Every morning for the past seven years Bob Smith, 56, has hopped on his bicycle just after 7 a.m. and pedaled to his work.
"I was getting too fat," he said. "I wanted to get in better shape and needed a hobby that was more of a healthy hobby."
At first he rode the nine miles to his county job in Merced from his home in the McSwain area. Then, when his office moved to Castle Commerce Center, that ride was cut down by two-thirds. Now his commute takes about a half-hour. He's usually the only bicyclist on the road. "I don't see too many commuters," he said.
But on Friday, Smith wasn't alone, in spirit, at least.
The first local promotion of Bike-to-Work Day was Friday.
To promote the event locally, the Merced Bicycle Coalition set up several recharge stations around the county for people on their way to and from work as a way to promote a healthy alternative to automobiles.
"We want to make bicycling a safe and normal means for everyday transportation," said Lisa Kayser-Grant, the Bicycle Coalition's chairwoman and a member of the city's bicycle advisory committee. "Our idea is to entice them (people) onto their bicycles to discover how easy it is to get around on your bike."
A combination of factors -- including unhealthy lifestyles, high gas prices and an increased awareness of the automobile's impact on the environment -- may be encouraging more people to bicycle, noted the Merced County Association of Government's website.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people riding bicycles to work rose by roughly 20,000 from 1990 to 2000. Cities like San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and New York saw higher increases in recent years. For example, San Francisco's bicycle ridership jumped by 15 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the League of American Bicyclists.
According to MCAG, 22 percent of all car trips are less than a mile. Fifty percent of the working population commutes five miles or less. If the average person biked to work or went shopping just once every two weeks, the pollution from 1 billion gallons of gasoline wouldn't rise into the atmosphere.
The city of Merced, while no match when compared to other cities, has an estimated 1.5 percent of population who ride their bikes to work each day, said Kim Nutt, with the city's planning department.
To help increase that number, the city's updated 2008 bicycle plan set a number of goals the city would like to achieve to increase bicycling, said Nutt. They included painting bike lane stripes on all roads in the city that are wide enough. Also, the city hopes to make a safe crossing at McKee Road and Black Rascal Creek. The goals also include exploring the possibility of creating a bike boulevard from Bear Creek to Main Street. Those are just a few of the future and ongoing plans for an increased bike infrastructure in the city of Merced, said Nutt.
Kayser-Grant said the city of Merced is doing a fairly good job at creating an infrastructure for bicyclists. But, she said, there's always room for improvement.
So Smith's daily ride to Castle Commerce Center will probably be a solitary affair for some time to come.
Reporter Jonah Owen Lamb can be reached at (209) 385-2484 or jlamb@mercedsun-star.com.
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