[Published in The Bold Italic]
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If you build it, they will come: this is the lesson.
If you build it, and it is a network of 12 million miles of paved roads — enough roads to circle the planet 500 times — the cars will come. They’ve come into our cities, our homes, our way of life. Meanwhile, though bikes on this planet outnumber cars, the bike lanes we’ve built amount to only one fifth of one percent of the roads. What gives? How can we build a more bike-friendly environment, a more bike-friendly city?
If you build it, and it is a bicycle network in San Francisco, Rob Anderson will see to it that a lawsuit will come. The former District 5 candidate for Supervisor will assure you that the issue is “procedural,” but you’ll know a bike-hater when you see one. Even if your bike plan is passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors, signed by the Mayor, and touted by bicycling-advocacy groups (as San Francisco’s plan was) — no matter. A judge will grant Anderson an injunction, and your bicycle network to-be will get hung up in courts and legal battles for at least three years, maybe more. Yet, still: the bicyclists will come, in ever greater numbers, and they will wait.
If you build it, or, rather, plan to build it some day, the bicyclists will meanwhile turn to Portland, Oregon — the only American city that earns a platinum rating from The League of American Bicyclists — and it is there that their dreams will come. Portland is home to the country’s greatest collection of practical bicyclists (there are now more bike commuters in Oregon than farmers), a hearty, happy bunch of such critical mass that they no longer have any need for Critical Mass. Portland is home to a bike temple, the editor of one esteemed bike journal, and more cargo bikes, fendered bikes, and panniered bikes than I’ve ever seen before. Riding around Portland — up Ankeny, down Harrison — a San Franciscan bicyclist can relax, revel, and soak up the urban bike glory. He can also learn a lot. Here is what I recently discovered on the Willamette: Portland is turning to Copenhagen (where 36% of residents commute by bike and only 27% commute by car), and the concern isn’t merely bike-friendliness, but a “cyclocentric approach to urban design.” I liked the sound of that. These, then, are the lessons from up the coast and across an ocean, so that someday, hopefully soon, San Francisco can build it, and become the best bicycling city in America.
If you build it, first envision a tropical island with a reef around it. That’s what a city should be, according to Mikael Colville-Andersen, Denmark’s unofficial bike-culture ambassador and the author of Copenhagenize.com. The reef protects the island from most — but not all — of the waves, leaving a safe, calm, tropical paradise for people: bikers and pedestrians.
If you build it, make it ubiquitous. A proper network is planned and cohesive, not just a collection of opportunistic segments. Right now, 28% of all Portlanders live within five blocks of a bike route; under Portland’s new 2030 plan, that number will leap to 80%. Good news: San Francisco is three times as dense as Portland, so numbers like that should be reachable here. Better yet: Mayor Gavin Newsom and the SF Bicycle Coalition agree on one primary goal: a single large citywide bike network of bike lanes, bike paths, or traffic-calmed streets interconnecting every neighborhood in San Francisco.
If you build it, be practical. There are currently 208 miles of bike lanes and bike routes in San Francisco, and they are not evenly distributed. In some neighborhoods, where traffic is calm, there’s no need for separate bike lanes. In other neighborhoods, where traffic is heinous, bike routes are more needed than ever. As Portland’s Mayor Sam Adams says, he’s all for “different applications in different parts of town.”
If you build it, be sure to secure local or state funding — anything besides federal funding — because federal transportation funding stipulates compliance with clunky American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) standards. In Portland, all the planning rage is with international practices; planners there seem overjoyed to let other cities wallow in the bureaucratic swamps of yesteryear.
If you build it, install bike parking everywhere – even (or especially) in places typically allocated to cars. In the last year, engineers in Portland have converted a few dozen car-parking spaces to bike parking spaces. I asked Mayor Adams if this conversion was especially challenging. He smiled. “Would you believe we have a backlog?” he said. “What is it, a hundred something businesses want racks in front of their stores. Think of it this way: two parking spaces used to serve one or two customers. With the bike racks, that’s 10 or 20 customers — AND you can see the storefront.” More good news: SF’s bike plan will add thousands of bike racks — on sidewalks and streets.
If you build it, make it mainstream. In Copenhagen, riding a bike is neither ultra-hip nor ultra-lame; it’s about as normal and practical as using a vacuum cleaner. In all of America besides Portland, riding a bike is still a cultural statement. As such, all sorts of biking sub-cultures have emerged, and it’s tempting to feel like you’ve gotta be part of one to be get on a bike in public. Identifying with others who ride fixies, or wear lycra, or like to sniff bike seats, or whatever, is great, but let’s all get over our soft squishy egos a bit and welcome newbies to the best way of exploring the city.
If you build it, consider first the position of a greasy cheeseburger on the USDA’s inverted food pyramid. It may be tasty, but it’s at the bottom, all by itself, unhealthy and undesirable, far from the fruits and grains and other good stuff. Planners in Portland, using the “green transportation hierarchy,” treat single-occupancy vehicles as greasy cheeseburgers. To them, the good healthy stuff at the top is human-powered transit (pedestrians and bicyclists); almost as nutritious are public transportation and buses.
If you build it, make it visible. Paint it green, or blue; demarcate it with white lines and reflectors; label it; and put up signs.
