Green Commute Week, Bike/Walk to Work Day, and the Seacoast Bike Tour bring attention to our increasingly bike-friendly state

 In 1971, Belgian cyclist Gustave Van Cauwenberghe founded Gus’ International Bicycle Shop in North Hampton. Twenty-eight years and two owners later, the shop still does good business on Lafayette Road. According to current owner Jeff Latimer, who took over the store in December, many shoppers are now buying bicycles as part of a general shift in their lifestyles.

“They’re not coming in for expensive road bikes, they’re just looking to get started,” Latimer said. “It’s being done in tandem with a lifestyle change.”

Seacoast residents are looking to lose weight and get healthier, Latimer said, while also being environmentally conscious. That means more and more people are commuting to work on bicycles instead of in cars, getting exercise while saving money on fuel and keeping harmful emissions out of the air.

“It’s great to see people making a commitment to make a change for the better in their lives,” Latimer said.  

That commitment is on full display this week as people who live and work on the Seacoast celebrate Green Commute Week through Friday, May 15. The week-long event encourages people to bike, walk, carpool or use public transportation to get to and from work. It culminates with Bike/Walk to Work Day on Friday, when “commuter breakfasts” will be held at locations around the state.

Bicycle festivities will continue over the weekend during the 24th annual Seacoast Bike Tour on Saturday and Sunday, May 16 and 17. A fundraiser for Breathe New Hampshire, the tour begins in Portsmouth and cruises along the Atlantic coastline to Ogunquit, Maine. The event raised $70,000 for the non-profit health agency in 2008, and spokesperson Beth D’Ovidio said they’re shooting for $80,000 this year. As of last week, close to 100 people had already registered, raising about $46,000.

“It is our largest fundraiser and public awareness raiser of the year,” D’Ovidio said.

The Seacoast Bike Tour includes multiple routes for riders with varying abilities. There is a 24-mile family friendly route across mostly flat terrain, as well as longer routes of 42, 56 or 100 miles. Participants have the option of staying overnight in Ogunquit and returning along a different route on Sunday, or taking a shuttle back to Portsmouth on Saturday. There is a registration fee of $45, plus a fundraising minimum of $250 for one-day riders or $350 for two-day riders. The cost covers live entertainment and barbecues at the finish line each day (visit www.breathenh.org to register).

Money raised by the tour will support a number of programs at Breathe New Hampshire, which is dedicated to reducing lung disease and making people healthier.

“We know that most lung disease is preventable, so the best way, we think, to achieve our mission of eliminating lung disease is to head it off before it begins,” D’Ovidio said. “Whatever we can do to reduce the pollutants in the air is a plus, a very positive step toward everyone’s healthy breathing.”

And bicycling fits perfectly with that vision. “Not only are you reducing the emissions in the air by biking or walking when you can, but you are also strengthening your own breathing capacity,” D’Ovidio said.

Breathe New Hampshire also actively pushes for policy changes that encourage clean air and healthy living, and legislation related to bicycle and pedestrian travel goes hand in hand with such initiatives.

Another group that advocates making New Hampshire a more bicycle-friendly state is the Bike-Walk Alliance of New Hampshire. And the group’s work is beginning to pay measurable dividends. On May 8, a national organization called the League of American Bicyclists released its annual rankings of bicycle friendly states. New Hampshire was ranked eighth on the list, up from 10th in 2008. Neighboring Maine, which has served as a model for many of the BWA’s efforts, ranked in at number 3.

According to BWA director Dave Topham, New Hampshire’s high ranking is mainly the result of work done over the past couple of years. Last July, Gov. John Lynch enacted House Bill 1203, which went into effect in January. The legislation forces motorists to share the road and provides several protections for cyclists. The bill mandates that motorists stay certain distances away from bicyclists while passing them on the road. Up to the speed of 30 miles per hour, that distance must be at least three feet. The mandatory distance then rises by one foot for each 10 mph increase in speed. For example, a motorist traveling 50 mph must pass bicyclists at a distance of at least five feet.

Topham stressed that motorists are allowed to cross double-yellow lines in order to pass bicyclists if there is no oncoming traffic. Too many motorists are hostile toward cyclists, he said, often shouting obscenities and telling them to use the sidewalk, even though it’s illegal for adults to ride on sidewalks.  

“It’s been kind of like a game that some motorists play with cyclists. They don’t think bicyclists belong on the road,” Topham said.

HB 1203 also clarifies that bicyclists must follow all the same rules of the road as motorists, using proper turn lanes and stopping at traffic lights. The legislation is aimed at mitigating the dangers of bicycling, which can deter people from commuting to work on bikes. “I think it’s somewhat of a deterrent because there’s also a lot of misconception out there about how bicyclists should be handled on the road,” Topham said.

A man Topham knows was recently injured after a motorist pulled in front of his bicycle to park, causing him to collide with the car. The Bike-Walk Alliance offers educational programs teaching cyclists to increase their visibility on the road and take emergency maneuvers to avoid accidents.

Another safety issue is obstacles on the roads. HB 1203 requires the N.H. Department of Transportation to minimize bicycle hazards on highways, such as drain grates and rumble strips. Most of the roadways in New Hampshire were not constructed with bicycles in mind, Topham said, and most roads aren’t wide enough to establish clearly demarcated bicycle lanes.

