Last Friday several dedicated parents from my neighborhood’s local elementary school followed through on a bold vision: to create a safe way for their kids to ride their bikes to school.

This is no easy challenge. The route briefly puts riders on the two busiest commuter streets passing through our community. Besides traffic, pedestrians and cyclists must be alert to impatient drivers, speeders and those who run red lights - common occurrences in our neighborhood.

To get ahead of the heaviest traffic, the Bike Bus leaves early - about 50 minutes before school starts. And to make sure that kids aren’t trapped by the car drop off line as they approach the school, it ends in the parking lot of a coffeeshop about half a block away. From there, they walk their bikes to school along the sidewalk.

I joined the Bike Bus as an advocate of my community council’s traffic safety committee. What a joyful experience, and not just for the kids!

Our traffic committee created community bike rides for adults a few years ago to help the less seasoned cyclists among us become more comfortable cycling on city streets and our growing city and regional trail infrastructure.

I credit these rides with my comfort last weekend in cycling to my grandson’s soccer game, the grocery store and the Board of Elections to cast my vote in this May’s primary.

Now the parents at our neighborhood school are doing the same for the children who live here. They’ve renewed my hope that we can once again carve out space on our streets for people as well as cars.

I last attended Cincinnati’s annual Bockfest parade when I worked two blocks away from its starting point, Arnold’s Bar & Grill.

It’s been awhile.

So on an unseasonably warm Friday afternoon we took the bus downtown to renew our acquaintance. I’m so glad we did.

Bock beer has its origins in 14th century Germany. The name “bock” - German for goat - may reflect its typically higher alcohol content that has the kick of a billy goat. It’s a rich beer and was popular with monks during Lenten fasting.

And there you have the prime elements of the opening Bockfest parade.

Cincinnati brings its best to parades. They’re always quirky and irreverent, and make room for almost anyone who wants to march along.

The Arnold’s float commemorates the famous bathtub on the second floor of Arnolds Bar & Grill. It’s rumored to have been used for making gin during Prohibition.

I needed the lighthearted tone and hearty laughter Friday’s parade provided. Let’s hear it for abolishing bad beer and bad government.

When I read this fond and funny remembrance of Charles Boehm’s about his father, I sent it to my son to be sure he knew he had my permission to do the same when my time comes.

At 70 I can’t deceive myself into thinking that I don’t have an expiration date. And so while I’m feeling more grateful than ever for my life and the people in it, I also have thoughts of what it will all mean, once I’m gone, to the people I love and leave behind.

When I retired in 2016 one of my joys was taking long walks through my neighborhood. Walking for me is more than just exercise — it’s how I work out the kinks in my thinking or process dilemmas. I don’t listen to podcasts or music; I just walk and let my mind wander.

The main intersection of my inner ring city suburb was originally the crossroads of two Indian trails. They became important connectors after European colonization and remain so today, connecting people in a number of communities to businesses, schools and interstates.

Unlike suburban arterials, these major traffic routes maintain their historical character. What I mean by that is living here offers residents the best of living in a walkable city neighborhood while also experiencing the worst of suburban traffic patterns and behaviors.

My long rambles made me acutely aware of how dangerous navigating my neighborhood on foot could be. I began to pay more attention to how car traffic affected both my safety and comfort as a pedestrian. So I was ready when our community council sought volunteers for a traffic safety committee.

And that’s how I found my post-career passion project. The other late life passion was born a few months earlier, introducing me to the joys of granny-hood.

Last year, after 7 years of living far away from me, my son and his family relocated to his hometown. Not only that — to a house on the street right behind me.

While my grandson has yet to join me on one of my long rambles, he has been introduced to the joy of walking his neighborhood with a grandma whose eyes are trained on all the vehicular wrongdoing going on around us.

So far he’s been mostly quiet as I glare at the driver blocking the crosswalk, mouthing helpfully at them, “You’re in the crosswalk!” Or the many people running red lights or speeding during restricted school zone hours. None go by without an astringent comment from me.

Enforcement is nearly nonexistent for traffic infractions these days. People who advocate for greater driver restraint need to rely on a host of other ways to get the message across. Cute signs don’t work, nor do bumper stickers.

Engineering changes like speed humps or cushions and a wide variety of other ways to build complexity into the driving environment, forcing drivers to slow down and pay attention, cost lots of money. In my city alone there are 52 neighborhoods vying for limited funding.

It means the necessary changes happen far too slowly and the challenges will outlive me. Which is why I imagine an enduring image my grandson will have of me when I’m gone is of Grandma yelling at cars.

I spent most of my working years commuting by bus. It was convenient and cheaper than paying for gas and parking. I was also motivated by making a small contribution to reducing both traffic congestion and my environmental impact.

I continue to take the bus when I can even though I’m now among the most difficult group to attract and retain:  those who have other options. For this group the further bus service gets from a reasonable tradeoff between convenience and motivation, the harder it is to persuade people to choose the bus over their cars.

So what does a compromised tradeoff look like? Drawing upon my experience this past weekend:

• The app provided for arrival and departure times doesn’t accurately reflect either. Sometimes I watch as the times swing wildly from single to double digits. Wait time is already the primary turnoff for many in this group, and buses that arrive in 20, 30 or 60 minute intervals limit adoption, especially on trips requiring transfers.

• The separate app required to purchase fares doesn’t include the reduced fare for older riders and veterans. In my case this means I must carry one special ID card and a separate fare card, each swiped or scanned on different devices onboard the bus.

