How "Bicycle Friendly" Is It, Really?

Toronto is often rated as one of the world's most livable cities, although many cyclists will challenge its 2015 designation as a "bicycle-friendly" community from Share The Road. 

One thing that makes the city inhospitable is the same thing that casts a shadow over cycling in other places:  theft. According to a recent report, only one percent of the bikes stolen in Toronto are ever recovered.

I would suspect that New York and other cities have similarly minuscule recovery rates.  I also imagine that, like the people mentioned in a story I encountered, cyclists who get their bikes back are more likely to have done so through their own efforts than with any help from the police.

In August, someone broke into the locker if Joshua Henderson's condo on the Bay Street Corridor and took his BMC racing bike.  He soon located it in a Kijiji listing:  He knew the bike was his and the person who listed it was the thief because the photos in the listing were taken in the locker.  

Joshua Henderson's bike on Kijiji

So, Henderson set up a meeting and asked the police to accompany him.  An officer told him to postpone the meeting, and he did.  But when he couldn't contact the investigator the following day, he decided to go on his own.  He filmed the encounter, including the part where the thief fled when Henderson announced that the bike is his and the police were on the way.  

In a way, this story has a not-unhappy ending:  Henderson gave police the video and details of the transaction, both of which they credit for helping them catch the thief, who was wanted in other breaking-and-entering cases. Even after all of that, Henderson says he still feels "anxious" riding his bike.

On the other hand, Corrine Dimnik and her husband are anxious about getting new bikes.  Their Cannondale racing bikes were taken from their condo's underground parking garage in May.  Like Henderson, they saw their bikes listed on Kijiji.

Corrine Dimnik's bike on Kijiji

Dimnik says she contacted the seller and scheduled a meeting in front of two uniformed police officers who were taking her statement.  But the officers told her she'd have to reschedule the meeting until plainclothes officers were available.  

About the same time the Dimniks lost their bikes, another was taken from a neighboring townhouse. The neighbor's bike was posted on Kijiji by the same seller but the neighbor was dealing with a different division and got her bike back.  Dimnik told the officer who took her statement about her neighbor's experience but he didn't know anything about it.  

By that time, Dimnik says, the seller wouldn't answer calls about her and her husband's bikes.  They haven't replaced their bikes and, she says, they're not sure that they will. 

I've known a few people who were similarly disillusioned about losing their bikes--and the lack of help they received.  One didn't take up cycling again even after moving to a rural area where bike theft is almost non-existent.

I am sure that there are many, too many, more stories like theirs in the Big Apple, as well as in Hog Town and other major cities--even the ones deemed "livable" and "bike friendly".

Could The Insurance Capital Help Cycling Bloom In The Rosebud City?

Bicycling is good for business.

Cities large and small are discovering how this is true, and not just for bike shop owners.  Obviously, we are good for coffee shops, bakeries and such.  But we--cyclists--use most of the same products and services as everybody else.  Thus, we will patronize the same sorts of businesses.

But we are also good for business, especially in urban downtown areas and on Main Street-type shopping strips in smaller towns, in the same way that pedestrians are.  Stores in such environs--whether they sell books or craft supplies or serve babkas or craft beer--are more likely to find customers among those who walk or pedal in front of them than from drivers who pass by because they can't find a parking spot.

That, I believe, is a reason why more cities here in the US are trying to make themselves "bike friendly"--or, at least, are doing the things they believe, rightly or wrongly, will make them so.  Chambers of Commerce or Business Improvement Districts will install bike racks (good) and nudge their cities into painting bicycle lanes on the streets (sometimes not so good).  They perceive that making their shopping areas more attractive and convenient for cyclists will do more to help business than squeezing more cars into already-crowded streets could.

Apparently, some folks in Hartford, Connecticut had the same idea.

Now, when most people think of Hartford, the insurance industry comes to mind.  It still is known as "The Insurance Capital of the World", with good reason.  Those with a sense of history might recall Connecticut's state capital was also a major industrial center.  In 1850, a native named Samuel Colt invented a precision manufacturing process that enabled the mass production of revolvers--which, of course, bore his name--with interchangeable parts.  His method would be adopted by a couple of guys named Richard Gatling and John Browning who made their own firearms, and the Weed Sewing Machine company, which dominated the market at the time.

Weed would also produce the first bicycles manufactured in the United States.  Albert Pope, another Hartford native, saw British high-wheeled velocipedes at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and bought the patent rights to produce them in the US.  Since he had no manufacturing facility, he contracted Weed, who would produce everything but the tires.  Soon, production of bicycles--Columbias-- overshadowed that of sewing machines, and Hartford became one of the leading centers of bicycle-making in the US.

Lest you think that the city's energies have been devoted entirely to commerce and industry, some very creative individuals in the arts have called Hartford home.  In fact, a couple of books you may have read--A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn were written in a house that is today a museum dedicated to their author. (I was there once, years ago, and thought it was interesting.)  And one of America's most innovative poets, Wallace Stevens, was an executive with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company!

Anyway, it seems that creative thinking lives on in Hartford. For years, the city's Business Improvement District has run a "safety ambassador" program.  The "ambassadors" patrol downtown streets, acting as security escorts, providing free help to stranded motorists and acting as additional sets of eyes and ears for the police.  In May, the BID added bicycle maintenance and repair to the work done by the "ambassadors" in order to encourage bicycle commuting and assuaging some of the fears associated with it, according Jordan Polon, the BID's executive director.

Eddie Zayas, a Hartford "safety ambassador",

Ambassadors give their phone numbers to people who ask for them.  Maureen Hart was one of those people. Just a few days after getting that number, she was riding home from a concert when she got a flat.  She called that number and became one of 42 cyclists who have received roadside assistance since the program started. 

"It's such a cool service," she said.  "I know people who live in Portland and that's a really bicycle-friendly city.  They don't have anything like this.  This is amazing."

Well, you can't have bicycle-friendly cities without bicycles.  And Hartford was making them long before most people ever heard of Portland.  Now the capital of the Nutmeg State looks ready to teach The City of Roses how to make it even easier to ride in their city.

(Here's another fun fact about Hartford:  It's also home to the oldest continuously-published daily newspaper in the US.  The Hartford Courant has been in print since 1764, making it 87 years older than the New York Times--and 12 years older than the United States itself!)

More Commuting In Bike-Friendly Communities

Here's something that will surprise no-one:  Bicycle commuting is growing much faster in bicycle-friendly communities.  And it's growing more slowly, or not at all, in communities that aren't bicycle friendly.

So we learn from an American Community Survery, which was reported in the League of American Bicyclists  blog.

Across the United States, bicycle commuting increased 47 percent from 2000 until 2011.  During that time, it shot up by 80 percent in bike-friendly communities and but inched up by 32 percent in non-bike friendly communities.

Some good news is that even the increase in non-bike friendly communities has outpaced population growth.  Still, it pretty much goes without saying that the best way to get more people to commute by bicycle is to create conditions that are conducive and make people safe and comfortable in riding their bikes to work.