Making biking safe for everyone
Here are some articles I came across recently. I appreciate that talking about "women" is an easy way to frame the conversation, but really, it's about anyone who wants to ride slow/casually/non-aggressivelyĀ for any reason - asthma, old age, handicaps, or just because. (Not to mention, there are plenty of women who are perfectly comfortable going fast and riding in traffic.)
I think in the US we tend to lump all cyclists into the same group, and then assume that because the tiny bike lanes in the middle of the street are OK for some cyclists, they're OK for all of them. That's fine if you only want fast and confident cyclists to ride, but what if the goal is to get more people riding?Ā I realize Lincoln is not New York, but I have talked to many people who work or go to school in downtown Lincoln that have told me they would commute by bike, but are scared to ride in the street (especially during rush hour.) I do ride in the street, but continue to be veryĀ nervousĀ about it at certain intersections and times.Ā
How to Get more Bicyclists on the Road - Scientific American
"An emerging body of research suggests that a superior strategy to increase pedal pushing could be had by asking the perennial question: What do women want?"
"In the U.S., menās cycling trips surpass womenās by at least 2:1. This ratio stands in marked contrast to cycling in European countries, where urban biking is a way of life and draws about as many women as menāsometimes more. In the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips are made by bike, 55 percent of all riders are women. In Germany 12 percent of all trips are on bikes, 49 percent of which are made by women."
"First, studies across disciplines as disparate as criminology and child Ārearing have shown that women are more averse to risk than men. In the cycling arena, that risk aversion translates into increased demand for safe bike infrastructure as a prerequisite for riding."
"Although researchers have long examined the bike infrastructure in Europe, they have only just started to do so for the U.S. In a study conducted last year, Dill examined the effect of different types of bike facilities on cycling. The project, which used GPS positioning to record individual cycling trips in Portland, compared the shortest route with the path cyclists actually took to their destination. Women were less likely than men to try on-street bike lanes and more likely to go out of their way to use ābike boulevards,ā quiet residential streets with special traffic-calming features for bicycles. āWomen diverted from the shortest routes more often,ā Dill says."
On her bike: why women wonāt ride - crikey
"Last week my colleague told me that she was selling her bike. She likes the idea of cycling and has no actual hostility towards her bicycle itās just, as she says āour roads are too dangerous for femalesā."
"A while ago I conducted focus groups with women in Brisbane to find out why the bicycle was the āelephant in the roomā and what planners really needed to do to make riding acceptable. Unsurprisingly, I was not surprised with the answers I heard at coffee shops, at my yoga class and at work: women didnāt want to ride because of a lack of safe and dedicated cycle infrastructure, traffic fears, personal safety fears and topography. What Australian women wanted was complete separation from parked and moving cars."
"I visited 21 ācycling citiesā; the famous ones in Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany as well as the lesser known āiconsā, such as Bogota in Colombia, to discover first-hand what infrastructure had transformed a city into a ācycling cityā. What I found was that each city had its own unique network of bikeways, but there were common themes including: 4.0 ā 5.0 metres of āusableā cycling space, complete separation from motorised traffic, a consistent level of service as well as high quality streetscaping and signage. All of the cycle routes in all of the cities were designed with cycling in mind ā they were direct, quick and traffic free."
"'Normal' people ā women, children, seniors, families, tourists ā weren't riding bikes and so in an attempt to 'get more people cycling more of the time', we were building more skinny, unprotected, on-road cycle lanes and not surprisingly the vicious cycle of people not riding was continuing."
(Karin's note - I don't really like the defining of "normal people" as everyone but men up there. I would say instead, "People who are not uber fit and fast cyclists.")
"Research (Munro 2010) suggests that 46% of regular cyclists think Sydney roads are āunsafeā but 84% of non-regular bike riders in Sydney say they would start riding a bike if they could use separated cycleways."
Why More Women Donāt Ride Bikes (And What We Can Do About It) - Infrastructurist
"One stubborn fact has plagued the cycling ranks since, well, since biking first became de rigeur: Far more men ride than women. In fact, as many as three times more bike trips are made by men than women in the U.S., according to research by John Pucher, a professor of urban planning at Rutgers."
"[W]eād like to offer a dominant theory: Women donāt ride bikes because biking is still incredibly dangerous. The average urban cycler navigates a complex and hazardous maze of lanes, intersections, bridges, and more, and the number of serious injuries and fatalities as a result of accidents has been rising steadily. In a town like New York City, biking can quite literally be, as the Timesā City Room blog puts it, ālike going into battle.ā There are physiological facts involved as well ā women have lower testosterone levels than men, and are thus less prone to risk-taking, plus on average men have better distance vision (yes, I said āon averageā). Add to that the additional hurdles of inclement weather, crazy drivers, and the frequent need to transport other people (aka children) and youāve got quite the deck stacked against taking out that bike."
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