Bozeman looks to Missoula for help designing bike routes

The temptation to ride a bicycle to work or school seems to grow in direct proportion to the thermometer.

The warmer it gets, the more bikes on the road.

But cyclists across Bozeman say that riding a bike in some neighborhoods — such as the newer neighborhoods in west Bozeman — is a perilous proposition.

By ERIN EVERETT Bozeman Chronicle Staff Writer

"You can’t get to those neighborhoods without endangering your life unless you’re in a car," said Carl Strong, who owns a cycle shop and is an advocate for the sport.

Bozeman’s cyclists say the city has lots of work to do to make its streets more bike-friendly and to make it safe and comfortable for commuters to pedal around town.

The city has "made progress in the sense that we have an advisory board now, but any true, real significant improvements have been little to none," Strong said.

Bozeman is still a long way from being a place where people feel as safe commuting by bicycle as by car.

But as the city moves in that direction, Missoula seems to be a constant point of reference.

"We watch what they do a lot," said David Baumbauer, chairman of the Bozeman Bicycle Advisory Board.

Missoula has been concentrating on bicycles as a form of transportation for decades, explained Phil Smith, Missoula’s bicycle and pedestrian program manager.

Whenever a new subdivision, street or intersection is proposed in that city, Smith works alongside engineers and planners, representing cyclists throughout the city’s review process.

"It’s my job to watch all these street projects and whomever is the party that’s in charge of it," Smith said. "I’ll go talk to them and say, ‘Let’s see, what are we doing here for bikes and pedestrians?’"

Creating a similar position in other cities is a major step toward creating a bike-friendly community, Smith said.

"It says city government is committed to bicycling and walking as transportation modes," he said. "And you’ve got somebody whose job it is to constantly monitor bicycle and pedestrian facilities, and to be an advocate."

Although Missoula is larger, it has several things in common with Bozeman. Both communities have universities, both are growing and both have physically active residents.

But cycling advocates also see stark differences between Bozeman and Missoula.

In Bozeman, volunteers on the bike board represent cyclists’ interest throughout the city planning process; there is no bicycle coordinator on the city’s payroll.

And here, even the cycling clubs tend to focus more on racing than on using bicycles as a means of getting around, Baumbauer said.

Bringing the two cities closer together would make a lot of Bozeman cyclists happy.

But for now the major issues — getting drivers and cyclists more accustomed to sharing the road, getting more people to see cycling as a preferred means of getting from one place to another and ironing out safety issues — remain in the hands of the bike board and nonprofit groups.

College students make up a big chunk of Bozeman’s cycling population. Many of them live on the northwest side of town, where there is a high concentration of apartments and duplexes. Many others live in the downtown area.

Getting those students, and other people, to ride their bikes would ease congestion on streets and reduce air pollution, advocates say.

But getting from home to campus can be a dangerous ride.

"You have this huge bicycle population associated with a campus," Baumbauer said. "How do you get people to use their bikes to get to where they live?"

The answer — in Bozeman — is bike lanes.

"They need to designate the shoulders as bike lanes," Strong said.

Baumbauer added: "It would be nice to make the streets a little wider."

But establishing a network of 5-feet-wide bike lanes on the shoulders of roads throughout the city is easier said than done. The biggest obstacle is the demand for on-the-street parking — especially in neighborhoods populated by lots of college students, each one of whom has a car.

"That’s one of the things that’s a challenge in an urban area — finding parking for bikes and cars," Baumbauer said.

Missoula also struggles with car-based challenges, Phillips said.

"There’s a lot of resident concern about losing parking," he said.

One solution might be designated bike routes rather than bike lanes. Routes leave parking in place, but alert drivers with signs that they’ll be sharing the road with bicycles.

"The less motorist backlash we generate … the better off we are," Smith said.

And although Bozeman is far from reaching its goals, it has made progress. A subdivision recently approved off of North 19th Avenue, behind the Gallatin Valley Rest Home, will provide a bike lane on the south side of Oak Street.

"We’ve got promise," Baumbauer said.

Alex Phillips, a member of the first bike board six years ago, agrees that residents’ attitudes toward cycling are improving.

When she was appointed, there were no bike lanes in Bozeman and some in city government even expressed resistance to them.

"A year or so later we threw a parade … to celebrate the (first) bike lane in Bozeman," she said. "There was one bike lane that was less than a half-mile long."

Since then, residents, city officials and developers have warmed up to the idea of a cyclist-friendly community.

That evolution was articulated when the Bozeman 2020 Community Plan, and the Bozeman Area Transportation Plan encouraged cycling as a form of transportation and mapped out prospective bike routes.

As a result, developers now expect to keep cyclists in mind when drawing up plans.

"Now the controversy is, will it be a bike lane or a bike path?" Phillips said.

But people still need to focus more on recognizing bicycles as a form of transportation, Baumbauer said.

In Missoula, it’s Smith’s job to help put alternative transportation at the top of more minds.

"Another thing a bike/pedestrian coordinator can do is … help people think about how they travel," he said.

He arranges events to help raise awareness for cycling.

And he also tries to set examples.

"My bike is right here in front of me in my office," he said. "It’s my town car."

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/05/04/news/bikingbzbigs.txt