Asheville.com news: Bikes

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Asheville.com community news
Asheville Transit System Equips City Buses with Bike Racks.

The Asheville Transit System has equipped all sixteen of its buses with bike racks. The bike racks give area bike riders the opportunity to travel part of the distance of a trip on a city bus and then ride their bikes for the balance of their trip. The bike racks will also be useful to bicyclists on rainy or other inclement weather days.

The bike racks are located on the front of the buses and it takes only approximately 10 seconds to put a bike on a bike rack. Placing a bike on a bike rack is a simple three-step process. The bicyclist must first open the bike rack on the front of the bus if it is not currently holding a bike. The second step is to place the bicycle on the bike rack and the final step is to pull the lever over the front wheel to secure the bike.

The bike racks were made possible by a $13,000 grant from the Federal Transit Authority that paid for 90% of the cost of the bike racks and installation. The objective of the program is to attract people to other modes of transportation than driving their cars. May is also National Bicycle Month. After the month of May, there still will not be any charge for placing a bike on a city bus.

The Asheville Transit System is also going to begin offering a new recreation bus route to the N.C. Arboretum, the Bent Creek Recreation area and Lake Powhatan beginning on June 3, 2000. This new bus route will only run on Saturdays and Sundays. Parking at Lake Powhatan is particularly crowded on weekends. This new bus route will allow visitors to travel to Lake Powhatan and be dropped off fifty yards from the beach. They can also bring their bikes along. These areas have very attractive bike trails and the new recreation bus route should be attractive to the area's bicyclists. Bruce Black, the Asheville Transit System's interim director, said, "These bike racks will allow bicyclists to extend the range of their travel and utilize some recreational areas that otherwise might be too far to travel solely on a bicycle."

The second stage of the bike program is to install stationary bike racks at approximately 120-150 locations. The Asheville Department of Public Works is responsible for this phase of the program. The stationary bike racks will allow bicyclists to secure their bicycles while they are at work, shopping or engaged in some other type of activity. The $60,000 cost of the stationary bike racks is being paid for by a NCDOT grant that is passed through from the federal government, according to Oliver Gajda, Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator for the Asheville Urban Area.

Gajda says, "The bicycle racks will be three different styles. One style will be for the historic districts. Another style will be used for the downtown central business district and the third style will be used in the area parks." Gajda is also placing the bike racks on the perimeter of the transit bus routes to encourage bicyclists to ride their bikes from their homes to the stationary bike racks and then take a bus to the downtown area to reach either their jobs or shopping and other activities. The long-range goal of creating more bike paths and pedestrian sidewalks is also to generate greater use of the bus system and to encourage people to park their cars and utilize other forms of transportation.

The Asheville Transit System also has plans to make its bus schedules more flexible. They hope that by rescheduling some of the bus routes and increasing the frequency of other bus routes, they will make riding the buses more convenient and accessible to local residents. They also have plans to color-code the routes and make the bus stops more attractive and safe.