Sharing the road with bikes has benefits for all

Share the road. As bicycling grows in the greater Philadelphia area, the practice of bikes and cars on the streets and highways of our region has become a challenge and an investment, an investment with which not everyone agrees.

Throughout the suburban counties, private and public funding partnerships are creating trail networks and adding bike lanes on roadways to encourage bicycling for work, school and getting around.

In Montgomery County a draft “Bike Montco” plan currently in the draft phase proposes creating a network of 783 miles of bike lanes by 2040.

The draft plan “imagines a Montgomery County where every citizen has the freedom to choose bicycling without fear of danger or difficulty and where bicycling is equal to any other transportation choice.”

Since the last county bike plan was created in 1998, the popularity of biking has increased in cities by 51 percent, according to Census figures.

Biking improves fitness, reduces traffic and pollution from vehicles, promotes economic development and enhances tourism while enabling mobility for those without cars, according to the plan.

In many towns and rural areas, no car means no job. And, poverty almost always means no car.

“The development of a viable bicycle network promotes equity in many ways, from providing a relatively inexpensive form of transportation for vulnerable populations to creating recreational opportunities that can be used by people of all ages and making direct public and private investments in under-served communities,” according to the plan.

However, despite this observation, the draft plan calls for focusing its initial efforts in four areas of the county — Souderton and Telford boroughs, where the median household income is between $62,500 and $66,000; Upper Merion Township, where the median household income is $85,600; Ambler Borough, where the median household income is $57,200 and Whitpain Township, where the median household income is $121,280.

There are no demonstration projects listed specifically for Pottstown (median household income $45,000) or Norristown (median family income $41,000)

Pottstown, nonetheless, is in the midst of a massive bike lane improvement funded by a federal “Safe Routes to School” grant, the county and PennDOT. The federal government has paid the bulk of the cost — $1.3 million — for the three phases of Walk/Bike Pottstown, which will add eight miles of bike lanes to borough streets.

In Chester County, the Chester Valley Trail is being promoted for employers along the Routes 30 and 202 corridors. That trail links to “The Circuit,” a 750-mile trail network throughout greater Philadelphia that includes Delaware and Montgomery counties.

As counties promote biking and invest in bike lanes and trail access, the questions arise:

Why should my tax dollars pay for people to bike?

Why should I have to reduce speed, endure narrowed roadways and reduced parking spots for the sake or bikers?

What does biking — and those annoying bike lanes — have to do with me?

For starters, biking as a mode of transportation reduces pollution and highway congestion for everyone. Cycling to work has been proven to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Providing safe lanes for the working poor to get to jobs not only helps employers and boosts the economy, but it also gets people off welfare rolls and prevents homelessness.

And then there’s school children. The Bike Montco plan draft references the fact that “between 1970 and 2010, the percentage of children who walk or bicycle to school in the U.S. decreased from 48 to 13 percent.

“This shift contributes to the higher rates of obesity in children of all ages,” nearly one in five of whom is obese.

Providing safe routes to school is critical to promote biking and walking habits among children.

Biking may not be for everyone, but the health benefits to children, environmental benefits to leaving the car at home, and the economic benefit for those in poverty to get to work are reasons enough.

Share the road. We’ll all be better for it.