BusinessReport.com

It’s Monday morning at 8:45 a.m., and Kris Van Orsdel cruises into downtown from his Southdowns home following close on the bumper of a yawning co-worker. He sees his state office building ahead and waves off the sleepy colleague as she heads to the hinterlands of the state parking garage. Then Van Orsdel veers onto the sidewalk, muscles his vehicle onto his shoulder and strolls into his building, loving the many perks of bicycling to work.

It’s not just the beauty of avoiding parking garage Siberia. For Van Orsdel, “It’s like being a kid again. Sometimes I race to chase, comparing my time to people in cars. Other times I just cruise and love it. It takes about 10 minutes longer than if I drove, but I’m sharper and less stressed out. And if I have to work till eight at night—which happens a lot—I’ve still gotten in a workout. That’s important for me to be effective at my job.”

Many of Van Orsdel’s co-workers are curious about his experience and have asked to take his bike for a spin around the office. But there are real concerns: How to handle sweat and body odor, just-so hairstyles and professional attire? How to get to meetings out of the office? And, most pressing, how to arrive on the job in one piece, given the latest cycling tragedy on River Road and a pervasive mutual distrust between a core group of drivers and cyclists in Baton Rouge?

So far, Van Orsdel is the lone wolf on two wheels in his office. And yet, despite the challenges, he’s part of a growing cadre of Baton Rouge workers who have straddled the saddle to take a swing at everything from gas bills to global warming to overhanging guts. The question remains whether the city will act to make cycling safer and more accessible so bike commuting in Baton Rouge can advance from a pioneer activity to a viable mode of getting to work.

Biking? In Baton Rouge?

Van Orsdel, who has lived in other, more bike-friendly parts of the country, gives Baton Rouge a “B” grade for biking because of its many quiet neighborhoods that do not welcome cut-through car traffic.

Others applaud Capital Area Transit System [CATS] for offering city buses equipped with bicycle racks. Passengers may use the racks for free once they’ve completed a simple certification process.

Kevin Kelly, president of the Baton Rouge startup Mezzo Technologies, agreed Baton Rouge has bike potential. “There are definitely roads I wouldn’t want to bicycle on. But there’s also a swath of town that’s bike-friendly. A lot of my neighbors in the Capital Heights area work at LSU. They could easily bike to work—it’s basically a matter of riding around the lakes. Maybe with the cost of gas so high, they’ll start,” he says.

Kelly has commuted to work by bike off and on for years. But after Mezzo employee Patrick Luke vowed this past spring that he was “rolling to work from here on out,” Kelly decided to join Luke on the daily bicycling bandwagon. The company, housed at the Louisiana Technology Park on Florida Boulevard, now has four committed cyclists out of a staff of 16. By the fall, Kelly expects they’ll be up to six. By serendipity, the cyclists all live in the same area and make a practice of riding home together for lunch and after work, spinning along back streets and through quiet neighborhoods to stay safe.

“Where I come from, there’s beautiful rolling hills, but the biking isn’t as fun as in Baton Rouge. There’s something to be said for flat,” Kelly says. The group sticks to a moderate 12 mph to keep from working up a sweat. They ride in shorts and T-shirts, and either carry a change of clothes in a bike bag, or leave work clothes at the office.

Kelly, Luke and Van Orsdel all cited the importance of having an office in which to cool down, change clothes and even park their bikes. Van Orsdel conceded that even with an office, the quick change poses more of a challenge to professional women who have more to do to get ready for work. Although there are women in town who manage a commute on two wheels, others find it difficult.

Catherine Herman lives about a mile from her job as an accountant at St. Thomas More School. During the summer, when the dress code is relaxed, she feels comfortable cycling to work in jeans or Capris. But once school is in, forget it, she said. “I have to put on my makeup, do my hair, put the panty hose on. It’s just too much.”

Kelly is committed to installing a shower at his office later this summer, when temperatures really heat up. But so far, so good. “We’re all amazed. It’s the middle of the summer, and the mornings are still completely delightful,” he says. “There’s really no down side to this.”

Free wheeling

Luke agrees with his boss, all the way to the bank. The most dedicated of the Mezzo bikers, Luke fills the tank of his Volkswagen Jetta at most once a month these days. With gas fetching $4 a gallon, he figures his biking habit saves him $80 to $100 a month in gas expenses.

Scott Mackey, owner of local bike shop Pedal Play, is encountering more and more people like Luke who are looking to save precious coin and break their dependence on fossil fuels. In his 11 years as owner, Mackey has never stocked commuting bikes or much in the way of commuter accessories. With almost no demand, Mackey handled requests for these bikes, which have an upright stem for rider visibility, wider street tires, and rear-wheel racks to carry saddle bags, as special order items.

But since Christmas 2007, Mackey has been stocking and selling the bikes, along with saddle bags, called panniers, laptop bags, high-quality flashing headlights, bright jerseys and safety vests for visibility and other commuting accessories. He estimates overall sales at the shop are up at least 20% compared to last year as people turn to nonfossil fuel-based transportation alternatives. “It’s the gas crunch. People are looking to save money,” he says. With the commuter products, “we were at zero. Now it’s a chunk of my business.”

