When Mobile area guys and gals sweating in bright skin-tight lycra ride their bicycle in heart pumping aerobic fashion they don't pay much attention to the rules of the road. The public roads are the bicycler's playground much to the dismay of motor vehicle drivers. This bicycle group seen along Dauphin Island Parkway not only takes up the entire right lane but a couple are riding 4 abreast out in the turn lane. Can't say as I blame them.
You see, bicyclists can easily ride 20 miles in a short 1-2 hour social workout so what few bike trails Mobile does have like the narrow overgrown and decaying Montlimar Fitness Trail are absolutely worthless to bicyclists. Bicyclists in Mobile have no safe paved playground also known as a Rails-to-Trails.
Some Cities which want to foster exercise find a way to shut down some of their streets for a few hours on the weekend. This basically turns a couple of public streets into a long paved public playground which bicyclists, walkers, skateboarders, skaters, dancers, etc can use without fear of being run over by speeding vehicles. If well planned the temporary street closures can be done with minimal disruption.
Such public street exercise initiatives have a variety of benefits including attracting tourists and new businesses, creating racial harmony in community and of course, providing the endorphins that make the thousands of participants happier people. Mobile, a City that has recently been ranked as the most miserable City in America to live in could certainly use some "happy."
Unfortunately planners and leaders get what they plan for which in Mobile is yielding alcoholism, drug addiction, fostering crime, littered streets and waterways, filth, decay, and despair. The bicycle lanes that Mobile leaders and planners were begged for in the 1970s through bicycle advocacy efforts still don't exist. Past Mobile area leaders and planners sucked.