Walkable Bikeable Delaware

  “When I first saw the headline, I figured either LAB had gone crazy or else I had.” – recent comment by Bike Delaware reader Just a few years ago, Delaware’s “Bicycle Friendly State” ranking by the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) was somewhere in the 30s among the 50 states. In 2011, we were [...]

  “A walkable, bikeable Delaware is very much part of our efforts to keep Delaware moving forward.” - Governor Jack Markell

Representative Deborah Hudson, the prime sponsor in the Delaware House of Representatives of Walkable Bikeable Delaware in 2011, welcomes folks to the Walkable Bikeable Delaware Summit on Wednesday.

by Kelly April Tyrrell and Melissa Nann Burke The News Journal May 2, 2013 DOVER — People sporting spandex and brightly colored jerseys gathered on the lawn of the Biggs Museum on Wednesday for the Walkable, Bikeable Delaware Summit and to mark the state’s being honored as the most bike-friendly east of the Mississippi River [...]

Between May of 1997 and March of 2008 (over 10 years), Delaware’s unemployment rate was between 3 and 4%. But for the last four years, unemployment has stubbornly stayed above 7%. Today, it is 7.3%. And, if you look at the data, that number is not coming down. It looks stuck. If you are older [...]

WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE  SUMMIT PROGRAM The Walkable Bikeable Delaware 2013 Summit would be impossible without its sponsors. What’s another way of saying that? They rock. Check out their awesomeness:    

WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE  SUMMIT PROGRAM   If you are passionate about cycling and creating a more bike-friendly Delaware…bring that passion to Dover on May 1. If you are passionate about reversing the epidemic of obesity-related chronic disease, especially in kids, through everyday [...]

WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE  SUMMIT PROGRAM DelDOT Secretary Shailen Bhatt will speak at the Walkable Bikeable Delaware 2013 Summit on May 1 in Dover. Secretary Bhatt spoke at the National Bike Summit in Washington DC in 2012. His agency also proposed over $10 [...]

Do you live in a development with one entrance? Does your child have a friend in a neighboring development? Do you have to drive your child to her friend’s house, because there are no sidewalks between the developments? If this is something you have experienced then you need to be in Dover on May 1. [...]

WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE  Representative Valerie Longhurst, Majority Leader in the Delaware House of Representatives, will address the Walkable Bikeable Delaware 2013 Summit on May 1 in Dover. Last year, Representative Longhurst was a leader on two different pieces of pro-cycling legislation. In the spring, [...]

  WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE    Modeled after the National Bike Summit and many state bike summits, a primary goal of the Walkable Bikeable Delaware 2013 Summit is to have bicyclists and walkers and Delaware’s many biking/walking supporters meet face-to-face with their state [...]

  WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE  Governor Jack Markell will speak to the Walkable Bikeable Delaware 2013 Summit on May 1 in Dover. Governor Markell spoke at the National Bike Summit in Washington DC in 2010. At the time, he was the only Governor [...]

WALKABLE BIKEABLE DELAWARE 2013 SUMMIT Active Transportation, Healthy Families May 1 | Dover, Delaware REGISTER HERE FOR SUMMIT SUMMIT PROGRAM REGISTER HERE FOR LEGISLATORS RIDE   If you are passionate about cycling and creating a more bike-friendly Delaware…bring that passion to Dover on May 1. If you are passionate about reversing the epidemic of obesity-related chronic disease, [...]

In advance of the National Bike Summit on Monday, the League of American Bicyclists has published “Building a Bicycle Friendly America“. In the section on bicycle friendly states, can you guess which state out of 50 is profiled? Hint: it’s small, but mighty.  

by Randy and Trish Freed February 25, 2013 Manassas, Virginia - We are out-of-staters who are now investing in Delaware real estate. In January, we signed a contract for a new house to be built in Lewes, and we can tell you that one of the key features that made us decide to “seal the deal” for a house [...]

