Bike Path

The problem Drivers turning right at a Northeast Baltimore intersection are confused by a bike lane. The back story Lee Brown drives through the intersection of Frankford Road and Moravia Park Drive in the Frankford neighborhood several times a day. That gives him plenty of opportunity to see that other drivers have different approaches when they need to turn right onto Moravia Park from Frankford. City crews installed a bike path on that road about three months ago, and since then, Brown says, he's seen a few near-misses.

An extension of Owings Mills Boulevard opened to traffic Monday after two years of construction. The $14 million project, which is about a mile long and was funded by the county, will extend Owings Mills Boulevard from Lyons Mill Road to Winands Road. An extension of the road has been in the county's master plan since the 1980s, economic development spokeswoman Fronda Cohen said. The county's public works department has been working with the community and planning the project for the past decade.

Howard County police are investigating an armed robbery in Columbia in which $140 was taken from a 17-year-old boy. The teen was walking on a bike path in the rear of the 5700 block of Stevens Forest Road in Oakland Mills village shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday when a man came out of the woods. The boy told police the man approached him from behind, pressed a hard object to his back and demanded money, police said. After the boy emptied his pockets, the robber took the cash and ran on the path toward the Tor apartment complex, police said.

I was so glad to see Yvonne Wenger's recent article on Columbia's bike paths ("Columbia seeks to right its paths," Jan. 15). The article tells about Columbia developing a network of pathways, both on-road and off-road, interconnecting the 100 miles of existing trails for people to walk, bike or run to their destinations without their automobiles. Over 130 residents turned out last week to voice their strong support and provide feedback to Toole Design Group. Jennifer Toole, president of the Toole Group, is a nationally known traffic planner who knows how to bring folks together to make Columbia and Howard County a model of bicycle and pedestrian travel.

A 28-year-old woman was raped yesterday as she walked the bike path at Lake Elkhorn in East Columbia, county police said.Police said the woman was walking along the lake's path in the Village of Owen Brown around 11 a.m. when she was attacked by a white man, believed to be 18 years old. The assailant was about 5-foot-9 with shoulder length black hair and dark clothing, police said.Columbia's 60 miles of pathways have been the scene of crimes in the past. In 1988, several students reported they were victims of rape and indecent exposure as they walked along the Lake Elkhorn path and another pathway also in Owen Brown.

Besides playing video games and hanging out with their friends afterschool, what Larry, 9, and William, 7, miss the most is riding bikes.The brothers, now living at Sarah's House, a county homeless shelter, with their mother and younger sister, said there's only one bike to ride, and it has a flat tire. Besides, there's really nowhere toride bikes around the Fort Meade shelter.But a community-based effort to build a playground and bike path at Sarah's House will resolve the problem when they are completed andbicycles are donated.

The Howard County Sierra Club and other environmental groups would like to bring people closer to nature, but not too close in Patapsco Valley State Park. The group filed an appeal with the state Department of the Environment last week in a last-ditch effort to block construction of a 1.25-mile paved trail extension that would open the 14,000-acre park to bicyclists and hikers from Ellicott City and other communities along the Patapsco River to the north. A permit for the trail to cross less than 100 square feet of Patapsco wetland was granted Feb. 20 to the state Department of Natural Resources by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

The Howard County Sierra Club and other environmental groups would like to bring people closer to nature, but not too close in Patapsco Valley State Park. The group filed an appeal with the state Department of the Environment last week in a last-ditch effort to block construction of a 1.25-mile paved trail extension that would open the 14,000-acre park to bicyclists and hikers from Ellicott City and other communities along the Patapsco River to the north. A permit for the trail to cross less than 100 square feet of Patapsco wetland was granted Feb. 20 to the state Department of Natural Resources by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

POLICE LOG*Ellicott City: 10400 block of Kingsbridge Road: A blue 1994 Ford Ranger with Maryland tags 21B124 was stolen Monday, police said.5000 block of Centennial Lane: A couple walking along a bike path at the lake at Centennial Park observed a man wearing only sunglasses and running shoes standing in front of trees Friday, police said.

Police logOwen Brown: 9300 block of Windbell Way: Someone sitting in a tot lot Monday saw a man fondling himself on a bike path. The man is described as a stocky white male in his mid-30s, 6 feet tall, with short brown hair, wearing a brown shirt and a large brown coat.

