Bike club educates, advocates in light of Barrington Hills ordinances

When some of the Barrington Hills cycling community felt that two new ordinances unfairly targeted them, the Barrington Bicycle Club and the Active Transportation Alliance jumped into action.

The Village Board passed two ordinances earlier this year that affect cyclists. The first requires them to ride single-file at all times. The second states that it is unlawful for any person to ride a bike on any roadway in a negligent or risky way.

The cycling community is concerned that these ordinances are not consistent with state laws and are vague. Taken to the extreme, they could discourage and discriminate against cyclists who are legally using the roadway.

That’s when the Barrington Bicycle Club acted and reached out to Active Trans.

The first step was to understand why the ordinances were passed and get to the root of what problems they were meant to solve.

Barrington Hills has a variety of road users – and perspectives on road safety and access.

“It is actually a great sign that the Village of Barrington Hills is concerned with safety on their roads,” said North Suburban Coordinator Lina Hoffman. “What we need now is to make sure all the right people are at the table so we can have a conversation about access and safety on the roads and on the trails.”

Active Trans and the bike club has had several meetings with Barrington Hills leaders, residents, other cyclists and the equestrian community in order to understand each others’ perspectives.

“After having had an opportunity to sit down and clear the air, we were quickly able to agree that the cycling and non-cycling communities should be able to develop reasonable expectations (for road users),” said Bill Gotfryd, a member of the Barrington Bicycle Club.

While many people were justifiably upset with the ordinances, they created an opportunity to talk about road safety and access.
These discussions have opened up a dialogue with Barrington Hills leaders in a very positive way, Gotfryd said.

“The key thing that we learned was that we share a common purpose. We share a love of the Barrington Area and its openness, which is why the residents live there and a big reason why it’s such a popular road cycling venue,” Gotfryd said.
The club will move forward and keep the conversation going.

“We hope that we’ve taken a good step toward developing a model relationship with the community to understand how to share the road,” Gotfryd said. “It will be an ongoing effort, but well worth it.”