Traffic moves along Front Street in Harrisburg. Starting next month, PennDOT will begin work to reduce the three-lane road to two lanes, with a bike lane, through much of Uptown and Midtown Harrisburg.
The mayor is to be applauded for efforts to make the city more livable and pedestrian-friendly. However, the proposed bike lane on Front Street is ill-conceived, if not downright dumb.
While I’m all for bicycle commuting, and used to do so frequently myself, why would anyone ride next to traffic when there is a perfectly good (safer, less exhaust-choked) bike path immediately adjacent to Front Street in Riverfront Park? The existing bike path is never so crowded that it justifies reducing the volume of Front Street.
If the city wants to promote bicycle commuting, it should consider working cooperatively with Camp Hill to remove the curb under the railroad underpass on the Camp Hill bypass and promote that as a convenient, direct path with nice, safe, wide shoulders, into the city from Camp Hill, a major West Shore-to-Harrisburg travel corridor. Or even better, work cooperatively with Linglestown, DEP and the Army COE to widen Riverfront Park to the north to Linglestown Road, thereby creating additional recreational space and opening up a convenient bicycle commuting corridor to the north.
Here’s what will likely happen. The bike lane in Front Street will sit empty while frustrated and stressed commuters and other travelers trying to get to I-83S will aggressively veer left onto Reily or Herr or other eastbound, narrow city streets and try to fight their way south around the now even more congested Front Street, all the while endangering Midtown and downtown pedestrians by doing so.
Why try to deny that people commute to and from Harrisburg? Before reducing the available volume by 33 percent, why not try a few traffic calming devices like raised pedestrian walkways or enforcing the speed limit on Front Street? Leave Front Street alone unless and until there are relatively convenient safe southbound routes out of the city.
Ted Fridirici
Former avid bicycle commuter and proud Midtown resident since 1998
