What does Baltimore have to do for a bike share program?
Jake Ulick, 19, went to Rome for a semester last fall. Some of his most vivid memories are from the time he visited Amsterdam and Bruges. It wasn’t the places he visited or the food. It was seeing both cities from a bike.
“Right out of the train station in Bruges, there was a garage full of bikes as their bike share,” Ulick said. “So we all got on bikes and went through as much of the city as we could.”
He thinks he got to know the city better from the bike he rented than he could have if he took a cab or bus anywhere, he said.
In Amsterdam, there are probably more bikes than cars on the roads, he said. Because of this, cars are very accustomed to sharing roads with bikes. For Jake, one important difference he noticed about using bikes in Europe as opposed to the states was that there are a lot more bike riders in European cities.
“It is harder for car drivers in those cities,” Ulick said. But the key in those cities is the amazing infrastructure for bikes that make it harder for drivers to speed and driver recklessly.
Baltimore could have a great bike share program for both tourists and commuters just like those European cities. But the city’s bike infrastructure has to be fixed before any successful program can start, Ulick says.
Vendors recently submitted their proposals for a Charm City Bikeshare program. The city Department of Transportation and the mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Commission met October 28 to discuss the proposals and update their Bicycle Master Plan.
While bike advocacy organizations and commuters in the city were excited by the announcement of a possible bike share, the program was also welcomed with criticism and many challenges.
Nate Evans, executive director of the bike advocacy group Bike Maryland, said he believes the bike share program will be taking a back seat on the government to do list since Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake and everyone under her will soon be out of office.
“Bike construction does not happen without the full support of whoever is in charge of local government,” Evans said.
The infrastructure has to be improved and not just added, he said. This takes time and planning but most of all, it has to be a priority, Evans said.
“It’s tough to say bike infrastructure is a priority,” Caitlin Doolin, bicycle and pedestrian planner at the Baltimore City Department of Transportation, said. There is definitely a want to improve bike infrastructure here, Doolin said.
The Downtown Bicycle Network infrastructure is one of her offices main priorities, Doolin said. They are also focused on the other cycle tracks on Maryland and Roland Avenues that they have secured funding for, which sound be done in 2016, Doolin said.
<iframe width=”1000" height=”750" src=”//www.thinglink.com/card/727362658415673344" type=”text/html” frameborder=”0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen scrolling=”no”></iframe>
These tracks will be completed before any bike share program can go into effect, Doolin said.
The upcoming cycle tracks for the city will be parking protected cycle tracks. These tracks have barriers and tend to slow traffic and make crossing streets easier for pedestrians, Doolin said.
“These tracks are proven to protect cyclists from accidents by up to 90 percent,” Doolin said.
There will also be other parking protected cycle tracks added around Canton, Federal Hill and Mt.Vernon, all leading into the Harbor, Doolin said.
The construction for the 5.5-mile Downtown Bicycle Network is set to start in the Spring of 2016 and be done in three months, Doolin said.
“I’m not pessimistic,” Keshia Pollack, member of the mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Commission, said. “We’re always talking about how can we improve infrastructure in the city.”
“I’m an advocate for bike safety anyway and better infrastructure improves the ride and experience,” Pollack said.
Pollack is unsure whether or not the commission itself can stay together once the mayor leaves office.
“But we have a charge to come up with recommendations for the program and this can go to the next mayor,” Pollack said. “And while we can prioritize infrastructure, we also have to think about implementation.”
***
Ulick now delivers food from his bike for Order Up in Canton. Last summer, he was in a bike accident while coming home from work because there wasn’t a bike lane, separating him from traffic.
He was riding on the sidewalk and was about to cross the street when his foot slipped off the pedal. He ended up colliding with the back of a car and was flung off his bike into the street, he said. Ulick has since bought cycling shoes, which have rubber spikes on the bottom to ensure the rider’s foot never slips off the pedal.
Even if his foot had slipped off the pedal in a bike lane or on a cycle track, he would have been protected from cars.
Although Jake was not seriously hurt in this incident, the memory and the scar on his leg reminds him of the need for safe bike infrastructure, he said. One of the biggest issues facing the upcoming bike share program is Baltimore’s current bike infrastructure.
***
While the Bicycle Advisory Commission is focused on picking a vendor and implementation of the program, advocacy groups are fighting for better bike infrastructure in Baltimore city and county.
It is illegal for bike riders in Baltimore to ride on the sidewalk according to Baltimore city code; however, most roads do not have bike lanes and most lanes are so small that one car takes up the whole lane, executive director of Bikemore, Liz Cornish, said.
Many bike riders, like Ulick, feel uncomfortable being so close to cars that are normally going more than 30 mph, Ulick said.
Before the city can welcome the program the infrastructure has to be improved, Cornish said. She uses the example of Portland, Oregon, one of the best cities for cyclists and walkers. However, Portland is just now getting a bike-share program in summer 2016, Cornish said.
Bike infrastructure includes bike lanes and “share the road” signs. It also includes cycle tracks, which are slightly blocked off from the cars on the road, making a bike commute safer.
Bicycle infrastructure and bike sharing programs are two separate entities, but together can improve Baltimore, Cornish said.
“When you add in better infrastructure for walkers and bikers, it naturally calms the traffic of road users,” Cornish said. “It is proven that commute times do not increase, but the average rate of speed does decrease,” Cornish said.
There are proven, positive statistics around good bike infrastructure and a bike share program, Cornish said. But there has to be support from the locals and not just the government, Cornish said.
Seven years ago, Evans got a project approved with the city that funded the construction of over 100 miles of bike lanes throughout Baltimore city and county, Cornish said. Those bike lanes, however, do not encourage bike use.
“Either the lane is too narrow or there are pot holes and bumps everywhere like the bike lane on President Street,” Cornish said.
“You cannot have one without the other,” Ulick says about a bike share program and bike infrastructure.
Ulick bikes to class at Towson University from his apartment almost three miles away on Kenilworth Drive every day. There is no bike lane on Kenilworth Drive so he just rides carefully next to parked cars in the right lane, Ulick said.
There is a bike lane on Bosley Avenue for Jake to use. However, this is a lot of construction going on around it and Jake often swerves in and out of traffic to go around construction cones, he said.
Although Jake is using part the Towson Bike Beltway, which officially opened last fall, the lanes around the beltway break up a lot, he said. These breaks in the lanes put cyclists in a possibly dangerous situation where they have to hop over into the car lane, Ulick said.
I strongly believe that the bike infrastructure has to be fixed before the bike share program can succeed in Baltimore, Ulick said.
“We need a foreword thinking government and public to really make the bike share work,” Ulick said. “I do think Baltimore city and county are bike friendly because there is a bike community and there are people actively trying to make a difference and raise awareness of the infrastructure and safety.”
