By Ken Mammarella
Contributing Writer

When Bob McBride moved to Newark as a University of Delaware student in 1970, biking was “slightly difficult,” he wryly recalled, citing minimal infrastructure for bicyclists and bicycling.

“We had to invent a lot of things,” he said. “We had to invent good lights for the bikes. You couldn’t get good clothing for the winter, so you had to invent and create a lot yourself. And we tried to be very creative about choosing routes that weren’t too busy, which was a difficult thing to do.”

Although he relied more upon walking to get around campus as a grad student, he biked to work in New Castle and Wilmington, as long as he didn’t have to cope with driving rainstorms or icy roads.

Fast forward, and the situation differs greatly. Newark has earned first a bronze and then a silver in bike friendliness from the League of American Bicyclists, and advocates are going for the gold. 

The advocacy is championed by BikeNewark, which McBride leads. The nonprofit partners with the city, UD, the Delaware Department of Transportation, the Wilmington Area Planning Council, the Newark Bike Project (a community repair shop), Delaware Greenways and Bike Delaware.

“We have leveraged a lot of citizen brain power and fundraising efforts to develop and assist the city of Newark and DelDOT in making room for bikes in the transportation system,” he said. 

3 great tips on being a better bicyclist

From co-founding the White Clay Bicycle Club in the 1970s to later racing competitively and today having 10 bikes in his Nottingham Green house for family members and visitors, McBride is dedicated to bicycling as a sport, a hobby, a commuting vehicle and a way of life.

“Bicycling is something I enjoy doing, and I enjoy being with people who enjoy doing it,” he said. “It’s a very positive group of people who bicycle long distances. Many do it for exercise and competition, in some cases. But most do it because they think it’s a good thing for the planet and for ourselves. And so a lot of us are really focused on making it a friendlier place for bicycling because it’ll ultimately be friendlier for the planet. It takes less resources. And it’s a lot safer than motor vehicles.”

The league focuses on five criteria, all catchily starting with the letter e: engineering, education, encouragement, equity and evaluation. BikeNewark espouses those criteria, and McBride said that more education will be key in moving up the rankings. Here are his top three educational tips:

• “Do you know what you should do to make sure your bike is safe when you leave for your destination? That would include a brief physical inspection of all the mechanical devices and whether you have the appropriate tools with you to fix it if you need to. In the summer, you need water and things like glasses so that you don’t get bugs in your eyes, as well as a helmet.” Those tools include whatever you need to fix a flat and to put the chain back on your drive system if it drops off.  “I could change a flat tire in three minutes,” he said, “and I still carry the tools to help others.”

• “Choose your route for the lowest possible stress. It may not be the shortest route, but it may improve the quality of your ride and make it safer for you.” Stress is another way of referring to how bike-friendly a route is. “Low stress would be where you let your 12-year-old ride,” he explained.

• “Always have a person who knows when you are leaving and when you are arriving. Don’t go off by yourself. I recommend that people have ID tags or an ID service or the newest smartwatches that work in conjunction with your phones to alert people if you have an emergency or an accident.”

But wait, there’s more

Of course, safe bicycling involves more than three tips.

The best clothing is something bright during the day and something reflective at night.

Bicyclists obviously need to worry about motor vehicles, especially when they’re riding on narrow shoulders, when they’re crossing roads and when they’re in parts of the roadway where drivers are merging on or off the road. 

“A high-stress road would be most of our roads in Delaware that have numbers,” he said. “Route 896. Route 13. All these are high-stress routes because the traffic is fast. The space along the shoulders is minimal. And the danger is in crossing. Crossing a highway like that has been involved in almost all pedestrian and bicycle fatalities in Delaware that we have studied.”

Bicyclists, just like drivers of motor vehicles, should not be distracted by earphones, earbuds, texts, alcohol and other mind-altering substances.

And bicyclists should also be on the alert for animals, McBride said, citing his own collisions and near-collisions with dogs, pigs and deer.

Decades of work recognized

Municipal plans to encourage bicycling in Newark go back to at least 1973. In 2010, the city earned a bronze award from the league for its efforts, which included adding bike racks to DART and university buses; creating the Newark Bike Project; and improving bike routes.

BikeNewark evolved about a decade ago from the Newark Bicycle Committee, which was technically a municipal committee, said Mark Deshon, who was chair at the time. Biking “has improved tremendously” in the last half-dozen years, he said, particularly with the creation of the Pomeroy and James F. Hall trails, which form about half of the important Central Loop around downtown. “Those two began the real facility in being able to bike in and around Newark,” he said.

The Central Loop was completed when DelDOT, while working on Delaware Avenue, created a two-way track along Delaware Avenue from Library Avenue to Orchard Road. 

Newark in 2023 became Delaware’s first city with a silver status, and only 41 communities nationwide boast the higher statuses of gold and platinum.

“To encourage the higher rating,” WILMAPCO wrote in a recent newsletter, “the League of American Bicyclists recommended increasing Newark’s focus on safety and equity, reducing residential speed limits, expanding school education programs, increasing secure bike parking, encouraging local businesses to promote bicycle and exploring public bike-share.”

“There’s been an important switch in public policy in the that US for providing bike facility in the last 10 years,” said Rodolfo Gomes De Oliveira, a BikeNewark member who just earned his master’s degree in civil engineering from UD and has hopes to commute by bike and bus to his job at DelDOT. “Biking can be pretty comfortable downtown, but Elkton Road and Kirkwood Highway can be traumatic,” he noted, recalling his first eight months in Newark relying upon a bike to get around.

Bicycling in the future

Newark’s nature – 8.9 square miles, with all residential areas within a 2.5-mile ride of Main Street or UD’s main campus – makes bicycling “a practical option for local trips,” a 2014 report wrote.

BikeNewark is much more than a club that unites bicyclists, McBride emphasized. 

Accomplishments for 2023 listed on its website (bikenewark.org) include the first Newark Family Bike Fest, more signage, wayfinding kiosks, a safety handout, four bike-safety checkpoints, a Bike to Work day and five First Friday rides. Wayfinding is all about creating signs that show the mileage and directions to key destinations.

Goals for 2024 include assessing bike parking, completing the Newark Bikeways and wayfinding signage, assisting in updating Newark’s bicycle plan and creating publications and videos to showcase its accomplishments.

BikeNewark has annotated its Newark Bikeways maps to show recent progress and planned projects, such as work on Wyoming Road and the Emerson Bridge on Paper Mill Road.

Deshon called the bicycle-pedestrian path being built above Interstate 95 along South College Avenue “a big improvement,” adding that it will “point out a glaring missing link regarding the lack of low-stress connectivity from I-95 to the James F. Hall Trail and north all the way to East Main Street, which we hope will be addressed.”