[M II A II R II K]

Bicycle Highways


June 30, 2010

By Tom Vanderbilt

Read More: http://www.slate.com/id/2258675/pagenum/all/#p2

While there have been any number of bicycle-related entries in Nimble Cities, several readers have proposed an idea that can essentially be described as "bicycle highways." "I live in Chicago and take the L to work," wrote one, "but I'd rather ride my bike. A large problem with bicycling in cities is fear, generated by the fragility of a 5-pound bicycle when faced with a 2,000-pound car. To combat this fear, cities must develop or designate roadways specifically for bikes." Another argued that bicycle rental programs, while a good way to seed networks, were lacking: "Most people don't ride bicycles to work not because they're difficult to store/lock up but because they are at a serious disadvantage safety-wise. No bike helmet will protect you if an SUV driver on a cell phone accidentally broadsides you!"

- There is hardly a major city in the world that is not trying to get more people on bikes—ridership is up in cities ranging from Paris to New York—and city planners the world over envision ever greater numbers of people on bicycles in their long-term projections. The reasons are fairly obvious: Bicycles lessen congestion while improving the health of the citizenry. Cycling moreover has begun to seem a kind of indicator of overall urban health. A recent and not atypical survey of the world's 25 most livable cities (by Monocle magazine) was stacked with Copenhagen, Munich, Stockholm, and other cities that have invested heavily in cycling; Portland, Ore., was one of two U.S. entrants.

- But the key, one could argue, is infrastructure. While the school of so-called "vehicular cycling" argues that cycles should be treated as cars and share the roads, this philosophy seems to be the result of (primarily American) cyclists adapting by necessity to their harsh surroundings rather than the sound basis of a widespread transportation shift. In the world's top cycling cities, one finds not muscular riders harried and buffeted by passing cars, but all manner of people—young, old, carrying groceries, carrying kids—riding on networks that have been designed for them. In the Netherlands, for example, where no new road is built without a provision for cycles, cyclists ride on paths with a minimum width of 2.5 meters (which must be 1.5 meters from the road), get their own green lights, and find parking (if not always enough) at train stations and even bus stops.

- In Denmark, for example, the city of Copenhagen is extending its bicycling network outward into the suburbs, creating what the blog Copenhagenize calls "bicycle superhighways," for commutes of 10 kilometers or more, with everything from "green wave" lights (cycle 20 kilometers to hit all green) to standardized signage to bicycle service stations along the way. In London, Mayor Boris Johnson's own network of a dozen cycling "superhighways" (like football's Premiere League, they are sponsored by Barclays) is taking root; it "will provide cyclists with safe, direct, continuous, well marked and easily navigable routes along recognised commuter corridors."