Investing in Bicycle Transit Creates a Cleaner, Safer Future for Commuters

Corinne Gordon, a recent Georgetown Law School graduate and life-long cyclist, was six miles into her 24-mile commute home from her law internship in suburban Chicago in the summer of 2009 when a driver buzzed by her at top speed, cut her off, then slammed his brakes. With no time to react and nowhere to go, Gordon hit the back of the car. The driver sped away from the accident, leaving Gordon with a cut on her helmeted forehead, abrasions on her arm, and an injured knee.

It’s tempting to chalk Gordon’s accident up to the actions of one asshole driver. But the roads she had to ride on to get to and from work lacked “shoulders and had horrible pavement, high speed limits, and angry drivers.” The absence of bicycle infrastructure on those suburban-Chicago roads put Gordon at undue risk, a problem shared by many bicyclists across the country.

To say we are a car-centric country is an understatement. Cars have driven transportation policy for the better part of a century. Our cities are built for cars; mass transit is mediocre in all but a few major metropolises. Those who seek non-motor vehicle transit, like Gordon, are marginalized. It's no surprise that over 87 percent of Americans drive to work. Automobiles are the second largest contributor of CO₂ pollution in the United States, pumping 1.5 billion tons into the atmosphere annually. Meanwhile, the global warming crisis is growing.

Despite the stranglehold cars have over the hearts and minds of Americans, those who bike and walk to their jobs or classes are slowly growing. A 2009 study by the Federal Highway Administration showed that bicycling and walking combined have grown from 7.9 percent to 11.9 percent over the past 15 years. Those numbers don't exactly signal a renaissance in U.S. transportation. Still, such growth, combined with shifting priorities and policies emerging from the top of the U.S. Department of Transportation encouraging indicators for the future of active transportation.

The current secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood, is an outspoken proponent of bicycling and walking. Speaking at the National Bike Summit this spring, LaHood announced that bicycle and pedestrian advocates had a "full-partner" in the U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT). The following week, he wrote on the U.S. DOT Fast Lane blog, "People across America who value bicycling should have a voice when it comes to transportation planning. This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized."

The Obama-appointed LaHood is a huge improvement over the Bush administration Transportation Secretary Mary Peters. In a 2007 PBS Newshourinterview Peters famously said that bicycles are not a form of transportation and don't deserve federal infrastructure funding. Peters' view exemplifies the prevailing stance that bicycling is recreation and not transportation. Such an attitude has contributed to the lackluster investment in alternative-transportation infrastructure. This, in turn, becomes a Catch-22, with a low investment leading to a lack of bicycle facilities, which therefore makes it harder for bicyclists to ride, often scaring some people away from commuter riding altogether.

The lack of bicycle infrastructure is frustrating to those like Danielle Rose, a former Americorps staffer at Cascade Bicycle Club, the largest bike club in the United States. Rose is currently a University of Washington urban planning graduate student focusing on transportation planning.

"The number one issue for bicyclists, aside from angry drivers, is infrastructure," Rose says. "Our cities aren't built for bikes, our land-use patterns are built for cars. It makes things hard."

Secretary LaHood introduced new U.S. DOT policy this spring that begins to address the lack of walking and bicycling infrastructure. The Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations mandates that safe walking and bicycling facilities be incorporated into future transportation projects. "Every transportation agency, including U.S. DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems," the U.S. DOT press release reads. "Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide ... transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes."

Alternative transportation advocates and bicyclists recognize that well-designed infrastructure is the key to growth in bicycling as transportation.

"We need more bike lanes, especially ones separated from the traffic lanes [like the cycletracks in Denmark and the Netherlands]," says Gordon. Cycletracks are bike lanes separated from car lanes by a physical barrier, such as a raised cement curb. Such structures are popular in Europe. The physical separation, as opposed to a painted separation like most traditional U.S. bike lanes, reduce the risk of bicyclists getting hit by cars. Gordon, like Rose, says people need dedicated on-road bicycling facilities to feel safe.

Rose lived in Copenhagen for six months and used cycletracks that were integrated into the city structure. "Cycletracks are a really fantastic way to make people comfortable and get more people riding," she says. "There's safety in numbers. The more people you get riding the safer it'll be for everyone."

Of course, the limitations on expanding such infrastructure are similar to those of other federal programs; expanding transportation infrastructure for bicyclists and pedestrians will take funding. Even though pedestrians and bicyclists make up 11.9 percent of total transit in America, they received only 2 percent of federal transportation funding in 2009. The new U.S. DOT policies and Secretary LaHood's leadership on diversifying transit are indications that such modes of transit could eventually receive the investments they need to continue their growth. Perhaps then Gordon will no longer live in fear of the next "asshole" driver.

Josh Cohen is a columnist covering transportation politics and bike advocacy issues for Seattle-based news site Publicola.