Manassas City Council Meeting Citizens’ Time
Statement by Allen Muchnick
Monday, May 11, 2015
Good evening Mayor
Parrish, City Council members, and City Manager Pate. I’m
Allen Muchnick, and I live on Park St in the City of Manassas.
I’m speaking to help publicize--and
to encourage everyone to attend--the downtown Manassas Bike to Work Day pit
stop which will be held this Friday, May 15th, outside the Manassas
VRE station from 6 to 9 AM. This annual
event promotes the practicality and many personal and societal benefits of
bicycling for purposeful transportation, both as a standalone mode and in
combination with public transportation, ridesharing, or driving partway
alone. Bicycling is healthy, affordable,
energy efficient, nonpolluting, requires minimal government resources, can
reduce traffic and parking congestion, particularly at special events,
and--most of all--is fun.
In metropolitan Washington,
Bike to Work Day is organized jointly by the Commuter Connections program of
the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board at COG and by the
Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Over the past 15 years, this regional event has grown tremendously. This Friday’s
event will include 79 local pit stops--35 throughout Northern Virginia--and is
forecast to attract 19,000 registrants.
Participation is free but advance registration at biketoworkmetrodc.org
is required to receive a free event T-shirt and be eligible for other
prizes. Our local Manassas VRE station
pit stop is graciously sponsored by Historic Manassas Inc.
Nearly one year ago, I
moved to the City of Manassas because our city is considerably more bike
friendly than the surrounding communities in Prince William County. Over the years, the City has built upon the
inherent bikeability of Manassas’ neighborhood street grid by signing bike
routes on low-traffic streets, by installing bike lanes and sharrows on certain
arterial roadways, and by building some shared-use paths; however, continued progress
is needed to make our city more hospitable for bicycling.
One glaring deficiency for
Manassas bicycling is the general lack of convenient, secure, and properly
designed bike parking racks at locations throughout Manassas, including at most
government buildings and at nearly every business establishment. Bicycling for utilitarian trips is less feasible without convenient and suitable bike parking facilities, and
most of the bike racks I have seen near the VRE station, at the rear of the
Town Hall building, and at Manassas City schools are poorly designed. Fortunately, well-designed bike parking racks
are relatively inexpensive, and excellent bike parking design guidelines are
posted at apbp.org, the website of the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle
Professionals.
I ask the City Manager
and Council to allocate some modest funding to install quality bike parking
racks at public facilities in the City and to encourage the appropriate
integration of bike parking accommodations in future private development
projects.
