City not geared for bike commute
Fort Wayne City Council member Mitch Harper rode his bicycle to the council meeting Tuesday afternoon.
To get from the Village at Coventry at U.S. 24 and Interstate 69 to downtown took Harper only about 20 minutes, he said.
The route, though, took Harper on U.S. 24, under the interstate, and along the busy highway for a while. The highway does have a shoulder, so riders can stay out of traffic, but there are a lot of turn lanes, which are hazardous, Harper said. Eventually, he came to side streets that let him ride in a place where cars and trucks weren’t buzzing by at 50 mph.
Harper’s purpose was to recognize National Bike Month, whose goals are to get motorists to share the road with bikes, to get cyclists to ride safely and wear helmets, to get the legal system to support cyclists and to promote roads and paths that accommodate cyclists.
The ride proved two points.
You can get around town on a bicycle almost as fast as you can in a car – good news for people who are switching to bicycles to save money now that gas is approaching $4 a gallon.
“Frankly, it’s an easy commute,” Harper said.
The bicycle trail system, though it is growing, doesn’t offer alternative routes for people who have to travel from the outskirts of the city.
Hopping on risky, high-speed routes is sometimes the only alternative that cyclists have.
That’s not a good message to be delivering during national Bike-to-Work Week and the day before national Bike-to-Work Day, which is Friday.
Maybe, though, it’s a message that has to be delivered. Fort Wayne, for all its efforts, has many areas that aren’t bicycle-friendly.
Some people will say, so what? Very few people ride their bikes in the winter. Most don’t ride in the rain. They revert to their cars whenever conditions aren’t just right, and when the speculative bubble pops and gas prices drop, people will just go back to their cars.
Others, though, are realizing that lack of trails limits their options, both for alternative ways of commuting and for recreation. Harper is a good example. His commute to the council meeting put him on a dangerous road for someone on a bike, a road that even experienced bike racers wouldn’t dare take.
But how do you make a city bicycle-friendly? We asked Kathy Boling, who does public relations for Three Rivers Velo Sport, the local bicycle club.
“We just have to make it be,” Boling said. By getting more people out on their bikes, especially with gas prices up, it will just happen.
One way is by observing Bike-to-Work Day. Locally, though, there aren’t any notable efforts to rally people to bike to work. In the past, there were organized rides, in which people would gather at a local park and ride downtown as a group. But that’s not happening this year. It will be up to individuals to observe the day, if they hear about it.
Really, though, that’s all it takes for the day to be a success, for individuals to get the message and decide to ride to work, and for a large number of cyclists to end up on the streets.
Unfortunately, packing bicycles on main thoroughfares with high speed limits – though it would certainly emphasize the need for more paths – is something of a recipe for disaster. There are limitations on who can take part.
Someday, maybe, there won’t be so many limitations.
If you had dropped by the Auburn Auction Park a few days ago, you would have seen the general manager and chief financial officer on their hands and knees painting the big stage where autos are displayed when they come up for sale.