At the bicycle advocacy committee meeting this week I volunteered to design and write a booklet to encourage Springfieldians to give bicycle commuting a try. I include “basic transportation” in the concept of “commuting.” General nods of agreement followed my suggestion.
Now what?
There are many technical questions that have to be answered, all of which are easily handled. A knottier question is how to pay for it. We’ll need funding.
Right now I’m in the research phase. What materials are available now? Coy Hart, our local representative with the Missouri Bicycle Federation, gave me three examples of exactly the kind of booklet I’m thinking about — exactly in terms of size and general concept. But not quite right, in my opinion, in terms of doing the work I want the booklet to do.
I mentioned the work I’m imagining in my recent post on Springfield as the next great cycling city:
Think local. For Springfield: Take a map of the city, and put the point of a compass on the downtown square. Draw a circle with a 2-mile radius. We should concentrate our efforts within that circle. We need more intelligent painting, i.e. sharrows. We need to correct the mistakes of the bicycle lane system. We need to create connections among the active transportation systems. We need more bicycle parking. And we need an education and public relations push to encourage everyone living in that circle to replace one car trip per week inside the circle with a cycling or walking trip.
And following from this, we should encourage people all over Springfield to draw a similar 1-or 2-mile circle around their own homes and look for ways to replace car trips in that circle with biking or walking trips.
What I don’t like about some U.S.-based bicycle commuting advice is that it is geared toward sport bikers who may be induced to commute long distances. Much American commuting advice makes cycling appear daunting, difficult, and dangerous for the person who just wants to go to the store, or to a friend’s house, or to work (if they live close).
For example: I’m looking at a booklet with a graphic showing the equipment and procedures one apparently needs to ride to work. It’s clear from the graphic that the authors are expecting people to ride great distances. Especially daunting is the clear idea from the graphic that you cannot wear normal clothes so you should then be prepared to engage in strenuous ablutions in public bathrooms to ready yourself for work.
Who in their right mind can look at a graphic of a person struggling to wash themselves in a public bathroom and say: “Yeah, man! That’s what I want to give up my car to do!”
Such advice exists in great abundance in the American context because American bicycle culture is dominated by sport biking (which is in turn dominated and informed by car culture). Yes. If you’re commuting long distance by bicycle in the U.S., you’ll need special equipment and procedures. I admire the cyclists who are willing to travel theses distances. Bicycle commuting will not grow in America, however, if we focus on the equipment and procedures used by the very few. Bicycle commuting will only grow if we focus our efforts on encouraging casual cyclists, and non-cyclists, to imagine themselves traveling modest distances for basic transportation.
To travel three miles or less by bicycle requires: 1. A bicycle, 2. Your kiester in the saddle, and 3. A way to carry stuff (e.g. a basket or backpack). That’s it. You don’t need special equipment or special clothes.
What we need in Springfield is a booklet that’s written for people who might be encouraged to get on a bicycle to travel modest distances at modest speeds to handle some of their daily business within a mile or two of their homes. Much of the information about commuting currently available makes this seem difficult and dangerous.
I want to correct that.
My vision for this project is that we get a booklet printed by spring 2009 for free distribution.
Comments 11
“To travel three miles or less by bicycle requires: 1. A bicycle, 2. Your kiester in the saddle, and 3. A way to carry stuff (e.g. a basket or backpack). That’s it. You don’t need special equipment or special clothes.”
Right on, Andy! I would even say for ‘To travel 8 miles or less’, as I just saw the latest figures on the daily average distance traveled by Dutch people on bikes, and you know they don’t need much to cycle
.
Besides that, reading your post I immediately thought of Bike Noob’s post earlier this month…perhaps you can use that image to make your point more vividly :-p
Posted 22 Nov 2008 at 11:07 am ¶Marc… The person in that picture looks like they are geared for 10 miles or more in very heavy traffic.
Posted 22 Nov 2008 at 2:24 pm ¶I think that demographic area is a good place to start. It’s just too bad for the people who live and work outside of there. Off the subject…a friend of mine who commutes was once asked if he got a DWI…because he was riding. If a booklet will help educate people about alternative methods of transportation then go for it.
Posted 22 Nov 2008 at 4:07 pm ¶Jamie… re: DWI. That’s funny
And, agreed, the booklet should educate people about alternative methods of transportation and how to integrate them.
I’ll post regularly on this topic as I work on the project. It would be great to get input from CT readers.
Posted 22 Nov 2008 at 4:19 pm ¶You are spot on about the 2 mile radius, at least from the few papers i’ve found that have researched the topic. There is actually an argument for drawing 2 circles. A 1 mile circle, the walkable range, and the 2 mile bikeable range. If you need the citations I can try to dig a couple up for you.
