G-Sync - taking notes as you grow

I'll bet that a good number of our readers visited the shores of Lake Michigan last week with favorite summer reading in hand.  While I would have liked to take a short drive west to our beautiful beaches too, I enjoyed shorelines of a different sort over the past few days along the Atlantic Ocean.

And rather than reading, I was jotting down notes about transportation in some of America's most vibrant cities such as Boston, New York and Philly that we may want to adopt here at home.

One thing that struck me was the incredibly low fares as a means to encourage travel between urban centers such as Boston and New York.  I was able to get from Boston's Chinatown to the heart of New York City on a bus for the low price of $15 ...and it included free Wifi. (For reference, an after-hours cross-town cab in Boston to my residence costs me $16 for a five minute trip.) Whether traveling for business or pleasure, this service encourages another income stream to enter a community…all the while catching up on work and emails along the journey.

As part of my summertime musings, I thought there may be entrepreneurs in our area who see value in creating a better service line between Grand Rapids and Chicago than Amtrak presently offers or someone could find a way to generate some profit while offering a fun mode of mass transit between, say, Grand Rapids and Grand Haven.

My second observation was about two-wheeled transportation: The largest cities in America now take bike lanes seriously.  Bike lanes run extensively throughout Boston, for instance, and even the cabbies show proper respect for this mode of transportation. As he drove me to my destination, my Boston cabbie checked his blind spot twice and said without a hint of malice: "You want to make sure when turning right that you don't run into a cyclist."  So Grand Rapids is definitely on the right track.  In fact, I am excited to witness the hundreds of bikes that will flood downtown as we celebrate the return of Bikestock 2 on July 17 at Rosa Parks Circle. 

So as you go along your summer adventures -- in between reading that great summer page-turner -- take notes of what you see along the way.  I'd love to hear from you about what you discover.  

The Future Needs All of Us (to take notes)

Tommy Allen, Lifestyle Editor 
       
Email:  [email protected]
Twitter Feed: @TommyGSync

Click here to continue to this week's G-Sync events.

Photo of Tommy on the East Coast provided by the artist.

Press Releases for upcoming events in the West Michigan area should be sent to [email protected]. Please include high res jpg images that are at least 500 pixels wide.