City, OSU advocate Bike to Work Week
With the price of gas flirting with $4 a gallon, an innumerable amount of motorists are now looking for alternatives to their gas hogs. While hybrids and other energy efficient vehicles pose one solution, one group, both locally and nationally, is hoping you’ll put down the car keys and pick up a bicycle helmet.
May is National Bike Month and, with that in mind, the League of American Bicyclists is promoting National Bike to Work Week, which culminates on Friday with “Bike to Work Day.” If you’ve never heard of the League of American Bicyclists before, they are a large non-profit group that promotes cycling, as well as advocating on behalf of those who enjoy the activity.
In Columbus, Mayor Michael Coleman kicked off the week by unveiling his long-awaited “Bicentennial Bikeways” plan at a ceremony in front of the Statehouse on Monday. Coleman appeared at the early morning event by showing up in, what else, a bicycle instead of his car.
Coleman’s plan calls for the investment of $50 million specifically for bike and pedestrian traffic across the city by the city’s bicentennial celebration in 2012.
Consider Biking is a group heading up the organization’s Columbus efforts, advertising events to participate in throughout the week as Bike to Work Week continues. Of the more interesting ideas the group has come up with is a friendly challenge between Columbus employers to see which can replace the most automobile commutes with bicycle commutes. The challenge will also measure which company can bike the most miles. While results won’t be available until this Friday, May 16th, Ohio State has agreed to enter the competition against Battelle.
Additional highlights of Bike to Work Week in Columbus include the ribbon cutting ceremony of the Broadmeadows bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The bridge, which began construction in the fall of 2006, will link the Columbus communities of Sharon Heights, Delawanda, North Clintonville, and Beechwold. The bridge is also just the first installment of a planned 5.75 mile cross-town bike route “between the Olentangy Trail and Alum Creek Trail near Easton.”
Closer to campus, the group will also sponsor a bike tour of Columbus on Saturday from 11am- 1pm. The tour will begin on the North Oval, but will be a leisurely tour of the city at a pace that is comfortable foe new and old riders alike.
Proponents of Bike to Work Week say there are multiple reasons to participate besides the money you’ll save not buying gasoline. It’s also better for the environment, leaving behind no extra damaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Organizers from Consider Biking say Columbus can easily “shift 2 by 2012,” that is, the city would see a 10% change jump in their transportation mode shift by the bicentennial if Columbus residents were to bike to work only twice a month.
For those interested in more local Bike to Work activities, log on to http://www.b2ww.considerbiking.org/
Originally Published: Issue 648 - May 14, 2008
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