Also, there’s a just published study of US adolescents showing similar trends to using recreation facilities (parks and such). A couple key points is that adolescents who actively commuted tended to use the facility in a more active manner. And there was a correlation between the parent’s perception of safety and the likeliness for active commuting.
Developing 2 mile active commuting zones around city centers can be parralleled by doing the same on a smaller scale for parks, recreation facilites, and schools in more suburban locations.
Posted 22 Nov 2008 at 6:58 pm ¶Mike… Yes! I would love to have those citations if you can dig them up. Thanks for your comment, and please do keep an eye out for my continued coverage of this project. I want to use the crowd-sourcing power of Carbon Trace to make the booklet the best it can be.
Posted 23 Nov 2008 at 10:11 am ¶We put out a commuting tips brochure for Dayton, OH about ten years ago, and we are updating it. I’d like to keep up on your progress, and would be happy to send you our old one for your comments. How can I send it to you (PDF file)?
Posted 24 Nov 2008 at 8:05 am ¶Matt… send to this address: acline. Use the isocrates.us domain to complete the address.
Posted 24 Nov 2008 at 1:03 pm ¶Longest reply ever, I’ll email you these references as well but wanted to post them for other readers to refer to.
European study of adolescents walking up to 1.5 miles biking up to 2.5miles (rates of active commuting correlated directly with distance. Interesting point walkability/bikability was not a strong influence per a self report survey but convenience (access to a car ride) ranked high.
Nelson et. al. “Active commuting to school: How far is too far?” Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Act. 2008 Jan 8;5:1.
US college student commuters identified as either cyclist or motorist where compared for the distance they lived from campus, cyclists 0 miles to 1.2 miles vs .9 to 3.1 miles, cyclists also had total greater activity levels.
Comparison of cyclists’ and motorists’ utilitarian physical activity at an urban university.
Sisson SB, Tudor-Locke C.
Prev Med. 2008 Jan;46(1):77-9. Epub 2007 Jul 14.
Australian study walking surface and having stores/shops within a walkable distance correlated with rates of active commute. While big parking lots were associated with more driving.
Pikora TI, Giles-Corti B, Knutman MW, et al. Neighborhood environmental factors correlated with walking near home: using SPACES. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2006; 38: 708-14
Parental perception of walkability correlated with active commute (walking/biking) and their perception correlated with objective measures of walkability.
Kerr J, Med Sci Sports Exerc. Active commuting to school: Associations with environment and parental concerns. 2006 Apr;38(4):787-94.
Active commuting (walk/bike) to parks/recreation facilities was correlated with sites being within a 10 min walk for 11-18 year olds and active commuters, (parent and adolescent) perception of infrastructure correlated with active commuting.
GROW, HELENE MOLLIE 1 Where Are Youth Active? Roles of Proximity, Active Transport, and Built Environment. Med Sci Sports Exerc Volume 40(12)
December 2008 ; pg. 2071-2079
Decent review with good list of references.
Shephard RJ. Is active commuting the answer to population health? Sports Med. 2008;38(9):751-8.
mark.fenton@verizon.net
Fenton M. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2005 Nov-Dec;37 Suppl 2:S115-20. Sort of manifestoish but a good list of online resources.
Active Living by Design (program of the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation), http://www.activeiivingbydesign.org
America On the Move, http://www.americaonthemove.org
America Waiks, http://www.americawaiks.org
Bicycie Lane Design Guideiines, available at http://www.bicyclinginfo.org
Caiifornia’s Locai Government Commission (land use and zoning
information), http://www.lgc.org
League of American Bicyclists, http://www.bikeleague.org
National Center for Walking and Bicycling, http://www.bikewalk.org
Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, http://www.pedbikeinfo.org
Pedestrian Facilities Users Guide, avaiiabie at http://www.walkinginfo.org
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, http://www.raiitrails.org
Walk a Child to School Day, http://www.walktoschool.org
Walkabie Communities, Inc., http://www.walkabie.org
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
Posted 26 Nov 2008 at 11:06 pm ¶Thanks, Mike! This is interesting and helpful information.
Posted 27 Nov 2008 at 8:15 am ¶Have you guys seen the NEW GOOGLE MAPS feature where you can choose WALKING Directions and public transit along with the previous driving instructions.
It is very useful for plotting the best way to bike somewhere. There is a huge difference between driving from point A to B and biking from point A to B. Now Google has solved that problem. It is interesting how much you can save in distance – sometimes a couple of miles can be saved.
Maybe Google can add a feature to Google Maps to help plot out the 1 or 2 miles circles – or even better in my opinion, plot out Bike Time circles – the circle or plot that represents 10 minutes from home by bike, or walking…
Posted 01 Jan 2009 at 9:39 am ¶