Route optimization

I recently discovered a slightly shorter route for daily commuting. For about a year now, in a certain intersection, instead of going straight forward, I've been taking a right turn, going up hill, then down hill, doing some turns, stopped at traffic lights, then up and down two hills and through another set of traffic lights.

I used to think that that was the straightest route there is. In my experience, when bicycling in places you've never bicycled in before, you tend to get lost, ride into dead ends and turn up in unexpected places at first. Then, when you find a reasonable route, you tend to stick with it, even though there might be better routes. This happens because the bicycling routes aren't very well marked around here.

So, there I was, one morning, once again grinding through my established, although not very smooth, commuting route. I bypassed a fellow commuter just before the aforementioned intersection, then made my way through the ups, downs, turns and traffic lights, going as fast as I could, as usual. Then I bypassed the very same fellow commuter again. Wait a minute! They know something I don't. There has to be a better route, which is a kind of a holy grail for the ever micro-optimizing commuting tempo specialist.

Actually, at the intersection I keep writing on about, I've often thought to myself something like "must check on Google Maps where that other road goes to someday", and then, promptly forgotten to do just that. So, the next morning, I just went straight where I usually turned. This is what the intersection looks like:


Yes, that's a traffic sign indicating a light traffic route. But then there are also these ones:


A traffic sign for a dead end street, two signs indicating a construction site. But wait, there's more:


A sign forbidding motorized vehicles and yet another sign of a construction site, which also denies uncalled-for access, complete with a picture of a guy doing the "talk to the hand" gesture.

As a (mostly) law-abiding citizen I'd interpreted these signs as "no-go", even though, I suppose, bicycling isn't actually forbidden here. But from behind this bewildering array of signage, there opened a peaceful, flat, lovely, fast bicycling route to the place I wanted to go (work, that is). No hills. No traffic lights. No cars. A true secret passageway.

There was some construction work going on, on the first 100 m or so, so I guess the signs for the construction work are valid. But at least the dead end sign, clearly, is false information, at least from a bicyclist's point of view. That sign, I suppose, must be the primary reason why I'd never before considered taking that route. But I was curious, I went there even though The Man tried to tell me that I can't, I survived, and now am more street-wise because of doing so.

I think there's a lesson to be learned here. Like, don't believe the traffic signs. Or perhaps, complain more to the authorities about the poor state of bicycling routes in Helsinki. You know, I've tried, but doing it on the official complaint channel, at least, doesn't seem to have much effect on anything. It's just preaching to the choir, man. Which can be a fun hobby, if you're into that sort of thing.