Google Maps ‘Bike There’

The new issue of Momentum Magazine is online, and John Pucher, the “Bicycle Scholar,” has written the first article in his three-part series on making cycling for everyone:

The most important approach to making cycling safe, convenient, and attractive for everyone in northern European cities is the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily travelled roads and at intersections, combined with extensive traffic calming of residential neighbourhoods.

Depending on how you want to chop that sentence up, we only need to concentrate on these two or three primary directives to start seeing big changes in bicycle mode share. I’ll share all three:

1. Provision separate cycling facilities along heavily-traveled roads
2. Provision separate cycling facilities at intersections
3. Extensively traffic-calm residential neighborhoods

That’s it. It’s not rocket science. Of course, we need to do all the other stuff along with these major directives, but these are the big ones. It’s simple enough for us to remember, simple enough that we can drill it into our politicians’ heads that this is what we need and expect to happen. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel—Europeans have been living and learning about integrating cycling into society for thirty years—it’s up to us if we want to take advantage of their hard work and, often, sacrifice.

I’ve made a big deal about Pucher’s research in the past, and I’m absolutely thrilled that Momentum took the opportunity to ask Pucher to rework his paper into a magazine format to get it in front of more people. And I plan on sending a quick note to Professor Pucher to thank him for taking the time to get this done. It’s that important.

Now, it’s our turn. We need to put this information in front of policy-makers and advocates. We need to do whatever we have to do to make sure that this message comes through loud and clear. We need to first convince ourselves that an on-street bicycle network is not enough, and then we need to take that message to all the people who have the power to make things happen. We need to educate the public at large to the myriad benefits of bicycling, and then tell them how we can get there.

For my part, I plan on making sure this research gets in front of, as best I can, my city’s mayor, town councilors, bike/walk people, citizen representatives, local bike advocacy group, and anybody else I can think of that needs to know. I don’t know exactly how I’ll go about doing it yet, and I’m definitely going to ask for help, but I’m going to do the best I can. And I don’t mind that many of the people in this list know more about biking and bike advocacy than I’ll ever know—this is too important to be bashful. And I don’t plan on being pushy with the information; I just intend to make sure that everyone who is in a position to influence public policy on bicycle infrastructure is in the know about specific policies that have worked extraordinarily well overseas.

For many folks in the list, we should be able to achieve some type of face-to-face meeting, and that, I think, would be best so we can relay how important this information is. It will set the framework for all future decisions that will be made regarding infrastructure. I might generate a simple one-page diagram, or even try to go about creating that shortened digital presentation I mentioned at the bottom of this post. I think a good digital presentation would be especially powerful for public education on these topics. For instance, all over San Francisco for the past and upcoming few weeks, there will be neighborhood movie nights—just a big projector set out in a small park in the neighborhood, organized by locals. If we can put together a quality presentation (or even borrow one from StreetFilms, maybe even start with one about Sunday Streets), we might be able to convince organizers to allow us to show a short clip. And if not, we can try to organize events ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a few back issues of The Lance Issue of Momentum Magazine. When I was still in Austin, I made a commitment to send a copy of that issue to each of our town councilors and the mayor, and I’m about to make good on that commitment. I want all of our elected officials to know we’re serious about achieving our objectives. I want them constantly bombarded with our messages, from all angles. I want to make it socially and politically unacceptable for them to take any action which provides anything less than the the best facilities for bicycles and pedestrians. I want to be able to ride to work in safety. I want my kids to be able to play in the neighborhood streets in safety. I don’t want my kids to be showing signs of heart disease when they’re five years old, or needing a liver transplant by the time they’re fifteen, all because they had no safe place to play or ride a bike. I want livable streets, and I want them now. It’s largely up to us; if we educate people and pressure our politicians, we’ll get our livable streets.

I’m sure of it.