June 18th, 2008 By Justin Williams
Thank You Evansville: 20 Miles of Bikeways Coming
Courier & Press has the details:
The proposed bikeways will include a north-south route along Oak Hill Road from Lynch Road to U.S. 41, an east-Downtown route along Lincoln and Bellemeade avenues from the county line to Downtown and a West Side-cross town route from Howell Park to Franklin Street and along Michigan and Virginia streets to U.S. 41.
As I wrote here a few weeks ago, biking around Evansville is a frightening and nearly impossible task. With bike routes through many major parts of the east side, it’s becoming a bit more of a reality. Let’s just hope this is only the beginning of getting nearly every road in the city to have a dedicated bike lane. Only then will it be completely feasible to replace that $4 gas with foot power!
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I spend $10 every 7-10 days. I ride a bike everyday and I can tell you that it’s a lot safer than everyone says it is. I even ride at night! (are you serious?! surely no sane person would ever ride after sunset!?) I have had more near misses and almost collisions with other bike riders who didn’t have lights or who were riding on the wrong side of the road.
I’m happy the city is doing something to increase the possibility of other people riding bikes, but they (bike owners) can do it now without a bike lane!
You’re all going to say it would be too much work but if you’re in to Evansville from a location that’s not “bike friendly” as you say, why not drive, park, and ride a bike the rest of the way?
That is cool! We are relocating to Evansville from Arizona in August and are learning more and more about the area! Anyone have a property manager to recommend We need to find a rental ASAP! :-o
Awesome! This will really be helpful if it ever actually comes to pass!
I do feel I need to corroborate Alex’s assertion. I’ve been biking more and yes, it does scare me and it does take some vigilance. And I would not bike after dark without some more reflectors at least, and maybe a light too. But, for just one example, Bellemeade is more than OK to bike on. I’m getting to the point where the only places I’m too skittish to bike on are 41, the Lloyd, and maybe Washington. (Burkhardt, too, but I’m never over there so whatever.)
I’m heartened to see that apparently more people have been biking lately. Not sure how much is out of economic necessity and how much is just because people are realizing that biking is awesome. But yeah. Get out there and bike, y’all!
This is all well and good for the folks who live in E-ville. But many of us (like myself) who live in outlying rural areas are still going to be stuck with 30+ mile round trip commutes to work in our cars and trucks paying $4+ a gallon for gas.
I am a Bloomington transplant, and a mostly east-side rider. I am accustomed to being able to ride most anyplace, so I’m finding Evansville a little frustrating. I am very happy to see something like this in the works, though. In the meantime, I stick, as much as I can, to the side streets. I agree with midgetqueen about Bellemeade, and I would avoid those other big streets as well. But you can get downtown, and out to the far east side, fairly well if you are willing to take a winding route or your life in your hands. Nevertheless, kudos to Evansville on this.
It’s interesting to see this announcement on the heels of $4.00 gas. I don’t think gas prices are going to go down much, and, whether we like it or not, we are going to have to rethink how we get around (and what we buy, and where we go). I am hoping for more neighborhood stores and services, and a greater availability of food grown around here. We (me, you, Evansville, America) are going to be sorry about how much support we have given to gigantic national chains at the expense of local merchants we can actually talk to while we do business with them. The world is going to become much smaller, we may not be traveling so far, and we’re going to need to rely on our neighbors for more basic things.
@ Warrick reader
We all make choices. You work in Evansville and chose at some point to live 15+ miles away in Warrick County. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Did you choose a vehicle that will get high mpg since you knew that you had a long commute?
@ kate
You’re right. I don’t disagree with you. I probably have no right to complain. But when my wife and I moved into our current home north of Boonville a few years ago, gas was barely over $1 a gallon. With all do respect, we had no idea that gas would ever get to be $4+ a gallon. It’s not like we moved in last week. Luckily, my wife drives a manual transmission Saturn. We carpool whenever possible. My above post wasn’t meant to be all negative. I just think that there are a lot more people than not who are in the same boat I’m in.
Maybe it’s because some of my earliest memories are of the late-70s gas crisis, but I’ve always figured that the price of gas could go through the roof any minute and been grateful for the cheap gas while we had it.
Other countries learned from the 70s gas crisis and changed their ways when it comes to fuel consumption. Brazil, for instance, has lots of oil, but they run their cars mostly on alternative fuels and sell the oil to other countries. If the price of gas ever drops below $2 again, I fully expect the American people and government to go right back to acting like we will have cheap gas forever…again.