Not all aspects of social distancing were completely bad.
Prior to the COVID pandemic, bicycling had already been gaining in interest among all age groups throughout the Chesapeake region for several years. But then 2020 rolled around, and it suddenly became very clear that with a little extra time in the day and a desire to get out of the house, people were inclined to get on their bikes much more often.
This was observed by Tanya Asman, bicycle and pedestrian planner for the Anne Arundel County Office of Transportation. “The commuter park-and-ride lots are empty due to teleworking, and trail use is up due to COVID,” she says.
It was also observed across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on the Eastern Shore by Paul Lombardo, chairman of the Queen Anne’s County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and managing member of Bike Doctor of Kent Island. “The county has two excellent bike trails, and at the height of the pandemic, they were just covered with people,” he recalls.
Now the big question—is that interest sustainable?
If you ask Jon Korin, president and founder of Bicycle Advocates for Annapolis and Anne Arundel County (better known as BikeAAA for short) and chair of the Anne Arundel County Bicycle Advisory Commission, who has spent the past few years striving to ensure the area is much more accessible to all cyclists, the answer is yes. But it will take work.
“We hope everyone who started biking, who dusted off their old, beat-up bikes during COVID, or bought out every bit of supply the bike shops had during COVID…we hope for a lot of those folks, they’ll transition from biking for recreation to doing some biking for transportation,” Korin says. “But we know they won’t do it unless we make it safe.”
Since 2013, Korin and his fellow volunteers with BikeAAA have advocated ways to make bicycling a more viable choice for transportation, recreation, and fitness. “For me, it’s not so much about bikes—it’s for all the benefits that are derived by getting more people biking and walking,” Korin says. “Health of people. Health of the environment. Reduced traffic.”
Those reasons aren’t lost on local governments, which are now making bicycling a priority. Asman explains her office was formed in 2017 under the direction of Ramond Robinson—before that, transportation was a division of the Department of Planning and Zoning—and today, the Office of Transportation works with the Department of Public Works on infrastructure projects. “We are much more involved with DPW in identifying what projects we want, and where, and the prioritization,” Asman says. It requires, as she puts it, “designing the roadway for the safe use of all road users,” including cyclists and pedestrians.
Specifically, this means adopting legislation like Complete Streets, as well as the county’s Transportation Functional Master Plan, titled Move Anne Arundel. Complete Streets will advance thedesign and operation ofe entire right-of-ways to prioritize safer, slower speeds for all people who use the roads. “This means every transportation project will make the street network better and safer for people walking, biking, driving, riding transit, and moving actively with assistive devices—making our county a better place to live,” Asman says.
Similarly, she explains, Move Anne Arundel prioritizes the installation of comfortable infrastructure such as shared-use paths and bicycle lanes separated from vehicles by a vertical barrier as a means of building out the low-stress, safe network. The Office of Transportation is also leading the charge on adopting and developing a Vision Zero action plan, a safety initiative to eliminate death and serious injury due to crashes.
To be effective in reaching the goals laid out by these policies and plans, however, Asman notes that all county agencies and the private sector need “to be dedicated to working in concert with each other to create safe, comfortable, bicycling, walking and transit infrastructure, with a mindset that active transportation is equally important as vehicular.”
In many cases, this means providing bicycle routes to as many places of interest as possible. One of the major projects BikeAAA has undertaken is providing guidance on the Anne Arundel Trail Network (annearundeltrailnetwork.org), an in-development connection of trails throughout the Annapolis-Baltimore-D.C. region that gives access to residential communities, places of employment and education, recreation, shopping, culture, natural areas, and much more. This includes major existing trails like the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail and the BWI Trail, as well as ongoing projects like the Broadneck Trail and the South Shore Trail. Future projects will even form connections to the City of Baltimore, Prince Georges County, and D.C.
The Queen Anne’s County Department of Parks and Recreation has a similar vision for its trails, although its two main trails—the Cross Island Trail and the Kent Island South Trail—don’t connect to destination points the way Anne Arundel County trails do.
“Ours are used more as recreational trails,” explains Steve Chandlee, director of Parks and Recreation. “That’s mainly because we don’t have the urban areas close by—big urban areas to connect a lot of the workforce like you would in a Prince George’s County or a Montgomery County or an Annapolis area. Especially as you move farther up north, it’s a more rural area, so you’re definitely not going to find bicycles used as transportation to work.”
However, even for recreational use, Queen Anne’s County aims to bring the trails together. “The long-term plan has always been to connect up to Tuckahoe State Park,” Chandlee adds. “That’s always been the long-term vision. It’s just now a matter of acquiring the easements, getting money to build the trails, and moving forward.”
In order to turn the vision for a bicycle-friendly community into a reality, however, there are financial costs. Asman notes that much of this burden has been alleviated thanks to grants.
