2010 Campaign for Active Transportation


As the Bike & Pedestrian Planner for Baltimore, I am developing the city

by B' Spokes

Like most people I live a hectic life and who has the time for much exercise? Thanks to xtracycle now I do. By using my bike for daily activities I can get things done and get an hour plus work out in 15 minutes extra of my time, not a bad deal and beats taking the extra time going to the gym. In case you are still having trouble being motivated; the National Center of Disease Control says that inactivity is the #2 killer in the United States just behind smoking. ( http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/bb_nutrition/ ) Get out there and start living life! I can carry home a full shopping cart of groceries, car pool two kids or just get lost in the great outdoors camping for a week. Well I got go, another outing this weekend.
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It is a standard in Maryland that if you want to ride on a bike trail, you put the bike on or in the car and drive it there. Bicycling is dependent on cars here. I think that this needs to change.

I would start with building (or painting) trails from people's homes to the current major trails, such as NCR and Baltimore-Annapolis.
One of the first neighborhoods I would connect would be Roland Park. It is centrally located and is fairly accessible by bike from other nearby neighborhoods. This would help the recreational aspect of bicycling.

The next step would be to survey industrial parks and commercial centers. These are areas where people work, and often have only congested roads for access to them.

Parks and golf courses can easily spare right of way for a six to eight foot wide trail (on its periphery) should they be in between any potential endpoints.

I would also speak to bicycle merchants individually and as a group in order to determine where their clientele is and what might be good for the bicycling public. Give them an option to participate in trail maintenance similar to the "Adopt a highway" program, complete with signs showing the business names and telephone numbers.

Any decent trail system needs a comprehensive map posted, similar to the mall maps stating "you are here". This educates the public and makes the trail system more useful.

You may also wish to reference http://www.mplsparkfoundation.org/
and http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=1005