The problem Drivers turning right at a Northeast Baltimore intersection are confused by a bike lane. The back story Lee Brown drives through the intersection of Frankford Road and Moravia Park Drive in the Frankford neighborhood several times a day. That gives him plenty of opportunity to see that other drivers have different approaches when they need to turn right onto Moravia Park from Frankford. City crews installed a bike path on that road about three months ago, and since then, Brown says, he's seen a few near-misses.

All who hate mosquitoes and garden pests should be pleased with the news that the "Bike trail will spare bat refuge" (July 27). The last thing the best bat cave in the East needed to face was construction for a bike path and a steady stream of bikers. People can pedal elsewhere. Whole bat species are struggling to survive against the march of white nose syndrome. This fungus has decimated bat populations in the Northeast and is relentlessly spreading. Mortality is over 90 percent once a winter roost is infected.

Riding a bike can be fun, but it is not just for recreation anymore. Increasingly it is a way to travel to and from work or to run errands. Bike commuting is not for everyone. Being fit, confident about riding in traffic, and having access to a shower at work helps. It also helps to have a good network of bike trails. Baltimore made another move in that direction recently when it received $4 million from the Maryland Department of Transportation to extend the Jones Falls hiking and biking trail into Mount Washington.

For the past seven years, the Chamblee family has spent at least one Saturday riding bikes leisurely through Columbia, participating in the Columbia Association's BikeAbout. "It's a fun way to get out and see a lot of people," said Jeff Chamblee of Columbia. "We like the sense of community." Chamblee and his wife, Deborah, have watched their children, Rebecca, 9, and Ben, 6, grow with the event, switching from two tag-along bicycles to one, as Rebecca is now old enough to ride by herself.

Greg Cantori wants to get into the Colombian import business and bring his product to the streets of Baltimore. No, Cantori isn't a character on The Wire. Nor is he risking a federal drug rap. He's president of One Less Car - a group that advocates for better infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians. What he'd like to import is a concept called ciclovia - a weekly festival on the streets of Bogota. He and his colleagues have been meeting with city officials, urging them to bring the idea to Baltimore under the Americanized name "Sunday Streets."

Howard County police have arrested a 20-year-old Ellicott City man in the Sept. 26 sexual assault of a woman on a Columbia bike path. Police said yesterday that a detective recognized Ji Hwan Shin of the 2900 block of Brookwood Road as a known sex offender from a description provided by the victim. According to court documents, Shin had registered as a sex offender with Howard County police after being convicted on two counts of misdemeanor sex abuse in February in Washington. Court records state that Shin had run up to two women and grabbed their breasts.

A robber pushed a woman into a wall and snatched her purse at the Long Reach Village Center in Columbia last week, Howard County police said.The victim, a 22-year-old from Columbia, was not injured in the robbery Friday in the 8700 block of Cloudleap Court, police said.The woman was walking from her car at 10: 35 p.m. when a man approached from a bike path near the shopping center, pushed her against a wall, took her property and ran back to the bike path, police said.The robber was described as white, about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a medium build.

A wheelchair-bound man was robbed on a bike path in east Columbia Monday, Howard County police said yesterday.LTC No one was injured and no weapons were used during the incident.The man, identified as Gregory Myrick of Owen Brown village, was riding along a bike path from Wind-harp Way to Stevens Forest Road area when two men approached him on foot, a police report said.L Police said the men took Myrick's leather coat and backpack.They are described as black males between 18 and 25 years old.The first man was described as 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10 and wearing a gold hoop earring in his left ear, a baseball cap, a long puffy black coat, black pants and tan boots.

When Leslie Miller spotted three 8-foot-long swaths of graffiti on the Herring Run Park bike path last month, she wanted them removed as quickly as possible. When she tried to use the information on a park marker to tell the city about the problem, she got more frustrated. An Internet site set up to notify authorities wouldn't accept "Hooper's Field" as a valid street address. When she spoke with an operator at the city's 311 nonemergency call center, she had to launch into a convoluted story to pinpoint the location of the defacing.

Rescued by a surge in ticket sales, the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad is getting ready for another tourist season, having survived a state cut that threatened to end the historic train ride through the mountains. The old-fashioned tourist train, one of the last in the nation to be pulled by a steam locomotive, almost reached the end of the line last year. State officials stopped a $250,000 annual subsidy, refused to provide even a more modest sum - and warned of the risks of running beside a new bike path.