I took the bike out of the basement yesterday morning. When I moved in January, I found that my bicycle commute time to Back Bay had doubled while my T commute, curiously, remained the same. February was cold and miserable, as I recall, and the bike went down into the basement and I took the T to work for a couple of months. Misery loves company, after all.

But the weather this week, while still a tad cool for April, has been perfect for riding. I still haven't found a definitive route to work, but I'm enjoying discovering Cambridge in the process. I give myself a good hour for my morning ride, although forty minutes is enough to get where I'm going.

A good morning ride, or a run, clears the head, doesn't it? I can't think of a better way to start the day, or a worse way to start the day than on the T.

The afternoon ride is more leisurely still—I have no plans in the afternoon but my nap—and there's no need to rush home for that. On my way this afternoon, I took Oxford Street. They have a couple of raised crosswalks there that are gorgeous:


This one, at Wendell St., just took my breath away. All of the intersections in Back Bay should look just like this one. Where pedestrians cross the sidewalk is flush with the street, like so:


But instead of having to step down into the gutter, the whole intersection is raised, so that when it rains, you don't end up in a foot of filthy water. This is also the only proper and moral way to comply with the ADA.

Moral, you say? Can crosswalks be immoral? Absolutely.

I get the feeling compliance with the ADA is often grudging, sometimes mean-spirited, and on rare occasions downright nasty. I mean, why has it taken so long to come up with this solution for crosswalks? Why are nearly all the crosswalks in Boston flooded when it rains, and piled with snow and slush in the winter, making them all but impassable for able-bodied pedestrians, never mind anyone with a disability, the very folks for whom the ramps into the gutter have purportedly been designed?

Cambridge's solution is both sincere and elegant (that rare killer combination)—this should be the standard, and compliance should be compulsory.

OK, so can you tell how I'm sublimating my libido these days?