Advocacy & Safety - Buffalo, NY to become more bike friendly

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harleyfrog
07-22-08, 08:03 AM
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-21-095.asp

Sounds like a great idea. I hope more cities follow Buffalo's lead.


andrelam
07-22-08, 09:29 AM
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-21-095.asp

Sounds like a great idea. I hope more cities follow Buffalo's lead.

That sounds good. It also appears to be a reasonably well kept secret. The local paper is usually on top of stuff like this and I didn't read anything about it this past weekend. I ride to work here every day and one of the staff members has a husband that rides into the down town and works in city hall. Cycling is SLOWLY starting to become more popular here in the Greater Buffalo Niagara area. It is good to read that the bike parking will be in the area of town that is already thriving with "sidewalk life." There areas have lots of small stores, restaurants, boutiques, etc. The streets side parking is always full and is adjacent to residential areas. These are prefect places for people to visit on their bikes.

In general there are some excellent projects around here that are finally helping people get out there on their bikes. For one we've had a number of nice Bike Paths (yes they actually call them Bike paths and not MUPS!). The problem in the past was that most didn't connect. That problem is being resolved and allows a lot of folks to by pass some areas that are definitely NOT car friendly. I ride mostly on the streets, but most of the paths are nice and straight and are great for cycling. One of the major missing pieces is the Southtown connector. You can ride all the way from Palmyra NY (East of Rochester) either on paths (Erie Canal Tow Path) or on designiated NY State Bike Route #5 all the way to down town Buffalo. The main problem was that you could not easily or safely get accross the Buffalo River down through Lackawanna. The road is narrow, full of trucks, and definitely not a good place to ride a bike. In the next two years this will be fixed. In the Tonnawandas (North West of down town) there will be a new path put in along a former railway line that will cut diaganolly accross town. This in conjuction with the existing bike path network privides some nice "cross town" bike lanes with very few road crossings.

Buffalo is nowhere near bike nirvanna, but it is nice that there are small but important improvements being made every day.

Happy riding,
André