At 6 a.m. on Friday, METRO bicyclists will gather at the Downtown Transit Center then ride out to join Houston Mayor Annise Parker and other riders in observing National Bike to Work Day.
The METRO Cycle Team will travel from downtown to Memorial Park where cyclists will gather for a mass ride led by Mayor Parker.
METRO Solutions is fostering biking as an environmentally aware and energy-neutral transit option even as it builds light-rail lines across Houston.
The Irvington Bike Lanes are a new and improved addition to the North Line area. The lanes, which ran parallel to Fulton, (now under construction for light rail) are being moved to Irvington where paving is currently underway to make the route as safe, and biker friendly as possible.
Portions of the existing median are being removed and the roadway widened to accommodate the bike lanes. The new bike lanes will run north and south from the Fulton/Irvington intersection to the intersection of Irvington and Crosstimbers St., where bikers can access the existing bike lanes.
METRO, which began encouraging bicycle use with the installation of bike racks on buses in 2007, has witnessed phenomenal growth in the bike program. April reports show 94 percent more bike boardings than April 2009. For April 2010 METRO recorded 9,721 boardings, April 2009 showed 5003 while 2008 recorded 1,510. The total boardings since the ‘bike on buses’ launch is 144,295. The most heavily boarded Route 52 is Hirsch/Scott with 2,681 bikes recorded this year.
Weather permitting, members of the METRO Cycle Team will begin gathering at the Transit Center in the early morning and then bike to the South Picnic Loop at Memorial Park for the kick off of Houston’s Bike to Work Day.
