Real Cities Have....

 Earlier this week, New York City Mayoral candidates Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa debated.  The latter, best known as the founder of the Guardian Angels, expressed one position I wholeheartedly agree with:  his stance on animal welfare.  He said that, if elected, all of the city's animal shelters would become "no kill" shelters.  He deemed it "barbaric" that there are still horse-drawn carriages on city streets.

The only purpose those animals and carts serve is the amusement of tourists around Central Park. Thus, his wish to ban them is, I believe, well-founded.  The same cannot be said for his stance on bike lanes and traffic.  He believes there's a "war on cars" on this city, and has vowed to remove bike lanes in neighborhoods where they're less-used.

I think, like any good politician--which is what Sliwa has always been--Sliwa is echoing his supporters, many of whom believe that "their" streets and parking spaces are being stolen, "invasion of the body snatchers-style" by terrible, evil cyclists.  

Apparently, that sentiment echoes in other cities:

  You can't even go to South Water Street in Providence anymore, at least not without wearing a bulletproof vest and duct taping AirPods to your ears.  Nothing screams "thug" like a skinny person in bicycle shorts.

Dan McGowan obviously doesn't think that way.  He followed that paragraph in his Boston Globe editorial with this:  Said absolutely no one ever.  He used his platform to praise outgoing Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza for building bike lanes and in general planning with the recognition that the future of his city, and others, cannot be car-centric.  Those efforts, and similar work by other officials, led McGowan to this conclusion:  Real Cities Have Bike Lanes.

Bike lane on South Water Street in Providence.  Photo by Barry Chin, for the Boston Globe.

He is partially right.  Bike lanes can be an integral part of a city's infrastructure and thus encourage cycling if those lanes are well-conceived, -designed and -constructed.  They need to make cycling safer by taking into account the actual experience of cycling on urban streets or county roads. (As an example, the lane has to be built and traffic signals coordinated so that cyclists can proceed through an intersection, or make a left turn, ahead of right-turning motorists.)  And those lanes should be practical:  They should enable cyclists to pedal from their homes to schools, workplaces, shopping areas and other common destinations.  I've seen too many bike lanes that begin in seemingly arbitrarily locations and end abruptly.  

So, I would amend Dan McGowan's conclusion with one word:  Real cities have practical bike lanes.

All Aboard The Bike Train--To School

Some people can be enticed into bicycle commuting if it's practical, safe and convenient.  Bike lanes that connect--or at least facilitate connections--between cyclists and everyday destinations like schools and workplaces are one "carrot," if you will.  Another is safe bicycle parking facilities, not only at said schools and workplaces, but also at transportation hubs.  After all, if someone's job is a 45 minute train or bus ride away, he or she isn't likely to pedal all the way.  But that commuter could be persuaded into riding instead of driving to the train or bus station. 

Now, here's something that is rarely, if ever, addressed in planning bicycle (or other transportation) policy and infrastructure:  getting more kids to ride in school.  In some rural areas, where the bus ride might be even longer than it is for a suburban resident's commute to the city office, that might not be practical.  But it could make sense in urban and suburban areas, or even in some small towns, where the trip to school might be a ten-minute bus ride--or a half-hour walk.

The biggest hurdle to getting kids to ride to work, though, might not be convincing the kids themselves.  Rather, it's allaying parents' not-unjustifiable fears for their kids' safety.  But a solution is one that's been in use for some time, though not for bicycling.

On any school day, you might find yourself stopping at an intersection--or somewhere along the path in your local park--by a "train."  I'm not talking about the ones that run on steel rails.  Rather, I am talking about a line of kids who might be latching onto a rope or other line, and supervised by their teacher or aide.  Well, some folks in East Lansing, Michigan are guiding kids to school in the same way:  The kids ride in a line, accompanied by a chaperone who picks each one up along the way.

