Demand grows for bike education

From the Christian Science Monitor, 08.25.08:

New bike commuters hit the classroom, then the road
The rush of new cyclists, created by high gas prices, is driving up demand for bike safety classes.
San Francisco - Like many Americans, Tara Collins hadn't bicycled much since middle school. That changed this year when she started paying $50 to fill up her gas tank. Since early July Ms. Collins has been biking to her job in San Francisco. Now she's sitting in Bert Hill's bicycle safety course--along with 31 others--after a close shave with a van.

"When that happened I thought, 'Wow, there probably are things I could learn about safety,'" says Ms. Collins. "I haven't been on a bike in years, and even when I did, it wasn't in traffic."

The high price of gas is creating a surge in bicycle commuting across the country, not just in West Coast cities but in places like Louisville, Ky., and Charlotte, N.C. The rush of newbies has triggered tensions with drivers unaccustomed to sharing the road, and driven cyclists to seek out traffic training.

"I'm getting hammered by mayors asking, 'What are you doing about all these new bikers on the street and nobody knows the rules of the road?'" says Robert Raburn, executive director of the East Bay Bicycle Coalition in Oakland. When the organization started classes in 2003, it offered maybe two a year. Now, it has six slated for September with two more to be announced. In the Bay State, MassBike reports offering two dozen classes this year, compared with three the year before...

A key precept in bike safety courses is the phrase: "Same roads, same rights, same rules." Hill's four-hour presentation highlighted common causes for collisions with cars and how to avoid them. It's partly a matter of proper bike positioning in a traffic lane to minimize driver error and partly cyclists following road rules and acting predictably..."If we look at car-bike crashes and who's at fault, in a sense it doesn't matter," Hill said. The cyclist suffers either way. (Read more.)

It will be some time before we have quantitative information on the growth of bicycle commuting. Among the anecdotal evidence for the recent increase in bike commuters is this article on the growing demand for bicycle safety education in many cities. I'm certified by the League of American Bicyclists as a League Cycling Instructor (LCI #1237). I certainly believe in the value of bicyclist education, and encourage new bike commuters to enroll in courses such as the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's Urban Bike Training and the League's Bike Education programs.

However, Bike Ed classes in themselves will never be adequate to transform the U.S. into a North American Denmark. Bicyclists in most communities confront a hostile street environment, produced by traffic engineers who have prioritized car speed over every other consideration for more than 60 years. Bicycling advocacy remains the key. It was the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition's advocacy that won funding from San Francisco's Municipal Transporation Agency for the coalition's Urban Bike Training program. It was advocacy that won closure of a block of Waller Street in Golden Gate Park to create the dedicated bicycle training facility pictured above.

I firmly believe Bike Ed should not be offered by volunteer organizations, it should be government funded, supported, and encouraged. Street safety is a public responsibility; the burden shouldn't be shifted to well-intentioned enthusiasts. Bike organizations may contract with public agencies to deliver the training, but shouldn't use their own precious volunteer energies and resources substituting for public agencies. I would urge my friend Robert Raburn of the EBBC to fire back a funding request at the mayors demanding bike safety training.

Beyond class or street instruction, I take a broad view of bicycle safety education. Bike lanes are educational, indicating to motorists the legitimacy of bicyclists on the streets. "Sharrows" are educational, showing cyclists the riding position to avoid the door zone and the direction with traffic, while simultaneously informing motorists of the presence of bike riders. Bike route signs, media outreach campaigns, public service announcements, public art projects, bike racks, bus signs, newsletters, blogs, and websites are all educational, informing both bicyclists and motorists about the rightful place of bicycling in our culture.

Education is important, but infrastructure is critical. Advocacy is the key for bicycling friendly infrastructure.

Image: Dave Campbell.
Visit: Safety tips for new bicycle commuters, KABC-TV (Los Angeles)
Visit: Ridership rise spurs bike classes, Lancaster New Era (PA)
Visit: Bicycling Safety, Bike Commuting Tips
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site
(Yes, there's an esoteric base-superstructure argument here--"do bicyclists create bike lanes, or do bike lanes create bicyclists?" Firmly grounded in Marxist theory, I believe in a dialectical relationship, that base and superstructure influence each other. But the base is dominant.)

Progress (temporarily) blocked in San Francisco

From the Wall Street Journal, 08.20.08:

San Francisco Ponders: Could Bike Lanes Cause Pollution?
City Backpedals on a Cycling Plan After Mr. Anderson Goes to Court
New York is wooing cyclists with chartreuse bike lanes. Chicago is spending nearly $1 million for double-decker bicycle parking.

San Francisco can't even install new bike racks.

Blame Rob Anderson. At a time when most other cities are encouraging biking as green transport, the 65-year-old local gadfly has stymied cycling-support efforts here by arguing that urban bicycle boosting could actually be bad for the environment. That's put the brakes on everything from new bike lanes to bike racks while the city works on an environmental-impact report.

Cyclists say the irony is killing them--literally. At least four bikers have died and hundreds more have been injured in San Francisco since mid-2006, when Mr. Anderson helped convince a judge to halt implementation of a massive pro-bike plan.(It's unclear whether the plan's execution could have prevented the accidents.) In the past year, bike advocates have demonstrated outside City Hall, pushed the city to challenge the plan's freeze in court and proposed putting the whole mess to local voters. Nothing worked.

