Dream Ride Projects recently became the county’s first “Bike Friendly” organization, and one of only four in the state. Dream Ride founder and executive director Mike Ridgeway hopes to use the designation, from the national League of American Bicyclists, as a springboard to eventually having the whole county listed as “Bike Friendly.”
Here is the article that appeared in Friday’s Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era:
Local bike group nets national honor
BY BERNARD HARRIS
Staff Writer
Lancaster’s Dream Ride Projects last week became the first organization in the county — and one of the first in the state — to be recognized as “bike friendly” by the national League of American Bicyclists.
Maybe that designation shouldn’t be so surprising. Dream Ride Projects is a non-profit organization that promotes cycling, teaches riding skills to children and adults and holds charity bicycle rides.
Maybe more surprising is Dream Ride Projects founder and executive director Mike Ridgeway’s ambitious plan for the recognition.
“I’m hoping to use this as a launching pad to get the whole county recognized as bike friendly,” Ridgeway said.
The challenge, he said, is a countywide recognition requires at least a majority of the Lancaster’s 60 separate municipalities to be “bike friendly.”
He plans to start with those municipalities which already promote cycling. East Donegal, Manheim and Warwick townships and Lititz Borough are at the top of his list.
In East Donegal, the township that surrounds Marietta Borough, where Dream Ride Projects’ charity rides begin and end, Ridgeway is working with township officials to take several steps before submitting a Bike Friendly application in the spring.
One of those steps is the erection of “Share the Road” signs to raise awareness that cyclists have a right to ride on roadways. Those signs would be posted on roads where there are no shoulders and cyclists must ride in the travel lanes.
A long-term goal is to add shoulders to those roads to make them wider and safer for cyclists, he said.
The initiative also has an educational component. Dream Ride has already been contracted by the township to teach bicycling safety classes to children as part of the township’s Summer Playground program. Those classes will begin in the spring, Ridgeway said.
“We’ll get the momentum going by being recognized for what we are already doing,” he said.
Philadelphia became the first Pennsylvania community to make the Bike Friendly list earlier this year. It received bronze level status on the four-tier ranking of 108 communities nationwide.
Dream Ride Projects, which also received a bronze ranking, is one of only three bike friendly businesses or organizations in Pennsylvania. The other two are Advanced Sports, a Philadelphia-based online bike shop, and Rodale, the Emmaus-based publisher of Bicycling and other magazines.
Those businesses or organizations supported cycling, encouraged employees to ride and promoted cycling to clients.
