The Wichita City Council took a substantial step toward making the city more bike-friendly by approving a study of trails in the area. The federally funded, yearlong project should identify gaps in the bike path system and suggest ways to improve it. The desired result — better and more complete trails — would benefit cyclists and the community as a whole. But with rising gas prices, a growing number of people are using bicycles for more than recreation. The city should keep this in mind as it goes forward, and also look at ways to make our streets safer for cyclists just trying to get from Point A to Point B.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
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12 Comments
Agreed, Melissa. It must be difficult being right so often. You seem to hold up well under the strain.
What ever happen to the plain to turn the abandon railways into bike trails?
I used to bike to work back in the day, but my work place had showers and locker rooms that I used to freshen up and put on work clothes.
I don’t see people biking to work unless they have that amenity.
Good points Joe. Rails/Trails ahs met organized opposition including from the City.
More bike racks along or adjacent to the paths and just in general would be helpful. If folks could be comfortable that their bikes would not be stolen, they might use them more for daily errands.
I agree that the city should look at bike trails for more than just recreational use. I commute quite often to my job at Raytheon, and even though it’s only 5 miles, there is only a very short section of the route that could be considered ‘bike friendly’.
I moved here a couple of years ago from Tucson, Az, which is considered one of the most bike-friendly cities in the country. While the conditions here don’t permit year round riding like there, having some reasonable accomodations for those of us who do commute would greatly improve the commute, both for the bicyclists, and the motorists.
I would like to find out more about when the city council is meeting to discuss ideas for this.
Cheers.
LT’s idea sounds great! Tuscon doesn’t exactly have great 12-month weather for bike commuting. Chicago, Seattle and Denver don’t either. But they all have bike lanes. Perhaps the aerospace companies should get behind this. As well as other employers. Daily exercise = lower healthcare costs. The street and road construction moghuls should support it: more contracts. A win-win-win deal.
I’m in favor of anything that gets bicycles off the street.
Bicycles off the street? The whole point of bike lanes is to either widen sreets to add bike lanes, or re-paint them in such a way as to allow bike lanes. For instance, on many of the less busy streets (like East Douglas), changing from a four lane road to a two lane road with a left turn bay and bike paths would make it easier to share (I know many motorists seem to hate that concept) the road with bicycles, and has little or no impact on overall traffic flow (assuming those same motorists can grasp the concept of left turn lanes…).
Another unfortunate problem with the way strets in Wichita are layed out are that many of the neighborhoods only have exits onto major streets in one or two directions. This prevents through traffic, but it also prevents bikes from using those neighborhhod roads in lieu of major streets.
Cheers.
Lane – one idea might be to establish bike paths connecting neighborhoods. That way a recreational cyclist oculd meander his way across town.
What happened to putting bike paths in along the big ditch? We need some bike trails on the north end of town (near 37th or 53rd street) that connect to the other bike paths! Just look at the map of current bike trails! We’re like stepchildren up here!
I ride three days a week from Central and Tyler into the city core. It’s about 10 miles one way and I really enjoy it. The two things that I think would make it ideal are paths over the big ditch at various points and a pronounced reduction in morons throwing beer bottles.
Why don’t we start using Donkey Carts?” They don’t use gasoline and we won’t need to pay anybody to mow the grass alongside the road, as the Donkeys will eat that grass.
What they leave behind are called “Zionists” { good for growing more grass }.