In Eastham, he said, “at our Salt Pond land, we can say that it will take somewhere under two minutes for emergency professionals to respond to an incident.” According to Ellis, the collaboration between town police and emergency medical technicians and the Seashore has made for impressive response times. The National Seashore Park Rangers frequently respond to bike accidents along with emergency service personnel from the Outer Cape towns. Park employees and volunteers handed out maps highlighting the spots on the trail with high accident rates due to sharp turns or blind spots. A poster reads: “65 percent of visitor crashes occurred on the Province Lands Trail.” Recent accidents have seen cyclists going too fast around sandy corners, spinning out, and hitting their heads, said Ellis. “It’s notorious for major accidents,” said Ellis. High traffic and varying degrees of experience among cyclists make it one of the most dangerous paths in the Park. “People come here from all around just to ride it, to experience it once,” said Barrepski. The event focused on the Province Lands trail, the oldest bicycle trail in the National Park system. We need to get the word out about how to bike safely on Cape Cod.” Brian Carlstrom said, “Every year we medevac cyclists with serious head injuries to Boston hospitals. In the Seashore’s news release promoting Friday’s safety event, Supt. “Most of the bike accidents have been on the Rail Trail,” said Deschamps. One person fell off a bike on the National Seashore bike path and a collision occurred on the Rail Trail. Last weekend saw two separate incidents in Eastham that resulted in hospitalizations, Deputy Police Chief Daniel Deschamps said. So far, Taylor says, summer 2021 has been slightly quieter than previous summers. Her purview is the roads and trails of the Park itself, and she estimates that the Seashore responds to 25 to 30 bike accidents each season. “Bike accidents are our number one visitor accident,” said Nicole Taylor, the Park’s health and safety officer. “We mirrored the safety priorities that are used all around the country in evaluating bike routes.” Among them were limiting exposure to motor vehicle traffic, looking for ways to prevent accidents on the path, and ensuring intersection safety.įor all these efforts, accidents are frequent. “The criteria for the analysis included a number of points, and safety was a significant goal,” said Cook. 5 to approve its report to the select board. Wellfleet’s Bike and Walkways Committee has been analyzing potential bikeway routes to connect the Rail Trail in Wellfleet to Truro, according to chair Peter Cook. “It’s really nice to have a bike committee that’s made up of people who live here and ride bikes.” “They’re the ones who helped put in motion the bike lanes they painted on the roads, and a lot of the bike-friendly traffic bylaws were introduced by them,” he said. Provincetown’s bicycle committee gets credit for important changes, said Barrepski. With so many cyclists, Outer Cape towns have established bike committees, in part to promote bike safety. The event is a fund-raiser for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. of Conservation and Recreation at Nickerson State Park.Īnother 1,600 riders are expected to finish this year’s Pan-Mass Challenge at the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown this Sunday, organizers say. The state’s 25-mile Cape Cod Rail Trail, stretching from Yarmouth to Wellfleet, attracts roughly 10,000 people per day in the summer and one million people annually, reports the Dept. The National Seashore’s Province Lands trail in the dunes of Provincetown draws thousands of cyclists each summer, according to park ranger Brent Ellis, who says it is impossible to estimate the exact number. The Cape is a premier New England cycling destination, in large part due to its bike trails. 6 at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham. Another session will be held Friday, Aug. Out here, he says, “biking is essential.”īut how safe is biking on the Outer Cape? That’s something National Park officials, townspeople, and mechanics like Barrepski are working on.īarrepski, who lives in Provincetown, was doing free safety checks at the Province Lands Visitor Center last Friday as part of the Cape Cod National Seashore’s 10th annual “Bike Safety at the Seashore” events. PROVINCETOWN - “Most of the townies I know don’t have cars, they just have a bicycle,” says Ptown Bikes mechanic Silas Barrepski in between oiling a chain and pumping a tire. A cyclist on an electric bike on the Cape Cod Rail Trail forgot his helmet, but not his smartphone.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |