Police officers taking to bikes to save on gas

Cruisers still to patrol borough streets

By Mark Leberfinger, mleberfinger@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG — David Gehret and Jeff Friday took a bike ride Thursday morning on North Juniata Street.

But it was all business for the Hollidaysburg police officers.

Thursday’s ride marked the first time in 12 years that the police department conducted daily bicycle patrols around the 2.4-square-mile borough.

The reasons: higher gasoline prices and increased gasoline consumption.

“We might save eight to 10 gallons a shift. That may not seem like much, but do that three, four times a week, and you do the math,” Police Chief Jeffrey Ketner said.

Hollidaysburg previously ran bike patrols for special activities such as parades and sporting events.

Ketner, Gehret, Friday and the other five members of the department will take spins around the borough during their regular patrols — as much as five miles a shift. The bike patrols depend on the weather and the volume of calls for a particular shift.

The bikes are stealth enough to allow officers to ride unobtrusively into areas such as Canal Basin, Kelly and Legion parks.

‘‘They [the bad guys] just will never know where we’ll pop up,’’ Ketner said.

Altoona is the only other Blair County police department with bike patrols. The city’s federally funded program started out as a ‘‘Walk and Talk’’ effort but expanded into the bike patrol in the mid-1990s.

Five officers are assigned to the bikes, bike patrol supervisor Sgt. Frank Shields said.

The program has been successful because of the contact the public is able to make with officers.

‘‘We’re out making contacts. People wave and say ‘hi’ versus driving by in a car and not being able to say anything,’’ Shields said. ‘‘With the bikes, the officers can talk with you. If a citizen has a problem, they’re not afraid to tell them, ‘Hey, I saw something out of place last night you might want to check on.’’’

City bike officers rode about 1,850 miles between July 2006 and June 2007, Shields said.

Logan Township has no plans to go with a bike patrol as a way to save gas, Chief Ron Heller said.

‘‘It’s a great law enforcement tool when you have areas like the city of Altoona and Hollidaysburg, but because our geographic area is so spread out, it’s not practical,’’ Heller said.

One way the township is dealing with the spiraling price of gas is to shut off the police cruisers when practical.

‘‘We have to respond to our calls of service, so we can’t cut down the patrols, but we [have] less idling time. Even that we have to watch. When you have an accident on Pleasant Valley Boulevard, it’s not practical to do so [shut off the cruisers],’’ Heller said.

Mirror Staff Writer Mark Leberfinger is at 946-7462.