Can’t miss it: Jim Leonard keeps his bicycle decked out with LED lights for visible night riding

 

The More People Bike…The Safer It Becomes

By Alyse Horn, BikePGH volunteer

For his work commute and running errands, the bicycle is BikePGH member Jim Leonard’s main source of transportation during the daily grind. And for the past 30 years, it’s been his “primary means” of getting around.

Pittsburghers may have noticed Leonard biking around the city, as he has “gone somewhat overboard” and decorated his bike with over 100 programmable LED modules.

“I’d love to see more people decorating their bikes,” Leonard said. “ It makes you significantly more visible and makes people look more favorably towards you on your bike.”

Leonard used to live in the urban suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts before moving to Pittsburgh six years ago. In comparing the biking communities and infrastructure, he said Pittsburgh is reminiscent of where Cambridge was 10 years ago.

“The attitude of ‘anything is better than nothing’ is prevalent,” Leonard said. “All of the places where bike infrastructure can be installed with minimal opposition or problems has long ago happened and we’re starting to put things into difficult places.”

Leonard said he would like to see street parking moved or the removal of regular lanes to make way for safer bike lanes.

Separating bikes and cars is key to make everyone’s commute “faster and easier,” and Leonard said a solid bike infrastructure would lead to fewer cars on the road. “The city is genuinely putting effort, if only limited money, into making the city more friendly to people on bicycle and it’s starting to really show dividends in the number of people willing to bike,” Leonard said.

He hopes to see public schools adopt bicycle education as part of its curriculum. The more people bike, the more normalized and safer it becomes, Leonard said.

“I dislike the dichotomy of drivers vs. bikers,” Leonard said. “We’re all just people trying to get somewhere.”

This piece is the first in a series of profiles of people who bike in Pittsburgh.

---

This blog post was authored by Alyse Horn, a Bike Pittsburgh volunteer. Interested in writing for the BikePGH blog? Head over to our call for creatives and email volunteer@bikepgh.org.