Photo by Margaret Cahill, from Fox47 News

This "bike train" was organized by Jeff Potter, an aide and substitute teacher at Red Cedar Elementary School who also just happens to be a cyclist.  While he admits that keeping the kids together is "like herding cats," he thinks the "train" is a "community builder."  The kids have a chance to interact with each other on the way to school.  This, he believes, has "improved school behavior and their awareness of the neighborhood." 

Principal Rinard Pugh agrees and adds there is another benefit.  "There's fewer kids in cars," he explains.  That "helps to improve health and fitness" which, he explains, "is really important with our kids coming off COVID."  In addition to getting kids to exercise and interact, it also gets them outside which, Pugh explains, is especially important during the pandemic.

So, bicycle trains not only help to accomplish, for kids, one goal of good bicycle policy:  making bicycling safe and convenient.  In addition, it helps in dealing with the pandemic.  Perhaps more people and communities will get "aboard" with this idea.

Will Seattle Repeal Its Helmet Law?

In March, I wrote about how debates over Seattle's bike-helmet law came to include arguments about racial and economic justice.  As with so many laws, it has been unequally enforced:  African-Americans and Native Americans (the latter of whom the Emerald City has one of the largest communities) are more likely to be cited, fined and even arrested for cycling bareheaded.  If Black and Native cyclists ride bareheaded, it's not because they value their brains less or feel more impervious than, say, White or Asian cyclists.  Rather, helmets--which, I believe, should be bought unused--sometimes cost more than the bicycles people ride, which may have been bought cheaply, donated or gifted to their riders, or rescued from a dumpster.

Now another facet of that racial/economic justice has surfaced as the King County Board of Health considers a vote to repeal the law, which has been on the books since 2003.  Most bike lanes in US cities didn't exist when law was passed.  Neither did three kinds of vehicles that, today, often outnumber traditional bicycles on those lanes:  electric bikes, motorized bikes and scooters.  While scooters, especially those with electric or motorized assists, are ridden (at least here in NYC) mainly by the young and relatively affluent, riders of e-bikes and motorized bikes are older or, most often, delivery workers who are (again, at least here in NYC) most likely to be poor immigrants who may speak little, if any, English and thus have few other options for earning income.

Ever since I started wearing a helmet, I've encouraged others to do likewise.  My endorsement of them has grown more emphatic over the past year because the surgeon who examined me said, in essence, that I came out of a crash I suffered last year because I was wearing one.  And, while I was once sympathetic to the libertarian arguments against helmet laws, I feel that there should be incentives for wearing them.

Most important, though, I think that if any jurisdiction wants to mandate helmets, it has to enforce the policy consistently and fairly.  That has been the main argument for repealing King County's law:  It has never been enforced equitably, let alone fairly, and doing so has become even more difficult.  So, the argument goes, why should a law exist if it can't or won't be enforced.

Photo by Sylvia Jarrus, for the Seattle Times

That logic makes sense for some laws, such as the ones against using, possessing or selling marijuana.  As with the 1920s prohibition against alcohol or the cabaret laws that ostensibly led to the 1969 Stonewall Inn raid, it was used mainly as a weapon against certain groups of people.  I agree that a law shouldn't be enforced disproportionately against some people, but I also think that not all laws are equally valuable, or even necessary.  To wit:  I think there's no reason to prohibit marijuana, alcohol or some other substances.  The only laws regarding them, I believe, should impose an age limit on who can purchase or use them and the contents of those substances.  And there's no reason to limit what goes on in a bar or cafe as long as it doesn't harm employees, patrons or the general public.  On the other hand, the burden of obeying a law shouldn't fall on some people more than others.  People who pedal traditional bicycles are far more likely than those who ride motorized or electric bikes, or scooters.  (I almost never see a scooter-rider with a helmet.)  

So, if the folks in King County want to repeal their helmet law, I hope they do so for the right, or at least good, reasons.  An unwillingness to enforce it--equitably, or at all--is not one of them.