News-Letter

Media Credit: Sarah Tan A truck with bikes offered free rental bicyles to Bike Blast attendees.

As a city with industrial roots, Baltimore has recently changed its focus from smoke-stacks to sustainability.

The city, led by Mayor Sheila Dixon, has been working to promote "A Cleaner, Greener Baltimore," which includes the addition of more bicycle trails around the city.

The Baltimore Bike Blast took place on Saturday, April 25 in Druid Hill Park, and was held in order to increase biking awareness among children, families and others who do not consider themselves cyclists.

Since Dixon started Baltimore's Sustainability Plan this past fall, many city-wide programs have sought to promote environmental awareness. The Bike Blast was one of the many biking programs and events that the city has held since.

The event kicked off at nine in the morning with a biking tour around the park reservoir, led by Dixon.

Afterwards, a number of bike vendors set up stands to educate people about the benefits of biking. In addition, many non-profit organizations, such as the Velocipede Bike Project of Baltimore attended the event and offered a "build your own bike" program, as well as general information about street biking safety and preparing for a biking trip.

In addition, the Bike Blast had a truck filled with bicycles set up at the event, so that people who had not brought their own bikes could borrow a bike for the day for free and join in on the fun.

At Hopkins, Sustainability Initiative has also been running a series of biking workshops to increase awareness about biking on the Homewood campus. The program has run workshops on bike repair and bike commuting. In addition, the program has also been looking to increase biking safety on campus.

Davis Bookhart, manager of energy management and environmental stewardship, said that they have surveyed all the campus storm grates to make sure that they are safe for bikers, and that they have also tried to set up more bike racks in more convenient places for students.

Bookhart also mentioned the addition of Baltimore's first bike "parking lot" on Charles Street in front of Eddie's Market. The city removed one parking space that used to be for a car, and replaced it with a bike rack. Bookhart felt that in addition to this being a practical move for the city, it was also symbolic.

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