Bike Path

WHEN IT comes to controversial public works projects, bike trails have moved right up there with jails and landfills.The effort to block the construction of a bicycle trail 7/10ths of mile long through Poplar Park in Annapolis follows a disturbing pattern in other jurisdictions.Residents in communities as diverse as Westminster, in Carroll County, and Mount Washington, in Baltimore, have fought the creation of bike trails because of their supposed magnetic effect on criminals.I have never understood why people believe that bike trails offer easier access to victims than the roads and streets that crisscross our communities.

A Columbia man who police say was wearing only a diaper when he accosted three boys in Cedar Lane Park was arrested Monday.Howard County police spokesman Sgt. Steven Keller said the boys spotted a nearly naked man, who was clutching a baby's bottle on a bike path about 3: 10 p.m., as they were heading toward the park in Columbia's Harper's Choice village.The boys later told police that the man began walking "aggressively" toward them once he saw them on the bike path."Feeling threatened and in fear, the boys instead ran away from him," Keller said.

Homebound patients can get house callsWe are writing in response to Myra Welsh's Oct. 31 letter to the editor to let her and other readers know that there are programs that have nurse practitioners and doctors who will visit homebound patients.In the Geriatric Nurse Practitioner House Call program at Bon Secours Hospital, a nurse practitioner visits homebound patients and provides primary care for them just as a physician would.Nurse practitioners are licensed in Maryland to perform physical exams, order tests and prescribe medicine.

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.

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.

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.

Howard County police are investigating whether two robberies of teens on Long Reach village bike paths over the weekend are related, including one in which the victim said he was struck and left unconscious for two hours.None of the victims in either robbery reported serious injuries.The first robbery happened about 6:30 p.m. Saturday on a bike path behind the Lazy Hollow Apartments near the 8700 block of Cloudleap Court. A 17-year-old told police he was walking along the path when someone hit him on the head from behind, knocking him to the ground.

Three juveniles on bikes stopped a pedestrian on a Columbia bike path Friday night and assaulted and robbed him when he refused to buy marijuana, Howard County police said.The victim, a 17-year-old Columbia youth, was not seriously injured in the robbery in the 10200 block of Little Patuxent Parkway in Town Center, police said.About 9:45 p.m., he was walking on a stretch of a popular bike path behind the Rouse Building when juveniles on bikes approached him. When he refused to buy marijuana from them, police said, one of the juveniles grabbed him by the neck while others searched him.It was not clear whether anything was taken, police said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It seems like it should take more than 35 minutes to get from downtown Baltimore to the cow-studded hillsides of greater Glen Rock, Pa. But it doesn't. So if what you crave is weathered farm buildings, nursing foals, value-priced antiques or a really good mini-doughnut, head north on Interstate 83. You'll be here before you know it. But where is here, actually? If you don't know what you're doing, you can get off at the exit marked Glen Rock and drive for quite a while before you see anything like a mini-doughnut or a 19th-century ceramic crock.

The Merion Station Townhouse Association in Harper's Choice is planning to erect 14-foot lights at residents' cost to increase safety, a move the community association's board president is calling "proactive." The association hopes to have four sodium vapor lights installed by Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. by summer's end to accompany four that were put in this year, said Bob Wills, president of the board of directors. "We are interested in maintaining the amenities and safety of the community, and I think we all look at this as a positive step," Wills said.

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.

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.

WHEN IT comes to controversial public works projects, bike trails have moved right up there with jails and landfills.The effort to block the construction of a bicycle trail 7/10ths of mile long through Poplar Park in Annapolis follows a disturbing pattern in other jurisdictions.Residents in communities as diverse as Westminster, in Carroll County, and Mount Washington, in Baltimore, have fought the creation of bike trails because of their supposed magnetic effect on criminals.I have never understood why people believe that bike trails offer easier access to victims than the roads and streets that crisscross our communities.