Dear editor,

I just came across an article from back in July this morning. I’m a recent transplant from South Florida and have been looking at changing up my car commute in the morning.

In Broward County, I could ride a bike 100 different ways, from the shoreline to the everglades. EBikes were especially fun since you could bypass almost all of the traffic during commuting without breaking a sweat.

When I first moved here, I kept hearing about “The Thread,” got pretty excited about it, started looking into possibly buying an ebike here to commute, but saw that it didn’t connect into the very thing that feeds LaGrange: the industrial park. The thing keeping me from commuting to work on bike is the lack of sidewalks in the industrial park. Nobody in their right mind would ride a bike or walk on Lukken or Orchard Hill. That’s suicidal. 

The price point that LaGrange was discussing for sidewalk installation shouldn’t be a concern, as it’s lower than pretty much anywhere else in the nation, and it really should have been installed in the first place. I wish they’d stop looking it at as a cost, it’s an investment! At other places I’ve worked, sidewalks served the way for dining and rec options during lunch hour, which is an entirely different challenge for LaGrange, but sidewalks would lay the foundation for that when that time inevitably comes.

I think the city needs to be encouraged to begin construction on that sooner than later. It looks like it’s been long overdue. 

 CALVIN WAGNER
LaGrange