| Bike-Friendliness for Sustainability and Economic Development |
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| Written by Clare Wasteneys | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 25 November 2009 11:12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It's an exciting new phenomenon, a European, then North American and now Ontarian urban social movement, with new biking groups emerging at all political scales, new policies being enacted with visible manifestations in the form of bike lanes, bike lockers at train stations, special bicycle racks on buses, and more and more cyclists out on the road, in and out of Ontario cities. There is even a sassy, artistic and thought-provoking new magazine called dandyhorse – Toronto on Two Wheels, the most recent issue featuring articles such as redesigning streets, car-free suburbs, the healing power of bikes and how to take your dog with you on a bike. My motivation for learning about the benefits and issues associated with developing bike-friendly towns and cities stems partly from my selfish interest in having more and safer places to ride my 20-something year old Bianchi V, but also from my academic and professional interest in building communities that are healthy and sustainable and ultimately resilient to the looming challenges of peak oil and climate change (I’ll be writing about resilient towns in my next blog). The vision that often guides me in my academic travels is that of the eco-city, eloquently described and illustrated by Richard Register in his 2006 book Ecocities – Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature. The eco-city vision is based on such principles as respecting the bioregion, restoring degraded land, promoting social equity and providing health and security. It also features a reversal of the transportation hierarchy, putting pedestrians first, then bicycles, then rail, transit and lastly cars and trucks – places that are “walkable” and “bike-friendly”. New economic opportunities are created in the enhanced production of alternative transport technologies and infrastructure, including construction of bikeways and parking facilities, and designing/building bicycles for transporting goods. This fall, I had the immensely enjoyable privilege of cycling through a relatively bike-friendly part of Southern California, where bike lanes were boldly marked and narrow 2-lane bridges had been built solely for bicyclists. I am not one to shy away from riding next to cars, but I felt refreshingly safe. It was quite a thrill to experience what I had only read or heard about, as I had in October when Andy Clarke of the League of American Bicyclists spoke at the 2009 inaugural Ontario Bike Summit about the increasing number of American communities who are bike-friendly, based on a rating scale of five “E”s: Engineering (bike network), Education (bike safety courses), Encouragement (bike promotion, events, resources), Enforcement /(equitable laws for cyclists/motorists), and Evaluation (bike master plans and committees). By the way, you can rate the bike-friendliness of your own community by using the scorecard available at www.bikeleague.org.
Are there any bike-friendly cities or towns in Eastern Ontario? Certainly moving toward bike-friendliness is the City of Ottawa, with its extensive bike paths, parkways closed to cars on weekends, public awareness programs and a plan to double the number of bike paths. I haven’t ridden yet through any smaller cities or towns in the region that currently have a truly bike-friendly infrastructure, but there are positive hints of change, including the City of Kingston’s recent passing of an active living / active transportation charter, plan to add bike lanes and cycling education and outreach provided by Cycle Kingston (www.cyclekingston.ca). For rural areas, Haliburton County is a great example of a coordinated, visionary effort to create a safe and enjoyable cycling environment, led by the Haliburton Highlands Cycling Coalition (see www.cyclehaliburton.ca). Andy and Dave were just two of several prominent figures in the field of active or sustainable transport who shared their perspectives and advice at the Ontario Bike Summit, which was organized by the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, led by passionate and persuasive cycling advocate Eleanor McMahon (read her blog at www.sharetheroad.ca) and attended by cycling activists, policy makers, educators, law enforcers, planners and municipal and provincial government officials, including the Minister of Transportation. The Bike Summit included sessions on the growth and economic impacts of bike tourism (e.g. Ontario’s “Bike Train”: www.biketrain.ca), cycling master planning initiatives in Ontario municipalities (Oakville and Burlington, York and Waterloo Regions), linking cycling to transit systems, and bike infrastructure innovations like Grey County’s new paved shoulder policy and technology. Among the more interesting sessions for me was one on the economic benefits of bike-friendliness, by Todd Litman, a prolific researcher/writer and Executive Director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org). Understanding the economic costs and benefits is critical if you are exploring how to make your own community safer and more supportive of cycling, and especially if you need to make the case to municipal leaders on why scarce budgets should be allocated to cycling infrastructure, education and public awareness programs rather than other competing priorities. There are certainly health and environmental benefits from decreasing automobile use and increasing cycling for transport, but there are also some interesting economic benefits, including the lower costs of developing biking infrastructure compared to public transit, reduced expenditures on fuel, automobile parking, road repairs and car maintenance, enhanced tourism opportunities and lower healthcare costs from a healthier population. From a creative economy perspective, it has also been shown that the highly innovative and economically productive “creative class” appreciates living in cities and towns with cycling paths and trails, so the investment in a bike-friendly infrastructure could be an integral component of a larger talent and investment attraction strategy. Ultimately, consumers who cycle more and drive less will have more money in their pockets to spend at local businesses, contributing to a healthier local economy. When people slow down as they ride a bicycle through your down town, they also may be more likely to stop at a shop or service that they wouldn’t notice while driving past at higher speed, and people are more likely to wave and talk to each other while on a bike, than behind the steel walls of a car…something to consider if you want to build a vibrant community.
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This is my first blog in too many months, which reflects the hundreds of kilometres since my last blog that I have cycled, the burgeoning stack of books and journal articles I have been reading on urban cycling and sustainable transport and the myriad of community meetings and conversations I’ve had along the way about a topic and activity I find both intellectually stimulating and aesthetically pleasing: urban cycling. 
At the Bike Summit, Dave Cieslewicz, Mayor of bike-friendly Madison, Wisconsin presented 10 steps to bike-friendliness