But Topham added that the DOT has become increasingly supportive of bike-friendly initiatives. Larry Keniston, the DOT’s intermodal facilities engineer, confirmed the state agency’s commitment to increasing bike friendliness. The department has a bicycle/pedestrian information Web site at www.nh.gov/dot/nhbikeped, with bicycle and pedestrian maps for the entire state and details about Green Commute Week.

Keniston outlined a number of DOT projects on the Seacoast involving bicycle trails or sidewalks. The department is spending $515,000 to construct a multi-use path at Pease Tradeport in Portsmouth; $850,000 to construct sidewalks, bicycle shoulders and multi-use paths on a stretch of Route 155 in Durham; and almost $1 million on bike paths along Route 108 in Dover. Design work is underway on construction of a four-foot bicycle shoulder along Route 108 in Newmarket, a project that will ultimately cost more than $5 million, according to Keniston.

The DOT is also funding a number of congestion mitigation and air quality improvements, and Safe Routes to School projects. Many of those projects are eligible for economic stimulus funding under President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which mandates that at least 3 percent of the stimulus funds in each state go toward transportation enhancement projects like bike paths and rail trails, Keniston said.

David Topham would like to see some of that funding go toward plans for a bicycle and pedestrian pathway stretching from Methuen, Mass., to Concord. The idea is to modify an abandoned rail corridor to serve as a multi-use path removed from public roads. The Bike-Walk Alliance and its 22 local rail-trail organizations are working with individual towns to advance the project and expect to have a path from Methuen to Derry completed within the next two to five years.

“Right now, the big push is on rail-trail development for both transportation and recreation,” Topham said.

Another project benefiting from stimulus funds in the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile trail that will ultimately stretch from the Canadian border to Key West, Fl.

“So far, we know of 10 trail projects that are parts of the East Coast Greenway that are receiving economic stimulus funds,” said Eric Weis, East Coast Greenway’s trail program coordinator for New England. Those projects total more than $26 million, including $1.1 million to construct a multi-use trail in Biddeford, Maine, on a section of the Greenway stretching from Kittery to Portland.

To date, only 23 percent of the Greenway’s off-road trail is complete, but the East Coast Greenway Alliance has established an interim on-road trail. The New Hampshire segment of that interim trail is marked with bike route signs, although none of New Hampshire’s off-road trail is complete.  

A potential roadblock for the East Coast Greenway is the plight of Memorial Bridge, which spans the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth to Kittery and serves as the Greenway’s link between New Hampshire and Maine. Weis said trail advocates have formed a group called Bridge to the Greenway, and local organization Seacoast Area Bike Routes is actively pushing for preservation of the bridge.

“Fortunately, there is existing advocacy surrounding Memorial Bridge,” Weis said.

Seacoast Area Bike Routes has been working with the Greenway Alliance to establish an off-road trail through the Seacoast. SABR President Josh Pierce said the interim on-road path has been a success, but he repeated that Portsmouth’s old roads are not ideally suited for bicycling. “One of the things we would love to have on the Seacoast is a completely off-road place to walk or bike to work,” he said.

Pierce is also an employee of Papa Wheelies Bicycle Shop in Portsmouth, which held its first ever bicycle swap last month. The store sold 130 used bikes, an indication that interest in cycling is approaching an all-time high. Pierce said sales at Papa Wheelies began to soar last summer when gas prices skyrocketed, and the trend has continued this year. Other customers have been dusting off their old bicycles and bringing them to the store for a tune-up, he added.

New Hampshire also offers many opportunities for recreational cycling. Pierce said he went on a 2.5-hour loop around Mount Agamenticus in Maine on a recent morning, and there are other mountain biking trails in Exeter and Seabrook. More serious riding is available farther north in the mountains.

“There’s some great mountain biking in this area,” Pierce said. “It’s as good as anywhere.”   

Organizers of Green Commute Week hope many residents will leave their cars at home even after the week is over. According to Scott Bogle, senior transportation planner with the Rockingham Planning Commission, 60 percent of Americans’ daily trips are less than five miles long, and 20 percent are less than one mile long. “That’s a distance you can easily cover on a bicycle,” Bogle said in a press release. He added that COAST and Wildcat transit buses can also be used for many trips, and all buses are equipped with bikeracks.

Walking is also an underutilized form of basic transportation. Gov. Lynch will proclaim June 1-7 as Walk New Hampshire Week, with a number of community walks occurring across the state. Visit www.walknh.org for more information.

Seacoast bike/ped commuter breakfast locations

All events are Friday, May 15, from 7 to 10 a.m.

• Dover: Henry Law Park on Henry Law Avenue
• Durham: The Wildcat Statue in front of the Whittemore Center
• Exeter: Exeter Bandstand at the intersection of Front and Water streets
• Lee: Stevens Field on George Bennett Road by the Lee Safety Complex
• North Hampton: Gus’ International Bike Shop at 55 Lafayette Road
• Portsmouth: Popovers Bakery at 8 Congress St.
• Portsmouth: Tradeport Pizza at 14 Manchester Square in Pease Tradeport
• Stratham: Timberland Company in the Stratham Industrial Park

For more info or to register, visit
www.seacoastbikes.org/biketowork.cfm