The Broom Wagon

Years ago, on the other coast, my co-workers and I would enjoy lunch al fresco during the warmer months. We had our favorite places: a magnolia-rimmed plaza with a huge fountain, a tree-shaded lawn, even the local cemetery. We would always leave a place cleaner than we found it—removing litter that had been thoughtlessly tossed by others.

As I climbed the ramp to the second bike/pedestrian bridge on my route on Monday, a wide swath of shattered glass glistened in the morning sun. There was no way to ride around it. [Lovely.]

I meant to alert the town's Public Works Department, but that slipped my mind until I faced my second trip through the field of glass on my way home. After picking a half-dozen fragments out of my tires, I filled out their online form.

I meant to pack a small broom on Tuesday morning, but forgot. I grimaced on my third trip through the glass. The Public Works folks dispatched a crew to sweep up, and I was relieved that I would have a clean ride home. [Not.]

In sweeping the ramp, they managed to disperse the glass over a wider area (and remove little or none of it).

On Wednesday morning, I tucked a well-worn whisk broom under my cargo net (a recent acquisition). I parked my bike on the ramp and proceeded to sweep both sides of the path, from the center line to the edge. Shards of clear glass were scattered over some 15 feet of the ramp.

Five passing cyclists thanked me.

You're a very good person!

One pedestrian was impressed and stopped to chat.

It was a slow, tedious job with my little broom, but my calculation had been more selfish than selfless. Spend 20 minutes to sweep the bridge once, or spend time every day picking glass out of my tires (or worse). Dealing with just one punctured tube would take more time.

I remembered to send some polite feedback to the Public Works Department. They needed to know that their clean-up attempt was not only ineffective—it made matters worse. And I wanted to make sure they didn't re-distribute the glass the next time they swept the bridge.

They got the memo. On my way home, the glass was gone, gone, gone!