Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 6, 1994 TAG: 9403070126
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MARA LEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
So there might be a few catches. This ride is a little cold in the winter, wet in the rain and rough going on the hills. You can't wear heels or a straight skirt, and even oxford shirts may get too sweat-stained to be practical.
But a bunch of bicyclists in the New River Valley pedal to work every day.
In Blacksburg, the 1989 census found 321 people who commuted by bike out of 11,410 surveyed. It found only six Christiansburg residents who bike to work. Those numbers ignore how the 23,000 Virginia Tech students travel to class and work.
The average bicycle commuter has an income of more than $50,000 or less than $15,000.
"It's the doctors and lawyers of the world and the unskilled workers who can't afford a car who are doing it the most," said Andy Clarke, spokesman for The Bicycle Federation of America.
Terry Colpitts, an emergency room doctor at Montgomery Regional Hospital, bikes to work from Hethwood, about 3 1/2 miles. He has biked by necessity and by choice. "I never had a car until I was 25," said Colpitts. Of his entire career, he has driven to work only two years. The exercise of his 15-minute ride motivates him.
His co-workers used to tease him a little for his bright Lycra outfits. "They're pretty used to it at this point," he said. As is he. "I don't really think a great deal about it," he said. "I just do it."
Bike commuters agreed they learn to shrug off bad weather and dress-related inconveniences.
"People often only realize it's an option when they try it or see somebody else do it. Once you get into the habit, you can get over rain, packing clothes. You get used to it," Clarke said. "You can just poodle along and still get there as quick as most traffic does."
The average bicycle commute is almost two miles, according to the National Bicycling and Walking Study, a shorter distance than twice around Tech's drill field.
When the federal government studied bicycling, it found that areas where bicycles were used most for transportation had two things in common: a university, and bike lanes on major arteries. "The places where you don't, no one rides," Clarke said. Lanes tend to be better incentives than off-road trails, he said.
Blacksburg has had a bikeway and walkway master plan for nearly five years, putting it far ahead of most Virginia localities. The town has bike lanes on Toms Creek Road, Prices Fork Road and Harding Avenue, as well as short strips on Patrick Henry Drive, Country Club Drive and Progress Street.
But Blacksburg's plans for bike routes mostly focus on off-road bike trails, which tend to be suited more for recreation than commuting, particularly since Blacksburg does not mark a bike lane and a pedestrian lane on the trails. The pedestrian/cycle mix makes a trail more analogous to a sidewalk than a separate street for bikes.
Carol Bousquet, Blacksburg senior planner, said, "Recreational and commuting, it's a difficult marriage."
The next two projects planned will be the Huckleberry Trail, which will follow the train tracks from Blacksburg toward New River Valley Mall, and a not-quite mile-long trail off South Main Street from Southpark Drive to Ellett Road.
Future lower-priority bike lanes include a slightly more than one-mile lane on University City Boulevard, from Tom Creeks Road to University Mall - the lane would not run to Prices Fork Road, because the street's not wide enough, Bousquet said. The mile would cost $90,000, she estimated. "That's an awful lot of money for a little bit of lane," she said.
Audrey Stumb, a senior at Virginia Tech, doesn't own a car - and she's glad. "If you have a car, there's no place to park on campus. I can get around better than most people with cars, even in the general area of Blacksburg." Stumb bikes five minutes to class, about a mile.
Davis Wildman, manager of East Coasters bike shop on North Main Street, didn't have a car for 15 years. Wildman now owns a truck but bikes in anyway - six miles, about 30 minutes, up Yellow Sulfur Road. "I realize a lot of people don't have this luxury," he said. A luxury? Puffing up hills?
"It really makes you appreciate hopping in a car," he said. "I really wouldn't call doing what I do a hardship." He likes waking up outside, and seeing the sky. "All this sounds really simple," he said. "Maybe that's why it's so nice."
Tim Myers, recycling coordinator for Montgomery County, bikes 10 miles to work in Christiansburg four days a week, about 40 minutes each way. Myers rides mostly for exercise - "I've got three children, and my weekends are pretty tied up with soccer games, Cub Scouts" - but enjoys seeing the countryside as well. He's seen deer, turkeys, snakes and raccoons, and was chased by a horse once.
Wildman finds the environmental impetus almost as important as the personal reasons. "Riding a bike, I feel like I'm making a contribution to sustainability. Riding a bike is incredibly cheap health insurance, incredibly cheap planet insurance. It saves you all kinds of money. Cars cost us so much: water treatment, air pollution, quality of life."
"All the roads in town are bike friendly," said Blacksburg planner Bousquet, as she defended lack of lanes on major roads. But daily commuters tend to disagree.
Christina Baum, a graduate student at Virginia Tech, commutes from Floyd County, usually 30 miles one way down Ellett Road. The ride takes two hours.
Unpaved road shoulders make biking difficult, she said. "They just weren't designed for cycling, and hopefully, that'll change," she said with a wry look that belied her optimistic words. "If we're expected to follow all vehicular regulations, we should get something in return.
"I've had a lot of close calls commuting. I don't like to talk about it, because it discourages others from bike commuting. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the drivers that pass me are fine."
Stumb, who doesn't wear a helmet or use a light, had a close call one evening on Otey Street next to campus, when a car pulled out in front of her. In the town's master plan, the street is slated as a "shared roadway." (A sign with a bicycle will be posted, with the admonition "Share the road.")
Colpitts sees many of the crash victims in the hospital's emergency room. Most wrecks happen after dark. "Every time I see someone who gets hit by a car on a bicycle, I add another reflector to my bike," he said.
Baum and Wildman have gotten appreciative thumbs up from motorists when the weather's particularly bad, but have also had trash thrown at them. "I've been run off the road. You just have to take a deep breath and let it go," Wildman said. "You just have to think of [yourselves] as pioneers."
by CNB