps steered me to roads which did not exist.

For trips in British Columbia, I use a Garmin GPS on my bike. I have the maps for most of the province and I can see the routes and the elevation changes along the way.

kmv2

In Belgium and Netherlands people were like "Directions? Why not just follow me!" and then we'd talk and exchange stories on the way. I was surprised and delighted.

Mobile 155

What happens more to me is because I am on a bike people will assume I know where I am and where I am going and ask for directions. But I will confess even if I am in a strange town I will simply ask my Iphone and then relay the information to the lost driver.

Newspaperguy

I've had people do that for me in the United States. In all the trips I've done, in multiple countries and many regions, I have encountered very few truly rude people. Most are willing to help out if I need.

Roody

There are plenty of people like that here in Michigan, myself included. Also, people will stop and ask if you want help changing a tire or something. Strangers have asked me if I wanted a lift when I was broken down. Somebody even asked me if I wanted a lift in a bad rainstorm, even though it would have meant getting his truck upholstery all wet.

kmv2

I guess what I mean is I didn't expect that level of generosity. Here, yes, people are willing to point you in the right way and give a few rights and lefts, or offer to help change a flat, and in dire desolate situations you can often get a ride somewhere, but to drop everything and say "hey, let's ride together and you can tell me about your journey" was new, especially when you're in the middle of a densely populated area and in no clear danger. My anecdote even included a police officer on a motorized scooter.

MetalPedaler

That's the beauty of the older suburbs, like where I grew-up on Long Island- endless miles of interc onnected residential streets which allow you to ride seemingly endlessly without having to venture onto fast/high-traffic roads.

The newer suburbs, with their endless pattern of dead-ends which all feed onto a secondary road, which in turn feeds onto a main highway, which everyone is forced to use, were designed by very short-sighted people, and are very limited.

In the older suburbs, as the price of gas gets higher and higher, and as infrastructure crumbles, it is quite natural and easy for the average person to take to a bike for transportation- but in the newer 'burbs....people are pretty much stuck, because those 'burbs were designed around the car and around one specific lifestyle...and as soon as there is a ***** in the system, those places become obsolete/make life hard on their inhabitants.

When I was a kid, we were car-free. Walked or rode virtually everywhere...and it was GREAT! (I really feel sorry for today's kids- strapped into seats; staring at a DVD screen....)- I didn't become a "car person" till I was 26. As I look back, I appreciate the benefits that that car-free childhood afforded me; Benefits of good health; Of experiencing my environment more fully; Freedom; Not having to support a car, etc. What a joyous life it was!

Ekdog

I've just read an article about hipsters leaving the inner city and heading for the suburbs. This sentence stood out:

Quote:

The goal is to create cities, and transit-accessible inner-ring suburbs, that are economically diverse and integrated, commercially vibrant, and ecologically sustainable.

If this can be done, these suburbs will be more like small towns, and much more livable.

kmv2

Hopefully. I think that huge amount of people who grew up in the suburbs and have never experienced life in the city or country are going to be the loudest opposition. Couple this with the fact that suburban residents typically pay lower property taxes, despite their higher strain and demand on the infrastructure.

I have been lucky in that I was raised in the country and spent my post teen years til now in the downtown core. So, I have experienced the advantages of both. With the suburbs, I feel you have perceived advantages that never materialize. Its nice to live in "Calming meadows" or "Bubbling Brook" or whatever, but the name of the place and the actual experience could not be further apart.

I-Like-To-Bike

This sentence from the same article stood out to me:
"The Times piece was widely mocked. As Slate’s Jessica Grose pointed out, young parents with children leaving their cramped apartments for spacious suburban homes is as old as the suburbs themselves. The only difference is that until recently, the vast majority of young artists and professionals in New York City lived in Manhattan and went straight to suburbia from there without stopping in the outer boroughs. "

Doohickie

You know, if you right click on a Google map in the area of a social trail, "report a problem" and describe the trail, they will include as either a walking or cycling trail on Google Maps. They typically get the update in within a month. For instance, the short trail connecting the dead-end loop of a freeway access road where it encounters a train track, connecting to a road that crosses the track (green in this map) was added to Google Maps at my suggestion.

Doohickie

I did that for a guy I ran into on a ride. He was in town visiting his daughter, and brought his bike to ride while she was at work. He was baffled as to how to get back to where he started, so I rode most of the way with him to show the way.

Roody

That's awesome! Thanks for the info.

cycleobsidian

Yes, I agree with this. With the price of gas and and infrastructure ever increasing, I think people will be interested in this type of living arrangement. I am hoping as well that cities develop into a series of self-sustaining neighbourhoods through mixed development, even though that could be difficult with the development pattern the way it is now.

gerv 

Now they're taking the train in from Connecticut ...

I-Like-To-Bike

Probably cheaper (and more family friendly) for parents with children than living in NYC, car free or not. It doesn't take a hipster to figure that out.

MetalPedaler

Not just that, but as the economy starts to slide further into the crapper, the neighborhoods that the hipsters were regentrifying- like Bushwick*- which were never really good, are probably starting to revert back to the high-crime slums which they had been for the last 30 years, prior to the arrival of the hipsters- so faced with abandoning their new enclaves, it's either move to pricier digs...or move back to the suburbs/mom & dad's house.

[*= or, as they now euphemistically call it: "East Williamsburg"- LOL]

cycleobsidian

I think that the areas that are going to be the slums when the economy slides further, are the exurbs with the McMansions, as is occuring now.

The areas that are maintaining their value, despite economic decline, are those that are walkable, bikeable, and have good transit systems.