Kent’s new biking landscape changes city scene
By Richie Mulhall and Ian Klein
Avid bicyclist and Tallmadge native Sara Harper did not feel safe riding her bike around Kent State University campus back in 2008.
“I didn’t feel safe on the roads,” Harper said.
At the time, the current condition of the roads and streets in the city of Kent were not conducive to cyclists, and Harper knew the city needed change.
Now fast-forward seven years later, and sweeping change is finally on the horizon.
Bikes whiz past pedestrians on Summit Street streets and sidewalks during all hours of the day. The clicking sound of bike chains rattling permeates a crisp quiet morning on campus.
Blue-stained Flashfleet bike racks continue to spring up all around campus and downtown Kent. Floor signs prompting passersby to use the right side of the Esplanade for biking and left side for walking are popping up throughout campus, increasingly spreading awareness of biker and pedestrian safety.
“The atmosphere is changing for the better,” the exercise physiology grad student said. “Things are changing and things are getting better. The growth of downtown, the infrastructure. It’s not the same town.”
A volatile landscape
The trend, supported by a number of studies, shows that people all around the country are biking more. In the 2002 National Survey of Bicyclist and Pedestrian Attitudes and Behaviors people were asked how often they ride a bike compared to about a year ago, and 27 percent of the people asked said they ride more often. In the 2012 version of the same survey, 38 percent of people rode more often.
People have always used bicycles for recreational purposes, but bicycling as a viable means of transportation is a growing trend that extends not only to Kent or even the United States, but also to all around the word. Granted, bigger cities in the U.S. such as New York and Los Angeles are more equipped to deal with the growing number of people swapping out their cars for two-wheel “vehicles,” but even smaller cities like Kent and Akron reflect the trend and are beginning to reform their infrastructures in order to better accommodate the needs of the bicycle community.
“It started in 2004 when the city put together its bicentennial plan, which was done through a significant amount of meetings with the general public, and one of the trends that came out of it was that the public wanted the city to use traffic management, be more walkable and use several modes of transportation,” said Jim Bowling, superintendent of engineering for Kent. “Shortly thereafter is when the trails started to be built and significant roadway projects that were done started enveloping that idea that we need to incorporate bike facilities.” Bowling and Kent officials saw the importance of bicycling as a means of transportation, as more and more people are commuting to work and school via bike.
According to stats gathered from the 2012 National Survey of Bicyclist and Pedestrian Attitudes and Behaviors survey, at least 11 percent of people who rode their bicycle at least once in the past 30 days did so to commute to and from school or work.
Even in a small city like Kent, people rely on bicycles to get from point A to point B. Just ask Brecksville resident Murray Fishel
Keeping up with the times
Seventy-six-year-old Murray Fishel, a Kent State graduate (BA 1961, MA 1963) who served as a professor of political science from 1966 to 1992, is an avid cyclist who’s biked in all 50 states, including 11 countries.
After leaving Kent State in 1992 to pursue a career as a political consultant, Fishel took up biking, which quickly became a passion for him. When he volunteered to do consulting for the Portage County Park District years ago when the district was trying to get the levy passed that led to the creation and preservation of what is now the Portage County Hike and Bike Trail, Fishel commuted to work two days a week for five or six years via bicycle from Sagamore Hills Township to Kent. During that time, Fishel took the Summit County Bike and Hike Trail.
“It’s going on nationally, an increasing number of people using the bike as both a recreational tool and as a transportation tool,” Fishel said.
Fishel said different counties seem to be moving at different speeds in regard to making their roads, trails and bike lanes more accessible. While he can’t speak as much for Portage County and the city of Kent, he assured that Cleveland has already taken big steps in the movement to promote bicycling as a means of transportation.
He cited an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that described the possibility of Cleveland “moving closer to getting a large bike sharing network.”
Jacob Van Sickle, the executive director of Bike Cleveland and the first paid bike coordinator in the Cleveland area, has pulled all of the bike resources and advocacy groups together to expand the city’s emergent bike sharing program with the goal of bringing 300 to 400 rental bikes to Cleveland.
“The move toward promoting bicycling as a means of transportation really has been fostered significantly by Bike Cleveland here,” Fishel said.
Last year in Bicycling Magazine, Cleveland broke into the list of “America’s Best Biking Cities,” coming in at No. 39.
“Part of that is a function of Jacob’s ability to bring the advocacy groups together,” Fishel said.
Recently there has been an “explosion” of bicycling in Detroit, Fishel said. According to an article published in Outside Magazine, bicycling is on the rise in Detroit, a city often compared to Cleveland. The article focuses on tDetroit’s infrastructure being built to support 2 million people. Since the population has dropped to about 0.5 million, roads ccan better promote bicycling.
