Friday, June 18, 2010

City Council Ok's Conference Bikes

On the last Spring session day for City Council, amid the same set of bills that contained the Schuylkill River Trail bill was one that gave the go-ahead for conference bikes to seek approval from the Streeets Department to operate on specific routes. One route that has been suggested before is to loop in the emerging Centennial District of Fairmount Park.

Conference bikes caused some controversy in 2007 when Councilman Frank DiCicco introduced a bill to ban them and contained language that would have also banned bike cabs and even kids bike trailers. A quick response from the Bicycle Coalition helped prevent the bill from reaching the floor.

The Bicycle Coalition does have some reservations with Conference Bikes, which are different than the kneejerk "they will cause gridlock" argument that the Bykofskyites shout about in the comments section of every article that mentions bicycles. The wide vehicles can clog up on multi-use paths and it is unclear in the legislation as to whether Conference Bike operators will undergo the same scrutiny that bike cab operators have to go through.

But...



...it is PedalPower that leaves a smaller environmental footprint when compared to the giant Ducks or obnoxious advertising trucks. And then there is this classic YouTube video, which I can only describe as Cycle Chic to the seventh power.

1 comments:

Josh said...

Cool! But want was the issue with bike taxis?? A friend opened a bike taxi company here in Harrisburg this year without a shred of opposition. So far, it has been quite successful.