If you want to be healthy, health can’t just be something you work on from time to time; you need to make it part of your lifestyle. Much the same is true of a community: If we want Toledoans to be healthier, we need to build a culture where healthy activities are part of everyday living. One way to do that is to encourage people to get around town on foot and on bikes. The proposed Bancroft Street bike lanes are a step in that direction.

City officials are considering a plan to rebuild the stretch of Bancroft Street between Secor Road and Parkside Boulevard with bike lanes. The plan would require a reduction in the number of car lanes, from two in each direction to one each way plus a left-turn lane. The stretch is only 1.4 miles. But with other existing and proposed cycling lanes, it would help form a major bike corridor from the University of Toledo to the Old West End and downtown. Such a corridor was part of last year’s proposed city bike plan and is reflected in the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments’ 2015-2045 transportation plan, but when Council approved the bike plan in January, it withheld approval of much of this stretch; that approval should be granted now.

Not everyone has the time and motivation to make exercise a distinct activity with part of the day set aside for it. Cycling as a mode of transportation can get some of those people moving and burning calories. The more accessible the city is by bike, the more incentive people have to move through it on bikes.

The Bancroft bike lanes are not, of course, all the cycling infrastructure Toledo needs. But they may get some people pedaling. And together with other cycling lanes and paths, they can give Toledoans opportunities for healthier living.

First Published June 23, 2016, 4:00 a.m.