Now Cleveland is trying to model itself after Detroit’s success, Fishel said.
“The population of Cleveland has dropped from about 1 million to about 400,000 over the last 30 years, and they have roads that really would accommodate bike lanes if there’s a will to do that, and that’s partly what Jacob has promoted,” Fishel said.
Fruits of Labor
Molly Aubuchon, co-owner and operator of Kent Cycle located on 115 Lake Street in downtown Kent, has reaped the reward of the growing bike riding trend. Her business has thrived and prospered as a result of the big bike boom.
“We’ve been enjoying a steady increase in sales,” Aubuchon said. “I feel the demand is definitely going up, people are riding their bikes more for recreation, for commuting and just for exercising as well.”
Kent Cycle, which Aubuchon and her husband Stefan Meyer opened for business in March 2012, has offered students an outlet from which they can purchase bikes in Kent, a missing resource in a bike congested college town.
Since there weren’t many bike shops in Kent, Aubuchon and her husband seized the opportunity to make a difference in the community that wasn’t there before.
“There had been about a 4-5 year span where there was no bike shop in Kent, and we felt there was a high demand, so it was good timing,” Aubuchon said.
Aubuchon said she believes there’s a strong correlation between the city of Kent’s sweeping efforts to reform the city’s bike scene and Kent Cycle’s increasing profits.
“The city’s also put up signage that is beneficial to cyclists by bringing awareness to the drivers and the cyclists that yes we’re allowed to be on the roads, and that helps make a safer environment, which encourages folks to get out on their bikes and feel more comfortable,” Aubuchon said.
Much like Craycroft, Aubuchon identifies as a strong advocate of the idea that bicyclists are drivers, not pedestrians, meaning that they have every right to be on the road with motor vehiclists.
“There are some great paved trails that you can access right from downtown,” Aucbuchon said. “The university as well put in the Esplanade, which brings students right downtown in a safe, well-lit path. I know they’re working on bike shares and new lanes for bicycles for the future.”
Aubuchon said the Esplanade expansion reduces the congestion on campus sidewalks and makes cyclists feel safer on the roads.
“Personally [they] make me feel more comfortable and confident,” Aubuchon said.
Harper believes these same changes are happening in Portage County right now.
“The facilities and the resources available to individuals who cycle are growing at a rapid rate and are starting to keep up with the actual infrastructure,” Harper said. “Now we’re starting to see the increases in bike racks, now we’re starting to see the increases in rental bikes, so it’s really moving in a positive direction. It’s really starting to come full circle.”
Transportation in Kent
So what is Kent doing to adapt to the changes this national trend has brought to the local scale?
Harper, who has been attending Kent State since 2008, said the city and university’s plans and efforts to make the surrounding area a more bike friendly place have finally manifest.
Over the years city officials have made great strides to make Kent more bike friendly, and one of the city’s current projects in the works will help matters even more.
The Summit Street: Building a Better Way project, a joint effort by city of Kent and Kent State designed to “improve traffic and safety conditions by adding turn lanes, medians and sidewalks to the roadway” of East Summit Street, will add dedicated bike lanes for cyclists.
In addition, Bowling said the project will also implement the addition of 8-foot wide sidewalks on both sides of the street so that if students feel more comfortable riding on the sidewalks, they can do so.
The roundabouts will also make riding with traffic more appealing for cyclists, too.
“The whole intent is to make it as smooth and seamless for all modes of transportation, including the bicyclists,” Bowling said.
Harper said she thinks the investiture of the Summit Street project’s bike lane improvements will have a huge impact on how students maneuver around campus.
“It changes everyone’s outlook, and with that I think we also need to educate,” Harper said. “Though those bike lanes are there, people who bike also have the right-away to bike in the road. If the city has the right infrastructure to keep and maintain those bike lanes, everything will work out smoothly.”
The demand for new facilities came to Bowling’s attention when people told him the Esplanade was already at capacity, and connecting the Esplanade to the new bike trails and Portage Bike and Hike Trail will be key, too.
To the east of the Summit Street Project, Bowling said the city of Kent will eventually look to connect the new bike lanes to the current lanes that lead to Horning Road, which ties into state Route 261 (261 also contains an entry point to the Portage Hike and Bike Trail). Then on the west side, the city will connect the bike lanes all the way to Willow Street, which will be just two blocks away from the Esplanade close to downtown.
“[The new bike lanes] provide an essential piece of connectivity to start moving people from the east side of town all the way to downtown,” Bowling said. “Once you start connecting those pieces together, it will take the restrictions away from those who want to bike.”