Mackey’s Baton Rouge clientele is part of a national trend toward a renewed interest in cycling as a means of transportation, according to Andy Clarke, President of the League of American Bicyclists, a national cycling education and advocacy nonprofit. Clarke regrets the bicycling industry does not have reliable numbers for bike sales for this year, but he believes the anecdotal information speaks volumes. Whether in Flint, Mich., or Des Moines, Iowa, “people view the price of gas as the final straw. They’ve been thinking about it, and wanting to bicycle for their health and well-being. Once it hits their pocketbooks, that’s it. People are getting back on a bike for the first time in a while, trying to figure out how the gears work, how to fit a bag on the back.”

Pedaling politics

While Clarke’s group is pushing Congress to pass two pieces of national legislation to promote cycling, the Bicycle Commuter Act and the Safe and Complete Streets Act of 2008, Baton Rouge cycling advocates are not waiting for national advocates to affect change locally. At Family Bike Day in late June, volunteers with the cycling and pedestrian advocacy organization Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets [BRASS] collected 113 signatures on a petition asking Mayor Kip Holden for action on the city’s comprehensive bicycle and pedestrian plan.

BRASS Chair Mark Martin said the city has been tweaking this plan since the 1970s, but has yet to implement it. Instead, local cyclists have been left with a scattershot approach that has delivered nearly 30 miles of bike lanes around the city—but with little thought given to connectivity. “We need routes that connect to places that people need to go—work, the bank, the coffee shop, downtown,” Martin says.

Cycling advocates grant the planned 1.8-mile extension of the levee-top bicycle path, to be funded through the federal transportation bill, is a step in the right direction. The extension will connect the levee path to Brightside Lane, which has an existing bike lane. And yet, this past spring, the city nearly eliminated the Brightside bicycle lane as part of improvements to the road under the Green Light Plan, the voter-approved extension of the city’s half-cent sales tax to fund new roads and road improvements across East Baton Rouge Parish. Only after BRASS petitioned the city was the bicycle lane included in the Brightside Lane plans.

Martin has high hopes that BRASS’ Brightside Lane petition translated into a heightened awareness among city transportation officials of the opportunity and common-sense economy of including bicycle amenities on the front end of future Green Light planning. On a positive note, he pointed to Green Light plans for Comite Road that include a bike lane.

While some in the city press for a comprehensive system of bicycle lanes, paths and routes, others are pushing for new laws to make cycling safer. Darron Leach of the Tiger Cycling Foundation has been working with state legislators, and also sent a proposal to the mayor at the end of June, proposing a law to require that motorists leave three feet between them and a cyclist.

Ten other states have already enacted the Three Feet Law, and two others have a two feet requirement. Leach has a commitment from a Louisiana legislator interested in sponsoring such a bill next year. And Leach said that the mayor wants to sit down and iron out details before he endorses the proposal on a local level.

Holden declined to comment on any of the city’s plans to make cycling safer and more accessible until his traffic engineer, Ingolf Partenheimer, reports back on the Tiger Cycling Foundation proposal.

“There are a lot of people commuting to work, to LSU and to Southern. It’s expensive to ask for things like bike lanes. We’re asking for a program to make motorists more aware that cyclists do have a right to the roadway,” Leach says.

Unsafe streets

For BRASS member Joshua Weir, the Baton Rouge ritual of gridlock, spiraling parking garages and $4-per-gallon gasoline isn’t even an option. He cannot afford a car—especially these days, given the high price of gas, and everything else. Weir manages his morning commute from his home by the North Gates of LSU to his job at a printing company 11 miles away on South Harrell’s Ferry Road by cycling two and a half miles to a bus stop, hopping a city bus with his bike for five miles, and then riding the remaining three miles to work. On the way home, he often opts to cycle the whole distance.

Although he wouldn’t trade the freedom of hearing the wind in the trees and birds chirping as he rides, Weir cannot deny that Baton Rouge traffic makes for very unpleasant company.

Although he takes quieter, neighborhood routes whenever possible and tries not to be a nuisance on the road, Weir has been ridden off the road several times. He’s had people honk incessantly and scream abusive things from motor vehicles, and has even had a man try to get violent with him for cycling on Sherwood Forest Boulevard.

“There are vehicles that start honking as soon as they see me and come roaring past, revving their engines to let me know they’re upset I’m there,” Weir says. “We have a long way to go in Baton Rouge. The most difficult obstacle is people’s attitudes. It has been engrained in people that their rights as drivers trump my rights as a bicycle rider. If the police and mayor’s office came out with a campaign to educate drivers about the actual laws, we’d probably start to see more acceptance of cyclists.”

BRASS has begun a mentorship program to help those interested in commuting, yet uncomfortable sharing the road with unwelcoming drivers. “We’ll help them find safe routes,” Weir says, “and show them how to ride safely and legally on the road.”

RULES OF THE ROAD

How Baton Rouge drivers and bicyclists can make peace:

Bicyclists

• Bicyclists are subject to the same rights and rules as motorists

• Stay as close to the right as possible

• Hand signals must come from the left

• No more than two riders can ride abreast unless on a bike path or lane

• Always use a bike path or lane if available

• Wear a helmet

• Don’t ride against traffic

• Maintain your bicycle

• Ride single file on busy streets

• Don’t wear headphones

• Wear visible clothing

• Ride predictably

Motorists

• Cyclists have the same rights to the road

• Allow three feet when passing, whenever possible

• No honking necessary

• Watch for bicyclists when opening car doors

• Careful when turning; do not pass a bicyclist and then immediately turn

• Reduce speed when approaching bicyclists

• Do not tailgate

• Be patient