Johnson County Council of Governments wants input on bike plan

Mon September 29 2008
Posted Sep 29, 2008
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Iowa City By Lee Hermiston Iowa City Press-Citizen The Johnson County Council of Governments is looking for bicycle riders of all experience levels to come to its Bikeway Master Plan Workshops. “We want people of all levels,” said Kristopher Ackerson, Assistant Transportation Planner for JCCOG. “We want people who ride on a daily basis and those who ride once a year.” So, why does JCCOG want input on their Bikeway Plan from people who don’t even ride their bikes? Ackerson said it’s because they hope implementing some changes will get more people out of their cars and onto their bikes. JCCOG will host two Bikeway Master Plan Workshops to get input on the plan. The workshops will be attended by elected officials, city staff and other members of the Iowa City area who are interested in improving bicycle facilities and programs. Ackerson said in January 2008, area officials decided to put together a Bikeway Master Plan. The plan, Ackerson said, was the latest step in Iowa City being named a bicycle-friendly community by the League of American Cyclists. “This was a way for us to improve our bicycle-friendly status,” Ackerson said. Ackerson said Iowa City and surrounding communities already have successfully developed trails throughout the area. The plan would focus on five E’s — engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement and evaluation. Some possible improvements could be education programs to teach people how to ride with traffic, offering more bicycle rodeos to teach children how to ride safely and other “opportunities to make cycling easier in the urbanized area,” Ackerson said. The workshops will be Tuesdayat North Ridge Pavilion, 2250 Holiday Road, Coralville; and Oct. 8 at the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center, 28 S. Linn St., Iowa City. Both meetings will go from 7 to 8:30 p.m.