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Friday, June 30, 2017

City struggling to keep bikes off Coastal Hwy. this season

Bicycle rack plan for buses deemed impractical, while rider path idea still stalled

Bicycle racks affixed to Ocean City’s buses is an idea whose time may never come, as resort officials earlier this month killed a proposal that would see them installed by summer 2018.

At its June 13 meeting, the Transportation Commission declined to proceed with a proposed bike rack plan, since the racks would cost $240 each. That would add $2,160 to the purchase cost of nine additional buses that Public Works Director Hal Adkins ordered for next season.

The idea for the bicycle racks was inspired by Adkins’s efforts to bring bikers off the roads and onto the buses for safety reasons last fall. Notably, the commission discussed it in connection to the J-1 visa students, many of whom rent bicycles to use as a mode of transportation.

According to estimates from United Work and Travel, 1,200 students in 2016 were living in West Ocean City and biked over the Route 50 bridge to work and back.

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

but bikes have the right to ride on the roads.....

Anonymous said...

The two fenced in lanes on the RTE 50 bridge are PEDESTRIAN lanes, but hundreds cross on them every day on their bikes, not paying any attention to the signs that tell them to walk their bikes. And there's absolutely no help from OCPD on this.

Anonymous said...

Again lack of poor planning and a complete lack of any forward thinking skills on the part of OC officials going on for decades now.

Anonymous said...

Bikes should be on the 50 brige roadway, but it's an idiot's gamble with cars going 40-60 mph over that bridge. And there's never any speed control except for the occasional MSP car half a mile west of the bridge.

Anonymous said...

All the Pain N Ride buses used to have bike racks. Some idiot removed them and threw in trash over the winter.

Anonymous said...

$2160? Oh come on Hal, tell Rick that can be made up selling 45 parking lot spaces at $50 on Tues.

You all are so silly when it comes to excuses and costs. $2160, that's one's performance bonus from 2016. HAHAHAHA you all really are CITY FAIL and very OLD!

Anonymous said...

Every bus in FL has a bike rack in the front.