We will be electing one board member from, and to represent, Northern Indiana for a three-year term commencing January 1, 2014. To learn more about the duties and responsibilities of Bicycle Indiana board members, go here.

To complete a nomination form, please go here. 

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Bicycle Indiana is excited to announce that Bloomington has been selected as the host destination for the 2014 Indiana Bike Summit on April 25-26. The summit will be held at the Bloomington-Monroe County Convention Center. In addition to the summit speakers and presentations, guests will have the option to attend the Women's and Men's Little 500 racing events! We'll have registration information available soon. For sponsorship information, contact kbohn@indy.rr.com. 

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To complement the ongoing infrastructure improvements by the City, a bicycle coalition has formed: the White River Bicycle Coalition or WRBC. The coalition is composed of local bicycle groups, business owners, and transportation planners that have united to provide advocacy and education as Anderson becomes an increasingly bicycle-friendly community. Although currently based in Anderson, the WRBC hopes to expand its membership into a broader region in Madison County and other communities along the White River. The first goal of the WRBC is to work with the City to officially establish Anderson as a Bicycle Friendly Community based on the League of American Bicyclists' Bicycle Friendly Community program. The WRBC holds open meetings the 2nd Wednesday of each month at the Anderson Public Library. For more information, feel free to contact the coalition at whiteriverbc@gmail.com.

There is a lot of excitement building around all things bicycle in Anderson, and we encourage you to discover them all for yourself.

-Ryan Phelps, Project Planner

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Lighting up Elkhart

The best defense against getting hit while on a bicycle is visibility. Bike Elkhart (BE), a grassroots group of bicyclists in Elkhart, noticed the high number of people of bicycles who depend on the bicycle as their only form of transportation. On overcast days and in the dark they rode barely visible. Various members of Bike Elkhart became concerned and started discussing solutions.

There are two key ingredients that helped us make a change - a grant from Bicycle Indiana and private donations from several individuals from the bicycling community. With these funds, BE bought 750 taillight and headlight sets.  As this article is being published, 200 sets have been installed on bicycles. It is now not unusual to now see a bicycle in the city with the lights brightly blinking away. While BE may feel good about its program, the riders getting the lights installed are absolutely elated.

Eldon hard at work

Eldon Nifong (pictured) has spearheaded the installation process. He sets up installation points at places like Faith Mission, Salvation Army, Susanna's Kitchen, and Pedal Power Pride, a local effort to help the indigent with their bicycle transportation needs.

In addition, BE has solicited the help of two local bicycle shops. A person in need of lights, who cannot otherwise afford his or her own set, may simply go to either of these shops to have lights installed.

Part of the requirements and goals: 1) buying both head- and taillights that are bright enough to be seen, 2) providing free replacement batteries so that lights are not discarded after the initial set expires, and 3) providing some basic and easy-to-read safety literature. BE hopes to remain visible in the community and to continue to stay in touch with the riders.

-Bike Elkhart, Elkhart County 

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Road diet program in Evansville

We'd like to share some "before and after" pictures of our road diets and bicycle lane addition projects.

Oak Hill Road before

The first picture is on Oak Hill Rd. It was a narrow two-lane street. It was then widened, and now we have bike lanes on it as seen in the "after" picture.  

Oak Hill Road after

The next set of pictures are the road diet pictures.  As you can see on Lincoln Ave's first picture, it is a very narrow four-lane street. We dropped this down to two lanes plus a center turn lane and put up bike route signage along the road. 

Lincoln Avenue before

Lincoln Avenue after

The road diet was so popular that we have two new road diet projects in the pipeline. The first one is on Covert Avenue from US 41 to I-164 on Evansville's south side. This project will be converted to three lanes plus sidewalk improvements for pedestrians. The preliminary engineering for this project will start in FY 2014 at a cost of $260,000. 

The second project is the Weinbach Avenue road diet from SR 66 (Lloyd Expressway) to Pollack Avenue. This project will be converted to 3 lanes plus sidewalk improvements for pedestrians. The preliminary engineering for this project will start in FY 2014 at a cost of $72,000.

One last project that may be of interest is the Evansville Bike and Pedestrian Master Plan. We are getting ready to send an RFP out within the next month. This plan will review existing plans, inventory existing conditions and facilities, identify opportunities and constraints, develop project recommendations and an implementation program. The plan will also include intensive public participation. The total cost of this project is $200,000 and we are hoping that it will be complete by April 2015. We don't really have much more information on this due to the preliminary stages of the project as we are still waiting on sending out the RFP. 

Evansville Metropolitan Planning Organization