Ever notice that PA has very few signed bikeways or bike lanes outside of Philly and Pittsburgh?

Here’s why: if a municipality wants to add a bicycle lane to an existing state road, the municipality must agree to a Bicycle Occupancy Permit.

This innocent looking form has become a stumbling block for many worthy projects in the state. The standard Bicycle Occupancy Permit requires the municipality to sign off on a number of responsibilities that are not an issue for conventional road project. Specifically, the municipality must agree the following conditions:

• to pay for the painting or road signs,
• to maintain that section of the state road from pot holes, snow, and debris,
• to assume all liability.

The result: no bike lanes.

In most surrounding states and elsewhere, the state DOT assumes responsibility for marking, maintaining, and liability for approved bikeways on existing state roads instead of punting it to the municipality. Not in PA.

PA Walks and Bikes, along with a few of our partners, recently met with PennDOT Deputy Secretary Christie to share our concerns, to listen to PennDOT’s issues, and to start a dialog to help the state become more bicycle friendly.

The good news is there seems to be sincere interest by top management in removing this obstacle. We are finally seeing progress on an issue that has been festering too long, and it looks like an amenable solution can be reached that will allow many bike lane projects to move forward. It won’t be resolved overnight, but the wheels are finally turning in the right direction.

We will keep you posted on this important policy issue.