Bike share of work trips, 2000/2001

Yesterday’s Detroit Free Press had a decent article on those still commuting by bike during the winter.

Bike enthusiasts, law enforcement and transportation officials say people like Bierman are among a growing number of commuters in metro Detroit who are responding to the sluggish economy and rising gas costs by riding bikes to work during the winter — despite a total snowfall that measures more than 21 inches above average so far.

We’ve heard from naysayers that Detroit won’t be popular for biking because of our winters.

Not true.

A higher percentage of people bike to work in Canada than the U.S. — three times higher according to one report. In fact a much higher percentage of people bike to work in the Yukon Territory than either California or Florida.

This same report offers some explanations as to why.

One explanation is safety, and that was a highlighted concern in the Free Press article. Since 1988 Canada has done a signficantly better job at making biking safer compared with the U.S.

In fact, compared with many European countries, the U.S. is much more dangerous.

Due to the lack of comparable time-series data on cycling levels in Canada and the United States, we can only attempt a standardized comparison for the latest available year. We also include selected European countries as a basis for comparison, since cycling is generally considered safer in Europe than in North America (Pucher and Dijkstra, 2003). That impression is certainly confirmed by Fig. 4, which shows rates of cycling fatalities per 100 million km cycled in each country. Fatality rates range from a low of 1.03 in Denmark to a high of 5.74 in the USA. With fatality rates well under 2.0, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden have the safest cycling. Canada has 2.39 cycling fatalities per 100 million km cycled, just about the same rate as France (2.04) and Germany (2.43). The United States has, by far, the most dangerous cycling, with a fatality rate of 5.74 almost six times as high as in Denmark, almost three times as high as in Canada, and about twice the rates in Italy and the UK.

Besides safety, the report notes one other statistically significant explanation for biking levels: the price of gas.

Coincidenly there were two videos posted yesterday about getting bike lanes in our area.

The first video is from the good folks at Scaledown. As we recently noted there’s a big battle brewing in Windsor over extending bike lanes along Riverside Drive. Their video reveals the likely source of resistance to the bike lanes: the landowners have apparently encroached on the Riverside Drive right-of-way.

This second video is from Mike Wendland whose enjoying the bike lanes while vacationing in Florida. Mike asks why we can’t have these in Michigan?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3b2cTcHGP8&eurl=http://clydesdalefitness.com/2009/02/why-cant-michigan-have-bicycle-lanes/comment-page-1/&feature=player_embedded

The photo on the right was taken yesterday while exploring a great bakery in Windsor’s historic Sandwich area.

The lead Windsor Star article is on-line. The synopsis?

Riverside Drive residents angry over losing small city-owned chunks of land fronting their properties to make way for bike lanes have launched a court challenge against the city’s plan.

This Windsor city plan for bike lanes and other traffic calming has already been approved. This same group of residents contested the environmental assessment but it’s been upheld by the Province, so now they’re suing.

Councillor Alan Halberstadt didn’t pull punches when he told the Windsor Star:

“It’s another delaying tactic,” Halberstadt said. “It’s a case of a few rich people holding up a better way of life for the city. It’s unfortunate our court system allows that to happen.

“The major concern is we are taking a part of property they have been using for years. That’s their hidden agenda.”

Besides Halberstadt, Windsor has some very good cycling advocates that are on top of this issue, including Bike Windsor and Embrace the Bike. We’ve got great confidence in them persevering on this matter and making Riverside a great place to bike from end to end.

Al Fields (DTE) and Greg Johnson (MDOT)

Many years ago we often heard cyclists level complaints against MDOT for the lack of safe road accomodations in Metro Detroit. At the time, they were right, that is until Greg Johnson became head of the MDOT Metro Region.

Greg went on to create an MDOT Metro Region Non-Motorized Committee. It was at an early meeting that he mentioned the need for our road networks to let cyclists get where they need to go anywhere within the Metro Region (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and St. Clair counties.)

Perhaps the biggest change Greg made was having MDOT take back responsibility for the I-275 bike path. After languishing without maintenance for 30 years, the bike path is getting repaired section by section. Money was spent to develop a plan on how to repair it, re-open the connection to Monroe County, and properly maintain it. Money is allocated to extend it north to Pontiac Trail.

Another huge change that is a little less evident is the MDOT Metro region’s trail bridge policy. When trails needed to build bridges over MDOT roads, there was always the question of who would maintain the bridge. Local governments often lacked the resources to even handle the inspections. Greg set the region policy where MDOT took responsibility for these bridges. This certainly helped trail bridge projects like the new Macomb Orchard Trail’s over M-53 and planned bridges like the Clinton River Trail’s over Telegraph.

And we can’t forget MDOT’s committment to bike lanes on future road projects involving Michigan Avenue and Fort Street in Detroit. Greg played a big role in making those happen.

And one final positive change. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy received a $29 million earmark from Senator Carl Levin. Since earmarks require recipients to jump to additional (and often unfamiliar) hoops, Greg committed MDOT to designing and managing the construction of new Riverwalk segments.

So even though Greg is leaving the top position at MDOT’s Metro Region, he’s not leaving MDOT. He’s moving up. Greg has accepted the position of MDOT Chief Operations Officer. And while he expects to maintain his interest in many of the projects listed above, he also hopes to spread the Metro Region’s non-motorized transportation message at the higher levels in Lansing.

Best of luck to you Greg!

Newspaper articles on safe cycling often make experienced cyclists  cringe.

That’s not the case with today’s Free Press article:

As the youngest of Gordie Howe’s sons, I was raised by someone who grew up during the Depression in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where temperatures hover at minus-20 all winter. My dad ate oatmeal three times a day, walked or skated five miles to school, and lived in a two-bedroom house with 11 siblings and no indoor plumbing. Popular toys were rocks and sticks.

So when I decided to begin commuting to work on my bike, my dad wasn’t impressed. He merely said, “Watch out for cars.” Good advice.

In the article Howe notes that the U.S. News and World Report “ranked biking to work the No. 1 way to improve your life in 2009.”  He also mentions donating to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen bike shop, which we noted earlier.