Making Groceries

Street Highlights: Capital Heights, Seven Oaks Ave, Keed Ave.

Jefferson Highway is a force to be reckoned with. Like so many thoroughfares in Baton Rouge its origins and organization are shrouded in mystery. Also known as LA Highway 73, it extends tangentially from the side of Mid-city heading Southeast off from Government. While parts of it are tame it does eventually merge onto Highway 61 for two the worst planned and utterly disastrous miles in Baton Rouge. The two Highways run almost parallel to each other but when they collide no amount of lanes, lights, or frontage roads can direct those cars towards civility.


Fortunately we are not going too far down Jefferson. Not even so far as to call it Old Jefferson. I say we for my wife is accompanying my on this bikventure. She too has caught the two-wheeled addiction which is fortunate as I'll need her help and her rack - to haul groceries.





Those avid readers of Bicyclette Rouge will notice a pattern. When heading east I often break the law a bit and travel the wrong way down one-wayed Hearthstone Dr. to cross Government St. at the light. However, law enforcement sticklers will be happy to know when I head West towards downtown or work I go the correct one-way down Bedford Dr. like a good law abiding cyclist.

This light leads through the Westmoreland Shopping Center's parking lot right behind Catholic High School. It's used by the students but once school is out it's a concrete wasteland. I usually take it around behind CVS following Cole Dr. This leads me onto Acadian Thwy. which we cautiously traverse a short, quick block to the turning lane to bike Mecca Capital Heights.




From this now defunct turning lane on Acadian, you can get to a flat, smooth double bike-laned road, Capital Heights. I've written about it before but enough good things cannot be said about that road. It is a beacon in an otherwise dismal biking town. It will take us about half the distance of our 3.5 mile journey.


Coming out the other end of Capital Heights we have our first run in with Jefferson Hwy. At the intersection of these two very different roads is a lively shopping center and art district. Here it is tame, but often we will ride through the parking lot in front of the Compact Disc store just to be safe. We quickly cross Jefferson and do a U-turn into the Goodwood Playground which is circled by two roads, Winn/Esplanade Ave and Seven Oaks Ave.



In the past I have taken Esplanade and headed north to Florida Blvd, but my path here is southward and Seven Oaks is my chosen road. Seven Oaks is lovely. The park is shady and smooth and it lets into a quiet neighborhood with no sidewalk and very slight neighborhood traffic. It runs almost parallel to Jefferson Hwy and will deliver us safely to our destination, Whole Foods Market.


On Seven Oaks we knew we were getting close. We needed only to pick a road to ferry us across Jefferson, which at this point is a 5-laned behemoth with little to no shoulder. Our aim was a light on Jefferson near the entrance of the Corporate Blvd shopping center of which Whole Food is a part. The problem is this light does not connect to any neighborhood road. Our options were to go just east of it onto Thibodeaux Ave take a right onto Jefferson then left at the light, or to preempt the light by taking Keed Ave then left onto Jefferson and right at the light.



We opted for Keed Ave. Traffic wasn't terrible and we were able to take a left into the turning lane and merge all the way to the right to ride in the almost non-existent shoulder - single file of course. It was only a few feet to the light and since we opted to take a right we didn't have to wait for a green.

At last we arrived with our milk crates strapped to our racks and a few bags to carry things in. The trip was easy and worthwhile. We got some delicious foods, some righteous beer, and refreshing drinks all for prices we can afford simply because our gasoline bill is almost non existent. We'll do this path again and often. We'll have to. You know how organic food is. Without preservatives the produce will be wilted and the bread moldy before we get home.







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A Night at the Theatre

Street Highlights: Capital Heights, Glenmore Ave, Bankers Ave, Energy Dr

This was an altogether unpleasant ride. Everything was going smoothly until Webb Golf Course, which forced us onto College Drive. While not the main idea of this entry, a motif of fuck you Webb Golf Course will be present.

The plan seemed innocent enough. My wife and I wanted to see a movie and perhaps have a drink afterward. We went to the Citiplace Theatre in Citiplace Center followed by a fancy bottled beer joint, The Cove. The monkey-wrench in our plan was, as it always is, we wanted to bike out.

