Sharing the road

Some petitioners want state legislators to ban bicycles on Iowa's county roads.

They say Iowa's farm-to-market roads aren't intended for bikes and bicyclists can cause accidents and disrupt agricultural commerce.

It is appropriate for leaders to discuss how to make our shared roadways safer for all forms of traffic. But banning bikes outright is not the answer.

Cyclists have the right to use such roads under Iowa law. State transportation officials have been working in recent years to make sure the infrastructure allows them to more safely do so.

By Monday afternoon, more than 730 people had signed the Citizens for Safety Coalition of Iowa's online petition. They're requesting a 2010 ballot initiative that would ban bicycles on Iowa's farm-to-market roads.

By the same time, more than twice as many people had signed an online Iowa Bicycle Coalition petition opposing the ban, according to that group.

It is legal to ride bicycles on all Iowa roads except interstates, four-lane divided highways with a posted minimum speed or where it's prohibited by local ordinance.

“The roads are for everybody,” Milly Ortiz, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for the state Department of Transporation, told us Monday.

She said the DOT considers all users, including bicyclists, when rebuilding roads or designing new roadways - creating paved shoulders, bike lanes or separate trails when bike traffic warrants. Ortiz said of bicyclists: “They're taken into account like any user of the road.”

And, she said, while bicyclists are increasingly using Iowa's roads, the number of fatal accidents involving bikes and vehicles has remained relatively steady in the past five years. In that time, an average of five people have died in bicycle-motor vehicle accidents on Iowa's roadways each year.

Even one death is too many, so the DOT also has been educating Iowans about sharing the road. Those efforts include curriculum materials for the state's high school driver's education classes, Ortiz said.

Integrating bicycling and walking into the transportation mainstream is also federal policy. The U.S. Department of Transportation encourages states to consider those users in their transportation plans and projects.

That makes sense. Bicycling is healthy, good for the environment and can save money. Iowa's cyclists are taxpayers, too, with a legal right to use the state's transportation system.

They also have a responsibility to ride safely and obey traffic laws - things some motorists say too few cyclists do.

Cyclists and motorists bear equal responsibility for sharing the road. Clearly, improvements in roads are desirable. And perhaps restrictions need some fine tuning.

Simply excluding bicyclists is not the appropriate route.