If you build it, don’t be reluctant to identify what Mikael Colville-Andersen calls the bull in the room. The car is the bull, the city is the room, and we’ve gotten complacent about who we want running around in there. The car owner, after all, has 500 million miles of roads to play on. Remind him of that. Some ideas: lower the speed limit downtown, as Copenhagen has done. Maybe increase the price of parking, or the cost of gas, or the taxes on car ownership. At the same time, reassure drivers that more bikers means less traffic, calmer traffic, and lower insurance rates, among other benefits. It’s a delicate issue, requiring, as Andy Thornley, at the SF Bicycle Coalition puts it, “some dainty footwork.”
If you build it, be patient. The first bike lane in Copenhagen was built a hundred years ago. San Francisco and even Portland are generations behind. Remember that change is often sluggish because it takes us time to adjust. We need time to learn, to become accustomed to a new environment. As such, go easy on enforcement at first. Give bikers and drivers a chance to become familiar with new painted lines and traffic signals.
If you build it, and there’s a body of water dividing it in two or three, necessitating bridges across that body of water, make those bridges bike-able. Six out of nine bridges in downtown Portland are bike-friendly. Only one of two bridges leading out of San Francisco is bike-able. Ehem, ehem.
If you build it, do everything you can to destroy the myth that bike infrastructure is bad for business. Back in 1996, Mia Birk was Portland’s bike program manager; today, she’s the Co-Chair of Portland’s Master Plan Steering Committee. Jonathan Maus, the editor of BikePortland.org, recently asked her if any of the business community’s fears have come to fruition. “None of the fears from the 1996 plan were realized,” she said. “Every single place we’ve put in bike lanes, the businesses have not been hurt. In fact, they’ve helped with a lot of other problems and have helped create safer streets.” San Francisco: take note.
If you build it, give out maps of it for free. Portland does, and they’re great — they fold up to the size of a credit card.
If you build it, keep in mind your target demographic. About this subject, I chatted with Todd Borkowitz, a planner at Portland’s Bureau of Transportation. Over coffee, he opened up Portland’s new 2030 bike plan, and pointed to a diagram. It divided Portlanders into four groups: 1) strong and fearless, 2) enthused and confident, 3) interested but concerned, and 4) uninterested/unable to bike. Todd rested his finger on the “interested but concerned” group, which made up 60% of the total. Portland’s bike plan targets those people, he said. That’s what makes it an “equitable network.” San Francisco’s bike plan is similar, but worded differently: it’s meant to create an environment suitable for any biker from age 8 to 80.
If you build it, and the climate where you build it is not that of San Diego, don’t let that get you down. If Copenhageners can do it, and Portlanders can do it, and Minneapoliseurs can do it, surely San Franciscans can do it. Gather your wool garments, ditch your excuses, and go forth!
If you build it, advertise it. But don’t preach about the virtues of cycling. In Copenhagen, more than half of bicyclists say they ride because it’s easy and fast; less than 10% say they ride because it’s cheap or good for the environment. Let everybody figure out their own motivations, and instead, focus on education and awareness.
If you build it, show it off. Most of your bike network won’t be glamorous, but hopefully a few key projects will be eye-catching. The Sunday Streets events, on the Embarcadero, come to mind, as do car-free days in Golden Gate Park. So does an idea to make Market Street more bike friendly — a project Mayor Newsom has already signed on to. Even Portland’s mayor thinks it’s a good idea. “Gavin’s gonna kill me for this,” he told me, “but I get the sense that bike lanes on Market street would slow down traffic, and make some, uh, challenging retail locations more attractive.” We’re titillated.
If you build it, use some imagination. Imagine what it’s like to ride a bike next to high-speed traffic, and imagine what it’s like to drive next to slow, swerving bikes. Do everything you can to avoid putting bikers and drivers in tough situations. It may demand separated bike lanes, or bike boxes at traffic lights, or special traffic signals that give bikers a head start (the same way pedestrians get a head start at crosswalks.) As Mayor Adams told me, by removing perceived conflicts between bikers and cars you’ll remove a lot of real conflicts, too.
If you build it, and your model is a certain progressive city in northern europe that begins with C and ends in -openhagen, don’t focus too much on the comparison. It’s not a competition, and besides, this is America we’re talking about. Our fondness for cars is genetic.
If you build it, incorporate the green wave. Timing the traffic lights so that it’s possible to ride for blocks at a time makes everybody — bikes AND cars — happier. Example A: Valencia Street.
If you build it, enforce the laws and regulations that govern it. Don’t let cars or trucks or cabs park in bike lanes, and don’t let bikers run stop signs or red lights. Nobody wins if bikers get hurt, or ignored, or special treatment.
If you build it, remember one of Mikael Colville-Andersen’s favorite aphorisms: “Cycling is a multi-vitamin Viagra pill for urban environmentalism.” Building San Francisco’s bicycle network will increase health, happiness, vigor, and most everything else we hope to see in a vibrant city.
If you build it, get the mayor on board. San Francisco has done this, and so has Portland, but Portland has a leg up, so to speak. When I bumped into Mayor Adams at a bike event, I noticed that he had placed a sticker on is left shirt pocket that said GET ON YOUR BIKE. We talked for a bit, and then I thanked him for his time, and effort. “Welcome to Portland,” he said. “Spend a lot of money while you’re here.” I shook his hand, then followed his instructions.