Grab Your Bike Helmet— It’s Time for Work!

“It feels like flying.” “I see my city better.” “It’s fast, clean, green fun.” “It’s faster than driving through the city.”

On May 19, nearly 100 cyclists stopped by the Armstrong Medical Education Building to celebrate the benefits of commuting on two wheels as part of National Bike to Work Day. Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Office of Sustainability and Hopkins LIFE, the Johns Hopkins location was one of 30-plus “pit stops” across Baltimore City and surrounding counties.

Clad in everything from scrubs to white jackets to business attire, and sporting Dansko clogs, cycling shoes and sandals, cyclists at the Johns Hopkins pit stop enjoyed breakfast, a free bike tune-up and camaraderie with fellow cyclists. Visitors also shared creative comments on a whiteboard to complete the sentence, “I bike because … ”

“Today is just about the fun of biking,” said Olivia Zug, outreach and commu­nications coordinator for the Office of Sustainability, and lead coordinator for the event. “A lot of people come into the world of biking from a practicality stand­point, but then they find a passion for it.”

Many employees and students agreed. “I didn’t know how to drive until I was 25, so I rode my bike everywhere,” said school of medicine medical student Naomi Gorfinkle, who still prefers two wheels to get to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. School of medicine graduate student Nkosi Adejola says biking to work every day for six years evolved into a hobby. He now has three bikes and volunteers at a bike shop to learn how to fix them on his own.

Although many employees and students may opt to bike for the health benefit, which is in line with the Johns Hopkins Medicine Strategic Plan’s people priority, everyone agreed that nothing beats the convenience factor and time-saving qualities of biking to work or school.

Even riding nine miles from his home in Rodgers Forge was no sweat for Jonathan Herndon, a web specialist at the school of public health. “I’ve always biked,” he said. “It’s always something I think about when taking a new job: Is it biking distance from my house?”

Support for cyclists is certainly grow­ing at Johns Hopkins. The East Balti­more campus has 21 bicycle stations, many with multiple bike racks. “We noticed an increase in the number of people, especially students, biking to and from campus,” said Victoria Mark, envi­ronmental graphics project manager for Johns Hopkins Health System Facilities. Facilities surveyed the campus to identify high-traffic bike areas, like the Weinberg Building, Wolfe Street entrance and the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center, which all have at least two bike racks. Another popular spot, the Meyer Building, re­ceived new racks when construction was complete in spring 2017.

Between 2006 and 2015, Baltimore saw a 50 percent increase in bicycle com­muter traffic. The Baltimore Bike Share, launched in fall 2016, has 20 stations city-wide with bikes that can be rented for a few dollars at a time. The Maryland Avenue Cycle Track, which also opened last fall, provides cyclists a safer way to get from The Johns Hopkins University to the Inner Harbor via a protected bike lane. The school of public health also installed Baltimore’s first outdoor bicycle repair station in 2013 at the corner of Washington and Monument streets, complete with a tire pump, tire levers and a multi-tool.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab a helmet and some handlebars, and hit the pavement!