Gas prices force police to use bikes

PITTSBURGH — Since even the long arm of the law can't rein in fuel prices, the long legs of the law are getting more exercise these days.

Bicycle patrols — a community policing tactic that some law enforcement agencies de-emphasized in recent years — are seeing a resurgence as the price of gasoline approaches or surpasses $4 a gallon across the country.

"You think the car's the great savior of us all, but in urban areas and dense areas, you're probably better off on a bike," said Chris Menton, an associate professor in the School of Justice Studies at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island who has studied police bike patrols.

In the tiny western Pennsylvania borough of Hollidaysburg, police Chief Jeff Ketner said high gas prices prompted him to resume daily bike patrols several weeks ago.

The department's regular bike patrol had fallen by the wayside and was mainly being used for special events. Ketner resurrected the program after realizing he was on pace to go $6,000 over budget on the department's four vehicles by the end of the year.

Other departments are making similar decisions. In Clive, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, police Chief Robert Cox said more officers will be biking and walking to save gas.

With gas at more than $3.50 a gallon, Cox said his department has already spent its 2007-08 budget of nearly $41,000, which allotted $2.40 a gallon for 17,000 gallons.

It's the same story in Toledo, Ohio. Chief Mike Navarre said that although the department has long had bikes, he has been telling his officers to use them more, and walk more, to save gas.

Police bike organizations say they have noticed a spike in interest.

"Gas is one of a number of factors that come together in terms of establishing, revitalizing or expanding a unit," said Maureen Becker, executive director of the Baltimore-based International Police Mountain Bike Association, which provides training and resources to public safety agencies.

In the 1980s and 1990s, many departments started bike patrols, which were then a relatively new concept, said Wes Branham, a police officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, he said, they went "totally out the door. Money went elsewhere."

Now bikes are coming off the rack.