Networking the community
In order to efficiently connect a lot of these “pieces” together, the city of Kent works closely with the Portage Park District to make these connections possible.
In addition to the Esplanade that runs through campus, which now includes the Lester A. Lefton Esplanade Extension that now serves as the link between downtown and Kent, the Portage Hike and Bike Trail also helps people in Portage County get around.
According to the Portage Park District website, the Portage Hike and Bike Trail serves as a “key east-west link between the major trail systems in Northeast Ohio.”
Developed in the late 1990s and co-managed through a partnership between Portage Park District, Portage County, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad, City of Kent, Kent State University, Franklin and Ravenna Townships and the city of Ravenna, the 8.43-mile stretch of trail is a regional trail that runs from the Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Summit County to the Lakes to Rivers Trail that reaches over Lake Erie and the Ohio River.
Christine Craycroft, executive director of the Portage Park District, said the cities and the Portage Park District coordinate the timing of their applications for grant funding when they wish to construct new portions of the trail. As for development and maintenance, they each stick to their own areas of jurisdiction in a cohesive management approach.
The development of this city-spanning trail development was made possible thanks to a variety of individual donations, local, state and federal grants and through the cooperation of the Ohio Department of Transportation and Akron Metropolitan Area Transportation Study. Federal funding and a property tax levies help the Portage Park District make modifications and additions to the trail.
“Every time we add a section, we get more users, we get more demand,” Craycroft said. “Year by year we’ve seen increased usage by all kinds of people. There are a number of people who’ve told us they use it to commute to work.”
Craycroft said the Park District collaborates with the respective cities that encompass the bike trail to increase connectivity to destination points such as parks, campus and downtown.
“There are still some missing pieces in Kent that are going to be filled in over the next few years that already have funding for them,” Craycroft said.
A portion of the Hike and Bike Trail along the Cuyahoga River in downtown Kent ends at Tannery Park, and funding is in place for developing a path from John Brown Tannery Park to the Esplanade Extension. The path is in design and scheduled for construction in 2017.
The Portage Hike and Bike ends at state Route 59, which stops in downtown at the Kent Central Gateway transportation terminal. Another portion of the Portage Hike and Bike Trail comes from Tallmadge along the Cuyahoga River from the southwest part of town and ends at Tannery Park. The city of Kent is currently working on a design for a connection between the two trails, hoping to bridge the gap in the Portage Hike and Bike Trail by connecting Tannery Park to the Kent State Central Gateway.
From the Esplanade, there are plans to build a 10-foot wide trail that will lead riders and pedestrians to Franklin Street. Bowling expects the trail to cross Depeyster and South Water Street “at grade,” but then it will run between Walgreens and Haymaker Parkway to reach Franklin Street on its own separate facility. At that point then, “the connection will be signed to Tannery Park,” Bowling said.
“The reason why we didn’t go any further is because that next piece has its own financial challenges with the bridge and two railroads we have to cross,” Bowling said.
Another construction plan that would connect Main street to Brady’s Leap in downtown will also allow for continuous bike travel for cyclists.
“The community said they wanted it, the community started building those pieces and people have responded, and they’re out there using those facilities right now” Bowling said. “When we did the downtown [construction], we designed it in such a way that bikers should be comfortable.”
Improving Safety
Cyclists also need the feel safe while coexisting with drivers on the road.
Fishel said he thinks cities like Kent should find ways to ensure bikers’ safety, especially when there are a significant number of students commuting to a college campus like Kent State.
The issue of bike safety was recently called into question in light of a September 17 incident in which a pick-up truck crashed into five bikers with while making a left turn near Snowville Road and Dewey Road in Brecksville. Two bikers, Mathew Billings, 33, and Jim Lambert, 52, both members of the Akron Bike Club, were killed and the three other bikers were injured and released from area hospitals, Cleveland.com reported.
The driver of the truck, Timothy J. Wolf, 42, of Brecksville, has since been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide.
Fishel said problems like these and general lack of biker safety on roadways starts with Congress.
“Part of the dilemma that local communities are going to face is that the current Congress…is trying to eliminate the funding for non auto and airport related transportation, so a lot of the funding in local communities comes from the federal government,” Fishel said. “If I were students who were interested in promoting a more bike friendly community, I would start paying attention to who I voted for in Congress.”
Harper, on the other hand, places a heavier emphasis on education as the solution to cyclist safety.
“Safety factors don’t apply to [the Brecksville] incident,” she said. “They had helmets, they had lights, they had all the safety measures, but making sure that’s universal [is key]. There’s definitely a push for more protective bike lanes, so not only having a painted three-foot barrier but actually having the protective bike lanes just for that little additional safety factor.”
