Last night I attended the very first ever (as far as I know) local bike advocacy meeting in Harrisburg.
By my count, about a dozen 19 people showed up. We had representatives from the Greenbelt Association, the Harrisburg Bicycle Club, Recycle Bicycle, PA Walks and Bikes, and a few unaffiliated cyclists like me.
From what I gathered, the general idea is that this group intends to be the local version of what PA Walks and Bikes is for the State, and what the Bike League is at the national level.
A couple of pieces of good news that I learned about last night:
- The Bike Rally at the Capitol is happening May 3rd this year.
- Lemoyne is probably getting Sharrows through the bottleneck, and proper painted bike lanes on Market St.
- The bridge on US 11/15 in Enola is slated to be replaced, and the replacement will actually have shoulders.
- The Greenbelt people are talking to PennDOT today about getting a crosswalk put in where the Greenbelt crosses the super highway that is N. Front St.
- Carlisle’s controversial door-zone bike lanes are supposedly being painted some time this year.
Lots of good stuff going on.
I think the plan is to hold these meetings monthly, and maybe include a ride with them once the weather gets nicer. I think the consensus was the last Wednesday of every month at the Midtown Scholar on 3rd St. in Harrisburg.
You should come next time.
For the record, based on the sign-in sheet, there were 19 people in attendance last night. All of them have now received invitations to the newly created Bike the Burg Google group. http://groups.google.com/group/biketheburg
I also think that we ought to hit up Josh for a LAB cycling course. It wouldn’t hurt if we’re gonna talk about infrastructure as it applies to cycling.
Hey, thanks for the info! Great to know…
This is good to hear I just moved to Enola for a new job in the city and I am planning on commuting via bicycle from Enola. From what I looked at that bridge from Enola does look like the “sketchiest” bit of the commute. I welcome any tips or suggested routes for commuting from the Enola area. Thanks for the info
It depends where you’re commuting to. If you’re going downtown, you’ll probably want the Harvey Taylor Bridge. In that case, it’s either straigh down 11/15 (which is kinda scary) or you could take East Penn drive south and turn onto Polar Church Road near Holy Spirit Hospital.
East Penn has nice wide shoulders, but the intersection at Holy Spirit is pretty dicey.
Thanks for the tips! I will be commuting to 2nd and Locust downtown. I was kind of thinking of taking N/S Enola Drive until it runs into 15 and a soon as I can getting off of 15 to meet up with the Harvey Taylor Bridge then take the green belt til I meet up with Locust. Depending on how this is I may want to look into taking East Penn. thanks again
That’s exactly what I’d do. Plus, if you turn right off of 15 just before you get to the Harvey Taylor, you can ride through that nifty tunnel.