• Connecting stops you build into your travel plan get moved with no notice posted on the apps or the transit line’s website. This would have been less of an annoyance had I not been recovering from a fractured ankle and trying to avoid too much walking. Once I saw the sign posted to the planned bus stop, I had to backtrack one block and walk three more to reach the new stop.
  
  And what about people from out of town, as were many who were attending a big music festival this past weekend? A sign saying, “Bus stop moved to the Freedom Center” doesn’t tell them where this is. At least I knew where I was headed.

Offering services that narrow the travel tradeoff, like Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), cost a lot of money. (My local transit service is in the process of building two BRT lines scheduled to go into service later this decade along with many other service improvements.)

There are less expensive ways to make planning and paying for travel easier, although I’m not aware of any efforts here to do so. For example, why can’t there be one app that allows you to plan, pay and track your travel – and that includes all the available fares?

Why don’t we have the universal tap and pay using our phone, credit card or special travel card, as I was able to do so conveniently while traveling in the UK?

I know it’s not easy running a public transit service, especially in a country that prioritizes cars over other forms of transit. I’m willing to make the necessary travel tradeoffs.

Many of my more impatient family, friends and neighbors aren’t yet willing to join me. Converting them will require more than BRT routes; it will also require making the process of planning, paying and connecting more frictionless.

One of my favorites was taking long walks through my own and neighboring communities. What I encountered on those walks became both a source of healing from my political alienation and a post-retirement passion project.

It all started with a complaint about traffic safety on our neighborhood Facebook page. Our community council president’s response was to form a committee and invite people to present solutions.

I jumped at the chance to be a part of this. In the years since, we’ve chalked up a number of improvements, and I’m pleased that even our worst intersections are safer than when we started. But as always, there’s so much more to do to combat our unsafe and car-centric driving culture.

Traveling to other countries gives me the chance to observe the ways others manage traffic flow and pedestrian and bicycle safety. These are my reflections after a recent visit to the UK.

While I’ll primarily talk about road safety, let me also plug the joys of a robust mass transit network. Other than rural Scotland, we were able to manage the entire 2+ weeks using trains, undergrounds, buses and ferries. (And walking - a lot of walking.) I would love to ditch my car and use Amtrak’s proposed expansions for longer trips. I remain cautiously hopeful for the Ohio expansion.

I took this picture on my walk to breakfast my first full day in England. This is the High Street, the main thoroughfare through town. I immediately noticed the narrow streets and wide sidewalks. Posted speed is 20 mph. Not all drivers complied but I can say that everything about this scene signals caution, from the cars parked into lanes of traffic to pedestrians thronging the street on this Bank Holiday weekend.

I captured this picture from the top of a double decker bus on the Isle of Wight. If you’re traveling in a lane where parking is allowed, your only choice is to wait for opposing traffic to go by or to signal you to proceed before them. And again, the narrow streets and frequent lane changes don’t invite rampant speeding.

I love roundabouts. They don’t have to be the gigantic affairs we so often see Stateside. These mini roundabouts accomplish the same goal of moving traffic more safely and efficiently than stop signs without drastically re-engineering streets.

And a pet peeve: when you use roundabouts, signal your left or right turn unless you’re going straight.

I’ve saved one of my favorites for last: bollards. Like many places I visited in the UK, I live in a community with sidewalks that closely abut relatively narrow streets. While I was away, my community experienced two separate crashes on our own “High Street” running through our central business district.

Bollards would not have prevented either crash, but they might have stopped the worst of the damage to property and potentially people. Throughout my UK travels, I saw bollards lining the streets, creating a barrier between streets and sidewalks. Perhaps we might feel more comfortable with sidewalk cafes or streeteries if we used bollards to help establish a protective safety zone.

I’m now back home, where a week after my return my son, grandson and I were nearly hit by a driver running a red light in one of my community’s busiest intersections. My recent travels are at the forefront of my mind as I put together a presentation for my city’s leaders to advocate for doing more to protect us.

I’ve spent the past three weeks visiting my son in his home in a mid-20th century subdivision in Southwest Washington.

While the immediate neighborhood is lovely with lots of quiet residential streets, it’s not too far away from busy streets and the crowded cluster of strip malls and grocery stores that define America’s suburbs. But I like to walk and since I’m in a less familiar place, it’s nice to have a destination to focus on. Turns out my favorite grocery store, Trader Joe’s, is about 2 miles away from my son’s house. The 4 mile roundtrip is about the same as the walks I take at home. Perfect!

The first half of my trip takes me through residential streets and a small city park adjoining the neighborhood elementary school. Yet even here the signs of auto dependence jump out at me.

It’s rare to see homes with even two-car garages in my older city suburb, but I’ve found 3 car garages quite common here. This one was especially noticeable because it looked like the square footage dedicated to garage space was at least as big — if not bigger — than the living space.

Once I leave the nearby park, I’m on increasingly busy streets. My route takes me across an interstate overpass and through two busy intersections, where I can’t cross unless I press a “beg” button for the pedestrian Walk sign.

I’m now in a space where there are few pedestrians and those you see are not usually on foot by choice. My destination is a short half block from arguably the worst intersection in this city - one I’ll do anything to circumvent when I’m driving.

In a nod to the Pacific Northwest civility towards pedestrians, I’ll add that even in these circumstances, I find drivers pay attention to those of us on foot and wait for us to cross, even in this most car-centric of places. I’d like to bring some of that culture back to Cincinnati with me.

It’s not pleasant to walk in a place so heavily dominated by cars but I’m determined to continue my 2-3 times weekly trips to Trader Joe’s on foot while I’m here. Besides the exercise, it’s helped me appreciate my own walkable neighborhood even more.