Bike-friendly Omaha? “You’d be surprised!”

The MUP’s in Omaha aren’t bad. The ones built parallel to streams don’t have the big safety problem of road crosssings: the trail goes under the bridge and there are “offramps” up to the main road. If your destination is somewhere along these trails it is very easy to maintain a high speed on these flat routes and never have to stop.
Don’t run the stop signs though: you don’t have near the anonymity, much fewer cyclists, there as here and you will be identified.

Coming soon to the streets of Tulsa, OK: Solar hybrid Space Shuttle on three wheels. My small bank account be DAMED.

I was an everyday cyclist in Omaha from 2005 to 2007 before my move to Portland and still cycle there on viists about twice a year. I would love to see Omaha become an enjoyable cycling city. It’s almost like a tale of two city’s though. The Eastern 1/3 of the city, which consists of downtown and midtown, a collection of close-in neighborhoods,is much like inner east side Portland. It has lots of tree-lined neighborhoods and smaller streets with some one ways cutting through neighborhoods. This area’s population, consisting of working poor, working class, and middle class gentrifiers, is very open to an increase in cycling infrastructure. Once you pass the ubiquitous 72nd Street it becomes a scary scary world for cyclists. 6 lane roads everywhere and your lucky if they have sidewalks nonetheless cycling infrastructure. This portion of town has been developed so car centric for so long and the population that lives their doesn’t even realize that some people cycle as a viable form of transportation. Omaha would be best served by picking it’s low hanging fruit by creating bike boulevards and appropriate bike lanes(here’s looking at you Farnam) in their older more liberal parts. Hopefully the rest of the city sees property values increase and the general joys of livable neighborhoods and asks for the same.

Thanks to flat terrain, there are many cities in the Midwest that could easily surpass Portland in bike friendliness and commuter usage over the next decade. Many already have MUPs along rivers to serve as the backbone of a high speed bike travel system.

Nice work, Omaha.

I traveled to Portland before I moved to Omaha, and I was blown away by the bike culture there. Only my time living in Amsterdam (sadly brief) surpassed it.

That said, I feel like Omaha has a really vocal minority. I wrote an article on the Guerrilla Trail Crew, a bunch of guys that voluntarily maintain the trails come rain, shine, or snow. I was amazed by how many people came out of the woodwork and said nice job, or wanted to use it as a springboard for more change. There may not be as many bikers here as in Portland, but the ones that are here are just as committed.

It’s by no means an ideal city for bikers–surprisingly hilly and married to the car–but it’s getting better, and that’s what’s important.

There is indeed a footbridge from Omaha to Council Bluffs. It leads from a strange part of town in Nebraska to an even stranger part of town in Iowa. But it’s a nice spot for an evening walk, and while a failed “centerpiece” for the city, not a bad addition at all.