Elburn wants to help you bike during commute

The Elburn village board voted to approve a "Bike to Metra" project the village will conduct with the League of Illinois Bicyclists. The project, which includes developing a brochure, will cost about $4,000, which will be reimbursable through a grant. The action came at Tuesday's village board meeting.

"The idea is to encourage people to bicycle as part of their commute," Jessica Thompson told the board. She is a project planner for the League of Illinois Bicyclists and is working with Elburn Community Development Director Erin Willrett on the project.

The brochure will be based on materials that the League of Illinois Bicyclists completed for the city of Aurora, but it will be tailored to Elburn and will include a map of bicycle routes.

Thompson will provide consultation on selecting bicycle routes, and she will subcontract with a graphic artist and printer to develop the brochure.

Willrett said the project includes holding a public meeting. There is no date for the meeting, but Willrett also said the brochure could be ready before May.

"We added a second bicycle rack (at the Elburn Metra station) in June," Willrett said. She said that each rack can accommodate ten bicycles, but people chain their bicycles at other places also. Willrett estimated that on any day during the warm weather, about 25 people ride their bicycles to the Metra station, which opened in January 2006.

Trustee Gordon Dierschow raised concern about bicyclists on Keslinger Road, which provides the only automobile access to the Metra station.

"We will come up with the preferred routes, the safest," Willrett said. "These routes are for experienced adults."

"We've had bicycles going down the railroad right of way, and people carrying their bicycles over three railroad tracks," Elburn Police Chief James Linane told the board. "We want to address these safety issues."

Funding for the project will be available from a Peers (public education and enforcement research study) grant of nearly $20,000 that the Elburn Police Department obtained in January from the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Federal Railroad Administration.