Folks like me who've lived a long time in Erie, Pa., sometimes warm slowly to new ideas. I thought it sounded like a bad joke, for example, when former City Councilman Jim Casey pushed hard for a bicycle patrol unit on Erie's police force.

That was about five years ago, and all I could envision were several old-time, overweight officers on those bikes, huffing and puffing their ways to the scene of a crime. The cost of the bike, training and special gear topped $2,500, and I just didn't see the value of it.

Still, Council approved the idea and, soon, we saw athletic-looking young officers zipping all over downtown Erie on their flashy bikes. I saw or heard from many downtown and neighborhood merchants who raved about the bicycle patrol cops -- how they they would respond to a call in a split-second.

Two weeks ago, when I took my sons on a tour of college campuses, police officers on college forces looked just like Erie's bicycle patrol cops. And everyone at the colleges raved about their effectiveness.

Alas, Erie Times-News reporter Steven Sweeney tells us in this morning's front-page story on the bike police that the bike patrol has hit a rocky road. Only Erie Police Sgt. Tom Eberlein continues to patrol on his bike -- and that's only on a parttime basis. He spends most of his time in a patrol car.

The lasting effect of the bike patrol unit, though, is that Eberlein says the downtown neighborhoods that prompted the need for the patrol "aren't so bad anymore."

On his bike, Eberlein was able to swoop in the break up petty crime before it could start to flourish. Unfortunately, budget constraints spelled doom for most of the patrol.

Sweeney describes this well in his story today, which reminded me that an idea I thought was silly turned out to be a pretty good one.

-- Kevin Cuneo

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