Cycling Enthusiasts: Iowa City Could Do Better on Bike Infrastructure

Bradley Parsons and Mark Pooley are both part of the 1 percent.

No, they're not super-rich investors. They're part of what they say is a small portion of the population confident enough to comfortably commute by bike in almost any setting.

But the two Iowa City Bike Library volunteers want to make it easier for the other 99 percent to get around on two wheels in Iowa City.

About 40 local cyclists attended a meeting hosted by Parsons and Pooley earlier this week to start generating ideas on how to improve Johnson County's bike infrastructure.

"I feel comfortable in Iowa City, but there's a small percentage of the population that feels comfortable in the streets," Parsons said.

Parsons points to data showing Iowa City is among the best in the nation for bike ammenities, but with improvement, Iowa City could be in the company of bike Meccas like Boulder, CO and Eugene, OR.

"We could jump up near the top," Parsons said.

Iowa City already has a high concentration of cyclists, but the community is sometimes disjointed, Pooley said.

"What really sparked this is takling to city planners. There's some push [for better cycling infrastructure], but then some group isn't happy with whatever plan," said Pooley, who's pursuing a masters in urban planning at the University of Iowa.

So Pooley and Parsons want to unite the biking community, including volunteers from the Bike Library, organizers from Think Bicycles, and local elected officials from around the county.

The first objective of the project is to come up with ideas on what the community needs. A few problem areas have already been identified -- the Burlington Street bridge or Highway 6, for instance -- but Pooley and Parsons say they want to hear concerns and goals from more community members.

"The immediate goal is to establish a vision of what Iowa City could look like. You have to have a vision of how it could be," Parsons said.