"We're the ones keeping emissions from the air!" shouted Leah Shahum, executive director of the 10,000-strong San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, at a July 21 protest.

Mr. Anderson disagrees. Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It's an "attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy," he wrote in his blog this month.

Mr. Anderson's fight underscores the tensions that can circulate as urban cycling, bolstered by environmental awareness and high gasoline prices, takes off across the U.S. New York City, where the number of commuter cyclists is estimated to have jumped 77% between 2000 and 2007, is adding new bike lanes despite some motorist backlash. Chicago recently elected to kick cars off stretches of big roads on two Sundays this year.(Read more.)

Interesting article in an important national media outlet. As we marketing professionals say, any coverage is good coverage, even if it's not entirely favorable. It's always better to be noticed than ignored.

I might have preferred to see more from Leah Shahum--who is intelligent, responsible, and leads a 10,000-member organization--rather than Rob Anderson, who is, as described in the article, a wingnut. But the writer did a good job portraying him as a lonely eccentric, and the article illustrates a real problem of our polity when such iconoclasts can derail sensible public policies.

The article and associated video also spends too much time with Critical Mass, which really has little relation with Anderson's lawsuit. An undeniably high-visibility event, Critical Mass as a once-monthly protest/celebration is far less significant in San Francisco politics than the everyday advocacy of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which has been truly effective at gaining significant bicycling enhancements. However, Critical Mass is an attractive subject for biased reporters seeking to malign bicyclists. The traffic impact of Critical Mass is minimal--generally causing only a few minutes delay to any individual motorist--compared to the delays routinely caused by the automotive "Critical Mass" each and every day.

Anderson's argument is, of course, ridiculous. Essentially, he's saying that narrow streets cause air pollution from vehicles stuck in traffic idling. Sooo, we should bulldoze some buildings and widen streets, Mr. Anderson? Sorry, been there, done that. And all we got was even more vehicle traffic. This case should have been tossed immediately, if not for the city's inept and sloppy defense of the bicycle plan.

The temporary delay has for the moment prevented any on-street improvements in San Francisco. But as Leah Shahum indicated at the Car Free Cities Conference in Portland, important planning and preparation work for bicycle infrastructure has continued at the city's transportation agency, and many projects will be ready for rapid implementation once the stay is lifted. And the SFBC's cultural efforts have continued: Bike to Work Day was a huge success this year, and the coalition's membership continues to surge.

Image: Rhonda Winter/San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
Visit: Rob Anderson says I ride because of political motivations, Cyclelicious
Visit: Biking, walking gain in San Francisco, Bike Commute Tips Blog
Visit: Warm Planet Bikes opens in S.F., Bike Commute Tips Blog
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site

Biking, walking gain in San Francisco

From the San Francisco Chronicle, 06.29.08:

Commuters ditching cars for bikes, foot power
In this era of increasing prices at the pump, bad air quality and general belt-tightening, more people in the Bay Area are opting to commute to work via heart-healthy biking or walking. But the financial and physical benefits aside, that kind of commuting has the potential to wreak havoc on one's professional image--even considering the casual-attire aesthetic that dominates many offices.

Graduate student Lisa Foster refuses to let the peddling keep her from wearing her pumps, as she wrote in an issue of the San Francisco Bike Coalition's Tube Times. "I really think bikes are made for people who wear heels," she said. "You don't have to walk in them. It's so much better."

New bike riders can benefit from the fashion-forward lessons learned by long-time cyclists, many of whom have perfected the little fashion tricks and tips that can ease the transition from congested city streets to cubicle.

Cheryl Brinkman...lives in the lower Haight and commutes 2 miles to her job as a product manager at McKesson Corp., in the Financial District. About her wardrobe, Brinkman said, "I've altered it for the better and only one thing that I don't wear now that I bike so much is long full skirts."

On the days she rides her bike, Brinkman tucks her skirt into a band of elastic that she wraps around one thigh, a homemade garter belt solution, as it were. And, she said, "I always have a small binder clip in my handbag, as well, to keep wrap skirts or dresses closed while pedaling."

She brings her purse but eschews wearing a helmet - not because she fears having dreaded "helmet hair" upon arriving at her destination, but because she believes it gives her an advantage on the road. "I feel safer in the city riding without," she said. "If I ride in Marin, I absolutely wear the helmet, but in the city, when you look more like an average person, I think drivers treat you that way. They give you a little room, treat you nicer." (Read more.)

Great article from San Francisco, with helpful advice for those prospective bike commuters who are concerned about the "dressing-for-the-office" challenge. The article features my friend Cheryl Brinkman, part of the creative team at the Less Car, More Life blog.

As indicated before on this blog, I share Brinkman's attitude on helmets. The anxiety over "helmet hair" is way, way overblown. However, if hair insecurity scares people from bike commuting, then I say "fine, don't wear one." (Helmets mitigate the consequences of a crash; helmets don't prevent a crash.)

Image: San Francisco Chronicle. Bike commuter Cheryl Brinkman of San Francisco
Visit: Facing High Gas Prices And Time Crunch, Commuters Start Biking, Wall Street Journal
Visit: Ride the rails to the river, Less Car, More Life
Visit: No belt, no bra, no pants?, Bike Commute Tips Blog
Visit: Bike Commute Myth Busting, Bike Commute Tips Blog
Visit: Bike commuters save gas, get exercise, Bike Commute Tips Blog
Visit: Paul Dorn's Bike Commuting Tips Site