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WILKES-BARRE – For Michele Schasberger’s money, bike racks can save cities.

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Schasberger sees bicycle parking, which can be as cheap as $100 per post, as a cost-effective way to reinvigorate a struggling downtown and bring back the vibrant, urban feel such towns often lose.

As the project manager for the Wyoming Valley Wellness Trails Partnership, she’s focusing on bringing that feeling here. Installing adequate racks in front of businesses and important facilities would cater to locals who are biking as an alternative to driving and tourists who bike to town on one of the regional trails and want to spend some money while they’re here.

“I would love to see a vibrant, ‘bikeable,’ walkable downtown Wilkes-Barre with attractive residential areas surrounding it,” she said. “I think that we have many of the ingredients. … I think bike parking is a wonderful example of a very small amenity that speaks to the strength of a dense urban core.”

Experts conclude, she said, that people do less involuntary activity, such as walking to work or even getting up to change the channel, so groups throughout the nation, including the trails partnership, received five-year, $200,000 grants to find ways to increase personal activity.

Schasberger looked to Portland, Ore., for effective ideas. On an information-gathering trip with county workers and other local community-advocacy groups, Schasberger found a “groovy, West Coast, green culture” that also cared about fashion and economics.

Shop owners there can petition the city to change on-street parking spaces into mass bike-parking spaces to get more shoppers in the door. And thanks to a local video guide on how to dress fashionably but functionally for bike rides, those shoppers won’t be the “Spandex mafia,” as Schasberger likes to call the die-hard bikers who dress in professional-quality gear.

Schasberger realizes, though, that there are big obstacles to hurdle to bring those ideas here. She sees them in her own life.

“I myself am one of those people who preaches but doesn’t do,” she said, noting that shepherding around children can quickly erase such high-minded plans.

“You want to get the people who would be doing it anyway, who are already leaping over hurdles, and knock down one of those hurdles.”

She envisions bike racks at the Jewish Community Center, Arts YOUniverse, the movie theater, more on Public Square, in front of businesses on North and South Main streets, near churches, anywhere people need to travel to.

She’s particularly interested in getting racks at often-visited destinations like all-inclusive pharmacies, convenience stores, schools and grocery stores.

But there are issues – schools often don’t want the liability that comes with encouraging students to bike to school – and, frankly, she’s not sure where to start with corporate franchises. She’s hoping to begin with locally owned independent shops and expand.

Though the initial grant runs out this year, the partnership has secured another $18,000 for next year. And while that might not seem like much compared to the millions being spent on other revitalization projects in the city, “even $20,000 can put in a lot of bike racks,” she said.