Despite what the map says we did not bike down Acadian Thwy. Instead we took our usual route through the Westmoreland Shopping Center to Cole Dr. behind CVS and onto Acadian. We quickly merged onto the now defunct Capital Heights turning lane (pictured above). I've mentioned it before but Capital Heights is the best a biker can do in the Capital City. Its almost two miles of one-way traffic with bike lanes on either side. We didn't take it all the way this time, we headed south on Glenmore Ave.




Glenmore doesn't look like much at first, but after it crosses Claycut Rd it branches out into two separate lanes with a wide neutral ground (median) between them. Also a bike lane! So it's easy sailing. It can take you all the way to the highway and almost over it, but that's a path for another day. We headed east on Broussard St then pass the Country club onto Westdale Dr Our overall goal was to make it to Webb Golf Course and hopefully exploit its paths to cross the Coolie.




I call them coolies. In my hometown of Lafayette we all called them coolies. As I think about it now I don't know if everyone calls them coolies or if that is a Lafayette colloquialism. I guess some call it a Concrete Bayou others a plain old sewer ditch. In either case it is a concrete river in our way. If you look to the left you'll see what I mean. The blue line shows the ditch cutting us off. The only places to cross are Claycut which leads to unfriendly Foster or College Dr, which is more bike unfriendly that Claycut and Foster combined. However; while not pictured on the map, Webb Golf Course has many paths over the water and even have their own private crosswalk to pass College. Surely the nice golfers wouldn't mind sharing their paths with some friendly bikers on a Friday evening.

Welcome Golfers: All other activities are prohibited

Wrong. It became very clear that we were not welcomed on two wheels. If the sign wasn't indication enough the fencing cinched it. As we neared the end of Westdale Dr they began. They even encompassed the sidewalk on College Dr. Across their own private crosswalk, the golfers had completely enclosed their holes. Even if we could cross we would be fenced in on the other side.

Sticking with the motif of fuck you Webb Golf Course I will quickly describe a similar situation. A few days after this trek I needed to report to my work's central office right there on Foster Dr across the concrete bayou. I looked at the map on the right and Greenside Dr led to a golfer's crosswalk over the canal, but that too was fenced in. I had to double back around and cross on Claycut then bike precariously down Foster. So I can say for sure that even though Webb has half a dozen crosswalks for golfers, the only way for most folks to make their way across is the two major roads Claycut and College. Although I didn't get a photo of the College Dr fencing, below you can see where Greenside meets the park from the view point of the back of my central office. Completely fenced. Could have saved me a good mile so each ride. So Fuck You Webb Golf Course, twice now.

So my wife and I see no safe way to cross College so we double back and head through the Country Club's neighborhood. We eventually had to cross at the light on Woodside Dr (pictured below), but not before we vain-fully tried to find a better spot. Woodside goes into the neighborhood and doesn't let out south until Glenmore, yeah Glenmore taking us way back. So we turned around again and crossed into Westdale Middle School and road along the bumpy-ass sidewalk as it was Friday evening traffic and I wasn't about to get hit.




Bankers Ave turned out to be a Godsend. It's a relatively new street near the busy College-Bawell intersection. Bawell St is not such a bad street to go down except when it's busy. Although it is a designated bike lane, the roads are narrow and one-laned. If one were to go straight across the intersection, though most hang a quick right-left onto Corporate Blvd, Bawell would change names to Bankers, a common occurrence in Baton Rouge.






Bankers Ave led us to Energy Dr which had a light that could safely ferry us across Corporate Blvd. There are mostly hotels and crappy chain restaurants, a la Chili's, in this sector of the Center, but we thought surely there was a way to cross into the area with the theatre and bar, but there we go thinking again. I might have to start calling my wife Shirley. The Bestwestern Parking lot was fenced in, the Hilton was fenced in, so we once again road on the sidewalk. Fuck You Hilton and Bestwestern.


At this point the sidewalks were nice and even. Naturally for Baton Rouge there were no pedestrians. So we made it to the theatre through the busy parking lot with a few minutes to spare and believe it or not we weren't the only bikers, there was one other. Afterward we had some fancy beers at the Cove. Strange, however, that they tout themselves to be a fancy beer bar though they have not a single beer on draft. Forgive me, however, I am a beer snob.





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