KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – May is National Bike Month, and officials in both Portage and Kalamazoo are looking for ways to increase ridership locally.
Bike riders in the area have a wide variety of trails to choose from, many that link up and travel though scenic areas. The Great Lake-to-Lake Trail will allow bike riders to peddle all the way to South Haven to the west or Port Huron to the east.
One link that has yet to be made is one between the extensive trail networks in Kalamazoo and Portage, but Portage Mayor Patricia Randall says that could change. She says Kilgore Road near Kalamazoo Loy Norrix High School is the most logical place to link the two systems and talks are underway to make it happen.
Randall says the subject came up when she and Kalamazoo Mayor David Anderson shared their annual bike run earlier this month.
Kalamazoo has been adding bike lanes as part of their “Streets for All” program, including along Westnedge Avenue and Park Street downtown. City Planner Christina Anderson says they don’t seem to be generating a lot of bike traffic yet, she says they are still working on a robust bike network that will take riders everywhere they want to go.
Anderson says it took the City of New York a decade to double their bike traffic. She says the cities around the world that have large bike cultures have been at it a lot longer…as much as 50 years.
She says it not only takes a change in infrastructure, but a change in driver behavior to switch from a car culture to one that allows other modes of transportation.
A bike count done in Kalamazoo last year (2022) showed that only about two percent of the traffic in Kalamazoo is on bikes using designated lanes, which is about average in the United States.
reporting from John McNeill
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