By Bob Karlovits, TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Pittsburgh is becoming a bicycle town.
It is a city where trolley tracks and Belgian brick-lined streets are nightmares of the past.
Now, it is a city with about 22 miles of bike trails and 14 miles of marked bike lanes with plans for more, says city bicycling-pedestrian coordinator Stephen Patchan.
It is a city with a pub and a coffee shop heavily into the bike culture.
Good magazine, a health and activity publication from Los Angeles, lists Pittsburgh as one of its seven top cities with a burgeoning bike scene.
“We are on the map,” says Brad Quartuccio, co-publisher of the Bloomfield-based magazine Urban Velo.
“Bicycling is growing by leaps and bounds,” says Tom Baxter, executive director of Friends of the Riverfront, a development and recreation group.
Business has increased 20 percent to 30 percent at the three shops of Pittsburgh Pro Bikes, says Todd Schoeni, who owns the chain with Craig Cozza.
Golden Triangle Bike Rental added another site only a little more than 3 miles away from its original.
“It seems like we have something special going on here,” its owner, Tom Demagall, says of the interest in riding.
Numbers tell the story, but they can be hard to find.
The city’s Patchan and Scott Bricker, executive director of BikePGH, the bicycling advocacy group, say they are working to develop estimates of the numbers of riders but have no figures right now.
“You can monitor one intersection one year to the next, and it just gets bigger and bigger,” Bricker says.
Not a member of Bike Pittsburgh? Join today! We need you to add your voice! Bike Pittsburgh works to protect cyclist’s rights and promote the vision of making Pittsburgh a safer and more enjoyable place to live and to ride. For more info, check out: www.bike-pgh.org/membership
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