 |
|
| |
| | |
Rental bikes in downtown Milwaukee? Grants are not only a lifeline for Milwaukee County Parks. A project to make 300 rental bicycles available in Wisconsin's largest city hinges on whether a $752,000 federal transportation grant comes through. "The grant we applied for is a federal grant that helps fund projects that will reduce emissions and congestion in areas designated as having poor air quality," said Dave Schlabowske, the city's pedestrian and bicycle coordinator. "We qualify because we have bad air and congestion." The idea behind the plan is simple. Schlabowske, who wrote the grant, hopes that people downtown will exchange their cars for bicycles when taking one- and two-mile trips. "Those short trips are actually responsible for a lot of pollution," Schlabowske said. "Say you work downtown and you want to go to lunch by the UW or on Farwell. That's not a reasonable walk over your lunch hour, but it's a really fast bike ride. Our hope is that people would hop on the bike instead of taking the car," he said. The rental bikes would be set up at stations in densely populated areas where there are many destination points within a couple miles. Schlabowske mentioned near the university campus, the King Drive Business District and near the convention center as possibilities. Once in place, he hoped that much of the cost of the program could be covered by corporate advertising on the sides of the specialized bike stations. Milwaukee residents shouldn't be surprised if by the end of next summer they see an inordinate amount of lunchtime bikers wearing business suits. – Stephen Paske
| ||
Back to the top Waupaca Publishing: 717 Tenth Street * P.O. Box 152 * Waupaca, WI 54981 © 1999-2008 Site last updated 12/01/08 Designed by
PBW | ||
|
|