It’s a good time to be in the bike business, says Rich Moscardelli, manager of Ace Bike Shop on MacArthur Boulevard in Springfield. Among the hip trends this season are saving money, getting in shape and green living – all factors that push people to ride bikes.
“It’s getting to be more popular, and especially fitness and performance bikes are becoming more popular than they used to be,” Moscardelli says. “If you’ve got a good quality bike, it doesn’t take much effort to keep it moving. It doesn’t take anything but what you eat, and the only emissions are what you flush.”
But cycling in Springfield has long suffered from flaws in infrastructure that discourage large numbers of potential bike riders from taking to the streets.
“We’re basically in the Stone Age,” Moscardelli observes, noting the irony that the bicycle shop he manages has operated there for five or six years, yet there are no sidewalks or bike lanes on much of busy MacArthur Boulevard, and thus no easy bike access.
The city does have eight bike trails that account for about 21 miles of bikeway, while the city’s five streets with bike lanes and two with wide shoulders together cover about 14 miles. Thirty-five miles of bikeway may seem adequate, until you consider that Springfield and Sangamon County together contain more than 2,400 miles of roads. Additionally, most of Springfield’s trails are disconnected from one another and only serve the southern part of the city. Some of the busiest streets have no bike accommodations at all.
The Springfield Bicycle Advisory Council (SBAC), created by the city to help make Springfield more bike friendly, and the Springfield Bicycle Initiative, part of Leadership Springfield, conducted a survey in 2009 to gauge bike usage and perceptions of cycling in Springfield. Out of 490 survey respondents, 75 percent said they were discouraged from cycling more because of a lack of bikeways, while 59 percent cited safety concerns – no doubt connected to the lack of bikeways. In much of the city, and in Sangamon County as well, there are simply not enough bike lanes, paths and trails to make cycling safe and convenient. But don’t go packing up your spandex shorts just yet; Springfield is on the path to becoming a whole lot friendlier for bikes.
In May, the Springfield Area Transportation Study (SATS) released its 2035 Long Range Transportation Plan, and it holds a lot of promise for cyclists, including new and improved bike trails, bikeways on newly-constructed roads and more. SATS was started by the city and county in 1964 as a way to plan for future transportation needs, but until now, the focus has mostly been on motorized transport.
“This is the first time that planning for bikes has taken more of a front seat in the longrange plan,” says Linda Wheeland, senior transportation planner for the Springfield-Sangamon County Regional Planning Commission, which helps support SATS. “Part of the development of the long-range plan this time was the opportunity for the community to have more input, and I think from all the public input, it was obvious that the citizens were interested in having more attention paid to the modes of biking and walking.”
And pay attention they did. The plan calls for specific improvements to bike infrastructure in Springfield and Sangamon County, and road projects that haven’t even been conceived of yet will likely include considerations for bikes because of the plan.
“There is a strong link between planning and public health,” the SATS report notes. “The design of a community has a direct impact on how much exercise people get, the connection they have with others in the community, and the quality of the environment. Providing safe, accessible, complete, and interconnected options for non-motorized travel and public transportation encourages people to leave their cars at home, leading to greater health of our citizens, our communities and our environment.”
What’s so great about bikes? In Wheeland’s office sits her gun-metal grey bike and helmet; she rides her bike to work whenever possible.
“Ever since I was a kid and had the independence a bicycle provided, I’ve always continually rode, both for commuting and recreational purposes,” Wheeland says. “I find that it puts me more in touch with other people. When you’re in your car, you just go down the street and you don’t interact with anybody at all. When you’re on your bicycle, you say hello to people, and sometimes you meet people in your neighborhood that you didn’t know before. All the way from home to work, there’s a possibility of interacting with other human beings.”
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