“Since 2017, the Office of Transportation has been awarded every grant request for which we applied,” she says, listing three Kim Lamphier Bikeways grants and one Transportation Alternative Programs for a Safe Routes to Schools grant, as well as grants that other agencies—such as Recreation and Parks and the City of Annapolis—have received. “When combined together, the county and the city have been awarded over $10 million from transportation state and federal grants in the last three years or so, for both design and construction,” she adds.
Queen Anne’s County has turned to funding through Program Open Space—which is administered through the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to assist in the planning, acquisition, and development of land—to supplement county funding and grant money for work on its trail system.
But there’s another challenge to consider, particularly for the Eastern Shore, in creating a bicycle-friendly community: Route 50. It’s one of the reasons Lombardo says biking for transportation isn’t practical. “We don’t have the infrastructure to make it work,” he states simply.
That’s not to suggest cyclists like Lombardo have given up hope; on the contrary, having more of Kent Island accessible by bike would be a great thing, he explains, mainly because it would get more cars off the road. “We all know how bad traffic gets in the summertime here,” he says. “When you can’t get around by car at all, firetrucks can barely get by, people leave their neighborhoods and they can’t get back. If we had infrastructure so you could ride north, south, east, or west on Kent Island, you could go to the store or restaurants by bicycle, or just walk for that matter.”
Making bicycling a feasible transportation option does much more than reduce traffic—though it does do that, and in a far more efficient and cost-effective way than expanding the roads, Korin says. It also provides a boost to the local economy. “Somebody whizzing by in a car doesn’t stop to spend money,” Korin explains. “Somebody walking by a shop is more likely to stop and spend some money. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for tourism.”
Bicycling is also an important part of transportation equity, making it possible for all people, regardless of income or other resources, to get where they need to go. “Some people have a choice—do I drive or do I bike?” Korin says. “For others, they have no choice. A car is not affordable, or a second car is not affordable, or people can’t drive because they have a DUI or no license. We need to make transportation options that are equitable.”
As part of this cause, BikeAAA partners with Anne Arundel Food Bank, Anne Arundel Medical Center/Luminis, Anne Arundel County Police Department Bike Patrol, and Bike Doctor of Crofton for the Wheels of Hope program (bikeaaa.org/wheels-of-hope-refurbished-bikes), which collects used bikes that are then refurbished by volunteers and given (along with new helmets) to those in need. “There has been significant demand for people in recovery and others in need of affordable transportation,” Korin says.
Then there are the environmental benefits of getting more people out of cars and onto bikes. Asman explains that studies on the air quality of Anne Arundel County and Maryland show markedly better air during the pandemic, when fewer cars were on the road. “Notably, nitrogen oxide, which is a vehicle emission and a large contributor to ozone gases, was above the allowable limits only three days at three separate locations out of the entire testing timeframe, April to September, in all of Maryland,” she says. “This is the lowest in 40 years of monitoring!”
Bicycling also provides an opportunity for camaraderie and community, as BikeAAA can attest. Not only is the organization connected to multiple cycling clubs all over the region, but they also host events like the Anne Arundel County Lifeline 100 (lifeline100.com), the area’s premier bike riding event, held in collaboration with Anne Arundel County Recreation and Parks and Anne Arundel County Police.
The all-ages, all-abilities tradition—now in its seventh year and set for Sunday, October 3—typically sees about 800 participants and has raised more than $200,000 for local nonprofit organizations, many of which send cyclists to do the ride themselves. A range of distances—including 100- and 65-mile scenic tours and 30- and 15-mile flat, paved trail rides, and a children’s bike rodeo—make it possible for anyone to be part of the event. “Bike events are usually for the serious” says Korin. “Lifeline 100 is an event for every age and every ability, including people with special needs.”
Lifeline 100 is the biggest event for BikeAAA, but it’s not the only one. The organization also partnered with Future History Now to create the county’s first Bike Safety Playground for young children at Lindale Middle School in Linthicum Heights.
There’s no indication that Maryland bicyclists are slowing down in their advocacy and their interest any time soon. Instead, they are setting their sights on even more growth in the months and years to come. Notably, Asman says her office is about to embark on an update to the Pedestrian and Bicycle Master Plan. “I am very excited to begin this work as the plan will be action oriented and identify a short-, mid-, and long-term plan for building out the transportation network for bicycling and walking to our destinations,” she says.
If nothing else, bicycling gives people a better appreciation of the area where they live. “I’d like to think people stick with it,” Chandlee says of bicycling. “It’s a good way to get around, it’s a good way to spend time, it’s a good way to see farm fields, marshy areas, and wildlife as you’re going through on different trails. You get a nice view with a little bit of everything the area has to offer.”
Need Ideas for Places to Ride?
BikeAAA offers plenty of ideas, whether you’re looking for park loops, paved trails, road routes, or even options for mountain biking. Find info at bikeaaa.org/resources/places-to-ride.
