Today I needed to get a bit of lumber for a small project, so I hitched my Burley Travoy trailer to my Breezer Uptown 8 town bike and rode down to Lowe’s in Crossroads Commons from my apartment near Belts.  The route is about 6 miles, and on a sunny spring day like today it is a pleasant ride.

The Stevens Point area is excellent for using a bicycle to run errands as nothing is particularly far away, the terrain is mostly flat, and there is a good network of calm streets and paths that spans the urban area.

A recent addition to this network is the car-free path that passes under I-39 connecting Joerns Dr. to the Portage County Business Park.  As part of my route today, I rode east on Patch/Industrial Park, crossed Hoover to get to Joerns, and then rode this convenient underpass to reach the other side of the interstate.  I understand that this underpass was constructed about 2 years ago.  If you have never ridden under the interstate on this path, I encourage you to try out this useful connection.

A bit further on, I took another nice path to reach Lowe’s.  I continued east to Brilowski Rd., where I took the sidepath south along Brilowski.  After crossing Hwy HH at a signal, the sidepath  continues another block south before providing access to Crossroads Commons via a low-traffic street at the back side of Lowe’s.  This approach to these stores is significantly less intimidating than taking Business Park Dr. south through the signal at HH and into the heavily car-congested (and bicycle unfriendly) main entrance to Crossroads Commons.

If you have felt in the past that it is too dangerous to use a bicycle for errands to Crossroads Commons,  I suggest you explore the route I describe above.  You might be pleasantly surprised to find that a bicycle is a good choice for reaching the stores there.