Jimmy

Here’s part 3 (local/urban transit by bike) of my TiA (Transportation in America) plan; finally we’re actually getting into the meat of it! *grin*
If you haven’t read the two “intro” posts and are wondering what this is about, I encourage you to read part 1: Introduction/The Problem and part 2: Overview of the 3 Part Network.
I work on each section whenever I have time between school work and family events, so the next section (local/urban transit by electric and hybrid vehicles) will probably be completely by mid-week sometime. Stay tuned.

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The Local/Urban Transit Networks in my plan use three main types of transportation:

• Walking/Biking: in this post
• Electric and Hybrid Vehicles: in part 4
• Podcars: in part 5

I’ll treat each of these points separately before knitting them all together at the end. I’m going longer than I thought I would on each topic, so I’m posting walking/biking on it’s own and will post about Electric and Hybrid Vehicles, Podcars and the overall system later.

Walking/Biking
I should say right up front that I’m not the type of person who believes that we should all ditch our cars and walk/bike everywhere within 10 miles of home. I think that dreaming of creating a world in which 100% of people do that is a waste of brain cells that could be better used trying to come up with transit solutions that a majority of Americans will actually agree to participate in. With that said, I do know that there are people who enjoy walking/biking and would do more of it on longer trips if there were specific walking and biking paths separate from city streets (I am one of those people: I get to 60% of my college classes by biking the half mile to campus and would probably go more places in town by bike if there were paths made specifically for it).

So we come to the concept of bike paths (for the sake of brevity and the fact that I’m focusing more on biking than walking because it’s a more widely used mode of transportation I’m going to be referring to walking/biking paths simply as bike paths from here on out) and greenways (the two concepts are similar but different: greenways are basically bike paths with vegetation around them; bike paths are, as you would expect, any path that’s built for bike travel and includes bike lanes on city streets): corridors set aside for foot and bike traffic to flow freely without having to compete with the cars and trucks and buses on city streets. Light rail is [generally] given corridors separate from city streets (subways are a prime example of this), as well as Podcars (see later in this series). Biking and walking are good, healthy forms of transport for urban settings, but to fully maximize the number of people using this form of transit we need to give walkers and bikers there own paths and corridors.

I purpose that urban planners start making bike paths and greenways a normal part of the planned urban landscape (perhaps spaced a half mile to a mile apart) and bike lanes a normal part of every major city street. It’s probably unreasonable to assume that it’s possible to install bike paths or greenways to that density within already crowded urban centers, but I purpose that all new developments in the suburbs should make bike paths and/or greenways an integrated part of every new development no more than a half mile apart (insuring that nobody will only have to bike on a city street for more than a quarter mile to get into the bike path/greenway system). (Within already built neighborhoods the installation of bike lanes on existing streets will have to do in most places, but I imagine that if urban planners got creative enough they could find ways to squeeze new bike paths and greenways into the middle of urban settings, for example along rivers or old railroad corridors [I should give credit where it’s due to the many cities around the country that are already doing this]).

If urban planners started treating bikers and car drivers equally in terms of resources and respect I think we would seem many, many more people choosing the bike over the car for trips of 2, 5, 10 or even 15+ miles for some people (the local city government in Boulder, CO seems to be doing just this as they’ve spent 15% of their transit budget the last several years on increasing bike traffic and they strive to create a system that’s “equitable for all users,” a stance that’s increased the percentage of commuters that bike to 21%). More than just new paths and lanes, though, bikers specifically need places to park their bikes once they’ve reached their destinations and, for professional workers, a place to shower and change before work.

Cities in Europe are leading the world in terms of biker-friendliness and we could do to follow some of their examples. Paris, France, for example, has started a low-cost bike rental program that has been a huge success (I haven’t actually tried it, but I saw the bike stations when I was in Paris last December and the whole system looked easy and smooth to use). We all know that Americans are more attached to their cars than Europeans, but we do seem to like our bikes as well, and, if done right, I think a bike rental program like Paris’ could work in most US cities. Bike paths and greenways connecting every part of a city, bike rental programs, bike parking and showering facilities located around town for those that own their bikes would all help to make our cities cleaner, quieter and healthier.

(After I finished writing the section above my dad sent me a link to a N.Y. Times article about how bike use on college and university campuses is increasing nationwide [you may need a free NYTimes account to read the article]. This is an encouraging first step; now we need to get these students to continue to use their bikes after they graduate and, more importantly, we need to make it as easy to use the bikes around cities as it is on campuses.)

Stay tuned for part 4: local/urban transit by electric and hybrid vehicles sometime in the next few days.

Enjoy!

-jbh

Posted in: Transit by jimmy2 / Tags: tia