“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

— Dalai Lama

Last week on the Enterprise’s Facebook page was posted a pic and article about the newly-painted bike lanes on Ampersand Avenue.

(The lanes were put there to prevent kids biking to the Civic Center and the bike park from being flattened by oblivious drivers — which is far too many of them.)

For reasons I neither know nor care about, the bike lanes’ lines aren’t uniform: In some places they’re wavey, in others they’re not a consistent width apart. And in none of them is there a bike lane symbol.

When printed on Facebook, the photo, with its accompanying story, elicited hundreds of comments, almost all of them poking fun at the village’s DPW workers. They ran the gamut from slightly snarky to downright dumba**, with hardly a speck of wit to be found among them.

I think the commentators were trying to be humorous, but I was not amused, and I’ll tell you why. Our DPW people work their duffs off, and they do it for the communal good. In other words, they pull our chestnuts out of the fire for us. And they work the hardest when conditions are the lousiest. When everything hits the fan, meteorologically, structurally, and logistically, they’re the ones who have to set it right. For sure, they work a helluva lot harder than I ever did, thus commanding my respect. And I feel they should command everyone else’s respect as well.

But there was precious little respect among the FB comments. Nor, ultimately, would I have expected there to be. Today, due to the glory of cyber-communications, every jamoke with internet access can become an instant critic. And when he does, he’ll be immediately validated by his fellow jamokes with internet access.

Clearly, when it comes to the bike lanes, someone made a mistake. But who doesn’t? So what’s accomplished by endless goofing on the peeps who made it — other than making them feel bad? As far as I’m concerned, the last word on that issue comes from one of history’s great teachers, which I will liberally paraphrase as: Let he who is without mistakes, paint the first line.

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Life, and near-death, in the slow lane

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That almost all the FB comments were snotty and nonconstructive wasn’t bad, of and by itself, because it’s just par for internet commentary. What was bad were the few intelligent and well-considered comments that were made were lost among babble from the rabble. Yet this needs to be addressed because the biking situation in My Home Town is a serious issue. It is also, in a word, deplorable.

That wouldn’t be understood by the FB critics because I doubt any of them have ridden a bike since they got their driver’s license. This is typical in town, and in the U.S. in general, since Americans tend to regard bicycles as kids’ playthings. And thus any adult who rides a bike is considered either a case of arrested development or just some kind of weirdo.

But it’s not the same in most other countries, where bikes are considered a serious form of transportation, and so the laws and drivers treat bikers with respect. The Netherlands may be the best-known example of a country with enlightened bike policies, but they’re not the only one.

But here? Fergit it.

You want an example? How about this:

If you get on a bike at Riverside Park and start to ride up Lake Flower Avenue, there is a bike lane (except during farmers market, when it’s parked up). So you’re cruisin’ and groovin’ till you get to the big curve by NBT bank, when — Lo and Behold! — the bike lane disappears. Yep, that’s right, folks — first it’s there, then it’s not. Poof! Gone! Now ya see it, now ya don’t — a DOT magic act at its worst.

So now you have two options: Either move into the traffic lane itself, with almost no warning to you or the drivers, or get off the road and ride on the sidewalk (which, by the way, is illegal).

If you survive that li’l boogaloo with body and psyche intact, you have the pleasure of getting back in the bike lane … till Mountain Mist, where there’s usually a car or two in the lane and where once again you have to pull out into the road or go on the sidewalk. Go another few hundred yards and the situation repeats itself at the tennis courts.

Of course, it’s illegal to park in bike lanes. But since that law is never enforced, it’s never known, or even considered, by anyone other than the poor putzes on bikes.

And to all this mess we can add two more “delights” of riding a bike here. One is that bike lane is either in disrepair or covered with a layer of detritus, natural, man-made, or for all I know, extraterrestrial. The second is the huge number of drivers who are constantly indulging in The New American Pastime — texting (illegal, and also never enforced).

And if you think Lake Flower Avenue is uniquely unsafe for bikers, guess again. Multiply Lake Flower Avenue by almost all the other streets in town, and you’ve got the biking situation in town in a nutshell — and a slopgut nutshell it is.

The unfortunate part is it need not be like this. With proper bike lane markings, education of both drivers and bikers, and law enforcement of some sort, this could be a town that’s safe and fun to bike in.

Will that ever happen?

Your guess is as good as mine.

But, sadly, my guess is No.