OCEAN CITY – A Bicycle Friendly Community program could help to make Ocean City’s streets safer and more accessible for bicyclists.
In a Coastal Resources Legislative Committee, or Green Team, meeting on Jan. 10, Paul Mauser, engineering manager for the town of Ocean City, presented committee members with a national designation program that provides guidance for cities and towns wishing to develop a bikeable community.
In recent years, the resort has utilized grant funding from the Maryland Department of Transportation’s Bikeways Program to establish a continual bike path system along the resort’s side streets. The goal is to minimize the need for bicycles to interact with vehicles on the city’s major roadways, including Coastal Highway, Philadelphia Avenue and Baltimore Avenue.
In 2016, for example, the city received more than $50,000 from the Bikeways Program to create a bike route along Sinepuxent Avenue. The route will be expanded in the future to include Assawoman Drive, Wight Street and Jamaican Avenue.
Mauser said the Bicycle Friendly Community program would allow the city to further develop its bicycle friendly initiatives. He encouraged the committee to discuss what a Bicycle Friendly Community is, how Ocean City can become a Bicycle Friendly Community and why Ocean City would want to become a Bicycle Friendly Community.
“Those are the three questions that I really want to get into with this group right here,” he said.
John Foley, a member of Salisbury’s Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee, said the Bicycle Friendly Program would provide a roadmap for cities who want to improve on bicycle enforcement, education, infrastructure, safety and more.
“Essentially it’s a community that either has an existing infrastructure or endeavors to create the infrastructure to make a city bicycle friendly,” he said.
He said Ocean City’s application to the Bicycle Friendly Community program would be evaluated by the program’s organizers. The city would then be placed in one of five categories – bronze, silver, gold, platinum or diamond – depending on what criteria was met. The City of Salisbury, for example, is designated as a bronze Bicycle Friendly Community.
Mauser suggested the city form a bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee to explore the program further and advocate for a bicycle friendly community.
Ocean Pines resident Tres Denk, president of the Eastern Shore International Mountain Biking Association, said he was eager to help form a bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee.
“This committee would be able to help the community contact the government and let them know what the problems are,” he said.
He said prior attempts to form a committee in both Ocean Pines and Worcester County, however, proved challenging.
“Without this bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee and that commitment from a municipality, grants don’t come and there is no way to move forward …,” he said. “Starting a new committee is harder than I expected.”
Committee members with the Green Team encouraged Mauser to pursue the Bicycle Friendly Community designation.
“Let’s go after this designation,” Gail Blazer, the city’s environmental engineer, said. “The next step would be setting up some sort of outline for what the committee should be and how it would be formed.”
Mauser said he would develop a policy and plan for establishing the advisory committee before bringing the idea to the Mayor and Council.
If approved, Denk said the Bicycle Friendly Community designation could bring more bicycle enthusiasts to the area.
“This could make Ocean City a destination,” he said.
Councilman Tony DeLuca, chair of the Green Team, applauded the program.
“What you are doing here fits in nicely with why we started this whole bicycle thing in Ocean City,” he said.
