Starting to Roll

Welcome to Barry's Bike Blog. I will follow current events, concerns, proposals, experiences, and wild ideas related to bicycling in Louisville, surrounding Kentucky counties, and southern Indiana, with occasional forays into state and national bicycling issues.

We live in exciting times for bicycling. I see more people on the streets riding for recreation and transportation, more people taking part in more types of bicycle racing, and fantastic growth in the number, size, and prestige of races taking place in and near Louisville. New charity bike rides, memorial rides, and special event rides seem to spring up each year. Local and state elected officials and government staffers have taken much more interest in bicycling over the past three years or so, with the result of new laws and government policies regarding bicycling and the bicycling environment. If you ride, you know that we face plenty of frustrations, too. I'll share news and musings on all of these topics.

Starting tomorrow, I'll update you on bills in the Kentucky General Assembly with the potential to lead to many more miles of safe and enjoyable bicycling routes in Kentucky. If you want to read the bills and form your own opinions before reading mine, look at:

• Senate Bill 145, to require routine consideration of bicycling and walking in roadway planning and design
  
• House Bill 291, to create a state rail banking fund to preserve abandoned rail corridors for future rail-trails
  

The links above will take you to an overview and legislative history of each bill. Once there, click on the link with the bill number to download a Word (.doc) format copy of the bill.

I hope that you find this blog interesting and useful. Please post comments or e-mail me feedback and suggestions.

Wishing you a warm, dry place to sit out the ice storm...

Ride well,

Barry