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A Bike Rack for All People
In addition to being a house of worship, Takoma Park Presbyterian Church is a community resource.
Its buildings serve as meeting and gathering places for self-help groups; Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Brownies; a day care and early education center; sports and fitness programs; and community institutions like the Father-Daughter dance, the Pancake Supper, the Spaghetti Dinner, the Fall Bazaar and the Alternative Gift Fair.
With all that activity comes traffic, but thanks to a grant from the Takoma Foundation, the church has been able to install a new bike rack to help reduce traffic impacts on neighbors, the community and the planet.
The bike rack was installed in the fall, after which the church conducted a volunteer-led season-over-season usage study (to view the study, click here). Based on the very conservative estimates from that study, over the course of the next decade the bike rack will help take a ton of carbon out of the atmosphere, and the equivalent of 11,000 fast food french fries out of the calorie stream of Takoma Park.
In addition, the Church identified tips to share with others who are interested in installing racks around the city and -- most important -- promoting their use.
The Bike Rack was dedicated along with new exterior signage for the Church's Don Patti Memorial Gym, named in memoriam of a beloved Scoutmaster. On-hand at the dedication ceremony where Pastor Mark Greiner, former Takoma Park Councilwoman Colleen Clay, Kevin Patti, Scoutmaster Dave Lanar, and Takoma Foundation President Franca Brilliant.