Articles in the Lancaster New Era and Intelligencer Journal this week highlighted sales increases at local bike shops tied to rising gasoline prices.
Tom Podlesny, owner of the Cycle Circle shop, at 131 N. Plum St., Lancaster, said his bike sales have been booming in the past two months. About 25 percent of the bikes he has sold were for riding to and from work, Podlesny said. He sells mostly used bicycles and he said he cannot get enough used bikes to sell.
Podlesny, who commutes from his home in Conestoga to his Lancaster City shop, said he has seen more and more people riding on the roads as gasoline prices continue to climb. Locally, unleaded regular gas was at a record high price Wednesday, at $3.72 a gallon. On Thursday, it set another record when it climbed to $3.74. Nationally, regular unleaded gas is at $3.75. It is expected to reach $4 a gallon in coming weeks.
Jeremiah Williams, who sells bikes at Bike Line of Lancaster, said his shop has seen a 20 percent increase in sales in March and April over the same months last year. He said customers have told him they are spending their economic stimulus checks on bike. Many of those sales are for commuting bikes.
Brandy Heilman, director of York-based Commuter Services of South Central Pennsylvania, said her non-profit agency has also seen evidence of increasing bicycle commuting. More and more bicyclists are signing up for her agency’s emergency ride home program. That initiative guarantees transit riders and bicycle commuters a ride home if there is an emergency, such as a sick child.
And Red Rose Transit Authority Executive Director David Kilmer said that anecdotally he has seen more people with bikes making use of his agency’s buses. Those buses are free this week to bicyclists in recognition of Bike-To-Work Week.
Nationally, only about one-half on one percent of commuters ride to work on bicycles. That figure held true for Lancaster County in the 2000 census. Hopefully, people pushing bikes out of the shops now will still be riding them to work in two years when census data is again collected.
