Baltimore Bike Plan

Baltimore recently completed its first bike plan in 20 years.

The plan, if approved, will allocate $3.5 million over the next three years as part of the introductory phase of the long-term project, and connect 150 miles of city streets, bike lanes, paths, trails and assigned routes.

The Examiner is all for it and challenged employers to subsidize bike commuters.

Some employers already subsidize employee transportation. Why don’t downtown employers help employees kick the car habit by purchasing bike racks and seeking company discounts for bikes?

I'm sure there will be some employers who, because of dedicated leadership or an eye toward their image, will do something like this, like Discovery Communication does; but the bulk of employers are going to need some encouragement from the government - like taxing parking spaces - to make that kind of change. That's my opinion at least.

DC has a bike plan they finished in April of 2005. Unfortunately, they're already behind their goals. For example

Goal by the end of 2005                   Reality (as of 9/7/05)

50 miles of bike route signs          10 miles

20 miles of bike lane                    17 miles

Met Branch trail 50% complete     Design/build contract not yet started

Anacostia Trail Design complete    50% complete

500 racks in place                              305 racks

Street Smart program                        Ran in June 2005 and again right now

Some of the other goals are a little harder to define. I learned last week (as part of my training) that a study was done of over 800 Pentagon projects. Any project behind schedule 15% of the way in would always finish behind schedule at the end. DC is 10% of the way in and I'm not sure they can catch up.