We know what we want. And it all comes back to the “Bike and Pedestrian Improvements” program authorization for the Delaware Department of Transportation. We know what we want because, at Bike Delaware’s Strategic Vision 2013 conference in November and in online voting through December 31, the result was overwhelming. “State Authorized Funding for Bicycling [...]

Great article about the Wilmington – New Castle Greenway (aka the Industrial Track Trail) in Friday’s News Journal by reporter Melissa Nann Burke. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out! If I have a caveat about the article, it would be that it might convey the impression that the Wilmington – New Castle [...]

by Melissa Nann Burke The News Journal February 15, 2013 Relatively few Delaware workers commute by bike, but they might reconsider when cyclists are whizzing by them on an off-road trail visible during rush-hour backups. “We’re talking a completely segregated bike path that would allow me to go from New Castle to Wilmington without having [...]

In the proposed FY14 Delaware capital authorization bill recently released (Senate Bill #15), the Bike and Pedestrian Improvements program authorization has been cut to zero. This program was funded at $10.25 million in the FY13 capital authorization passed last year (House Bill #410).  (That earlier authorization is not changed by SB15; the Department of Transportation can still spend those [...]

“All professions are conspiracies against the laity.” – George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw had a way of tartly describing the world around us in ways that encouraged people to look critically at things we usually take for granted.  Shaw probably did not really believe that doctors and lawyers and engineers actually get together in [...]

What do we normally think about when we think about “politics”? Well, we might think about political campaigns, like the recent presidential campaign between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney with its, literally, billions of dollars of television advertising, 24-hours a day cable news coverage, daily polling and millions of phone calls to individual voters. Or [...]

Looking north towards Wilmington from near New Castle on the Wilmington – New Castle Greenway   The Wilmington-New Castle Greenway (also known as the “Industrial Track” because it follows an old railroad right-of-way) will, when complete, be a six-mile long “bicycle highway” connecting the cities of Wilmington and New Castle.  It is already mostly done.  The [...]

Senate Bill 15, Governor Markell’s proposed capital budget for the state of Delaware, was introduced yesterday in Dover.  It includes a proposal to authorize $3 million for Statewide Trails and Pathways. RELATED: • 147th General Assembly, Senate Bill # 15 • See the World-Class Statewide Network of Pathways and Trails DelDOT and DNREC Propose to Build • “State [...]

A live webcast of Governor Markell’s budget address starts at 1PM HERE.         RELATED: • “Whatever you do, don’t lose your momentum”

Nobody understands momentum better than cyclists. The physical concept of momentum – the product of an object’s mass and velocity – can be a bit abstract to many people, but cyclists understand momentum in our bones.  (Or perhaps I should say we understand it in our thighs.) Even a strong cyclist can only produce about [...]

In his 2012 State of the State speech, Governor Markell said we could “make Delaware one of the most walkable and bikeable states in America.”  Last Thursday in his 2013 State of the State speech he said “in the years to come, Delawareans will be able to walk and bike to work because of the investments we [...]

Excerpt from Governor Jack Markell’s State of the State speech, January 17, 2013. Improving our Quality of Life “In the world we now live in, employers survive only when they hire the most talented workers. And talented employees want to work in places they are proud to call home. “Delaware is blessed with beautiful beaches, [...]

At Bike Delaware’s 2013 Strategic Vision and Vote on November 15, ”State Authorized Funding for Bicycling Improvements” was the top vote getter among 25 candidate goals. While Delaware’s pro-cycling momentum is undeniable, there is no guarantee that it can be sustained. But that momentum has to be sustained.  It took a long time to create our [...]

by Melissa Burke Delaware News Journal November 16, 2012 Like any state transportation secretary, Shailen Bhatt hears a lot of pleading. Would you put up a traffic light? Fix this pothole here? Build a wider ramp to there? His agency can’t grant each wish – nor will it try to. Under Bhatt, DelDOT has stopped [...]

“[O]ne of the best ways we can improve our quality of life, and promote healthy lifestyles at the same time, is to make our state more walkable and bikeable. In the next year, working with Representative Keeley and Senator Venables, we will launch the First State Trails and Pathways Plan. I am proposing that we [...]