{"id":32117,"date":"2019-08-12T21:29:09","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T01:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/?p=32117"},"modified":"2019-08-12T21:29:15","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T01:29:15","slug":"oh-for-the-love-of-bicycles-a-walking-reflection-about-moving-on-two-wheels-through-urban-and-rural-areas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/2019\/08\/12\/oh-for-the-love-of-bicycles-a-walking-reflection-about-moving-on-two-wheels-through-urban-and-rural-areas\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh, For the Love of Bicycles! A Walking Reflection about Moving on Two Wheels through Urban and Rural Areas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
There\u2019s something intrinsically delightful about watching a 70-something-year-old grandmother riding free and easily in a wide, dedicated bike lane on her old-fashioned, big-wheeled bicycle, her woven basket spilling over with fresh baked bread.<\/blockquote><\/figure>Walking may be my main form of transportation these days, but I often daydream about wheels\u2026bicycle wheels\u2026and the way they move people through urban and rural spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of our 14,000-kilometer journey to date is speckled with memories of two-wheeled riders, and my longing to join them in their pedaling outings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have frequent flashbacks of the group of smiling Burmese school girls with crisply ironed white shirts and long green skirts cycling unperturbed in the narrow shoulder of a busy truck road. I wince when I remember the Bangladesh and Indian men laboriously squeezing their heavy-loaded bicycles and tuk-tuks through small gaps between the throngs of people, cars, buses and cows. I imagine future adventures when I talk with long-distance cyclists about the gear in their panniers and the ups and downs (both on the physical terrain and their emotional state of mind) of riding on the barren stretches of the old Silk Road in Central Asia. Along Turkey\u2019s Black Sea coast, I sigh with relief when we finally find sidewalks and bike lanes, and we can step off the asphalt into safer, more human-friendly zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Big cycle statue with animated-type of figure looking out to the Caspian Sea, Iran (Maybe this could be the feature photo?): Where will the next bicycle lane take us? Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Street chaos: Finding a gap in the street chaos is an everyday challenge for cyclists and tuk-tuk drivers in Bangladesh. Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bicycles as cargo trucks: It\u2019s a constant surprise to see how bicycles are used in different parts of the world. Anything with wheels helps locals transport all sorts of the things in India. Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
To read more in the Bangkok to Barcelona series, <\/a>click here<\/a>.<\/blockquote><\/figure>But, it\u2019s in northeastern Italy, the country our walking route has most recently led us to, where I\u2019m charmed into a stupor by the retro-style, touring bike culture. There\u2019s something intrinsically delightful about watching a 70-something-year-old grandmother with whitish-gray hair riding free and easily in a wide, dedicated bike lane on her old-fashioned, big-wheeled bicycle, her woven basket, secured to the handlebars, spilling over with fresh baked bread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like in other places, the Italian scene of a happy, waving cyclists and senior citizens doing things they have done their whole lives, like riding to the market, sparks a chain of walking reflections that loop around each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Older man on a bike, with two older women walking: Italy\u2019s cycling culture and the country\u2019s numerous bike and walking lanes invite people of all ages to move around their cities and towns by foot. Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow fun is it to ride a bike to the market! These people are so lucky to have such a nice network of bike lanes through their town. It\u2019s such a joy to walk in a place that makes room for walkers, runners and cyclists! Oh, the bike lane ends here, at the edge of town. Uf! That\u2019s too bad. Now we have to go back to the almost non-existent shoulder with cars nearly touching our elbows,\u201d I think. \u201cIt\u2019s too bad the local governments don\u2019t link their cycling routes, and create more inter-town bicycle lanes. What if I want to go to the other town\u2019s market? I would have to brave the road without a shoulder and with trucks and vans. Really, life doesn\u2019t stop at your own city\u2019s border. It\u2019s great that these small towns have invested in these bike lanes (some of which look pretty new judging by the painted white lines and smooth surfaces), but why don\u2019t town officials think this all the way through and work with surrounding communities to share the costs and rewards of expanding their bike networks? What if every town everywhere in the world set aside some money every year to develop and increase walking and cycling lanes so people everywhere can enjoy seeing their slice of the globe by the power of their own feet? Now, that would be a movement I could support! It won\u2019t happen. People will say there is not enough money to do it. But, if it happened little by little…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Bicing station: Bike-sharing has become so popular in Barcelona that some days it\u2019s hard to find a bike at some docking stations. Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Street light with parking sign: As city cycling gains popularity as a fitness sport and mode of transportation, city officials worldwide will have to reconsider their bicycle parking, safety and overall traffic strategies. Photo: Bangkok to Barcelona on Foot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I drop my head, shut down my string of thoughts, and focus on the oncoming traffic. Italian drivers, like drivers in other countries, give me strange looks. They sort of expect cyclists to be there; Italy has a large cycling community, and it\u2019s common to see cycling groups out for morning or late-day rides. Long-distance walkers, however, are an uncommon lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflecting on other cycling moments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the quieter walking moments, my thoughts return to the luxury of having wheels\u2026bicycle wheels\u2026 and other cities where bicycles are now part of the fabric of everyday life, and part of my view of urban life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been lucky enough to call places like San Francisco, Munich and Barcelona home for a while. For better or worse, by experiential default, they are the cities I use to compare and measure every other cities\u2019 effort to do anything, including developing sustainable alternatives to car traffic while also promoting citizen well-being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I lived in San Francisco in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was surprised by the Critical Mass rides in which hundreds of cyclists would pedal around the city on the last Friday of every month. I remember (not always fondly) having to sometimes change my car route to skirt around the blockages the cyclists would cause in the downtown area. Today, wiser to world\u2019s ways, I regret not having joined them when I lived there. The Critical Mass folks caused a shift in the way San Francisco and the Bay Area, hubs for all sorts of athletic endeavors, had to think about bicycle usage, rider and driver safety, and traffic on city blocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2008, Munich blew me away with its volume of day-to-day bicycle commuting. I used to stand on a corner on Ludwigstra\u00dfe, one of the city\u2019s main streets, and marvel at the polite order in which cyclists queued up at the streetlight. My jaw dropped when I saw bicycle police give tickets to cyclists going in the opposite way of the designated flow of bicycle traffic. Munich people take their cycling habits and rules pretty seriously, so seriously that I felt I couldn\u2019t possibly learn or understand proper bicycle etiquette in the short year I had an address there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I was remembering Munich, an email popped into my inbox, and the link pointed to a report about an increase in global bicycle and run activity and commuting. Strava, a social fitness network primarily used to track cycling and running via GPS data, reported in November 2018<\/a> that \u201cCyclists covered more than 5.2 billion miles in 2018 \u2014 far enough to get from Earth to Pluto. Runners covered 944.8 million total miles with an average distance of 5.1 miles per run.\u201d  Additionally, compared to 2017 levels around the world, run commuting grew 70% and bike commuting grew 42%; in the United States, Strava\u2019s users uploaded more than 11 million bike commutes (a year-over-year increase of 30.8%), and 3.6 million run commutes (a 56.8% increase from the previous year), according to the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These kinds of data points give me pause. How are cities managing this increased bicycle and foot traffic? Putting in bike lanes and allotting safe places where people can pedal and go by foot are obvious first steps. But, to create something sustainable, long-lasting, and accessible-to-all, city officials need to have a bigger vision. They also need to willing to make important economic, political and popular tradeoffs, such as foregoing building an extra car lane or eliminating auto parking spots in favor of widening the existing bike lane in a crowded neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back home, I\u2019ve seen first-hand how Barcelona\u2019s overall bike demand and, specifically, its bike-sharing program, Bicing, have evolved in about a decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it started with a meager 15 stations, 200 bicycles and a few bike lanes, Bicing got 30,000 subscribers in its first two months, according to a Treehugger article<\/a>. When I checked the Bicing<\/a> website recently, the numbers, as of September 2018, have climbed to 105,545 users, 420 stations and 6,000 bikes in circulation. What\u2019s interesting, too, is the perception of the many more bicycle shops that have popped up in different neighborhoods the last decade; they obviously are catering to the increasing number of people who prefer to have their own bicycles and to the many tourists who now use rented bicycles to visit the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To their credit, Barcelona\u2019s city government noticed this pent-up demand, and in 2015, launched the \u201cBicycle Strategy for Barcelona<\/a>\u201d, a measure aimed at \u201cencouraging more bicycle use as a habitual mode of urban transport.\u201d The strategy\u2019s core mission is a noble one: Expand and improve the cycling infrastructure; improve signage to guarantee safer journeys, and take actions to ensure harmonious co-existence with other people using the public highway, both pedestrians and other road vehicles, according to the website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it\u2019s not just words on paper. There appears to be a commitment to make this happen. \u201cBarcelona City Council aims to provide 308 kilometers of cycle lanes by 2018, which would mean an increase of 165% on the figure quoted in the 2015 Strategic Bicycle Measure (a network of 116 kilometers). This means that by 2018, 95% of the city’s population would have a cycle lane within 300 meters of their home,\u201d I read on the city\u2019s website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think about that\u00ad\u201395% of Barcelona\u2019s estimated 1.7 million residents will be within 300 meters of a bike lane! That\u2019s, basically, a bike lane within one Manhattan city block from nearly everyone\u2019s front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t help but to be curious about how many new bike lanes will crisscross my old neighborhood when I get back to Barcelona. And, I\u2019m already thinking about the bike I\u2019m going to a buy and use to rediscover my own city\u2026it will probably be a foldable one that fits under my desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, though, we\u2019ll press on without wheels (sigh!). Hopefully, cyclists won\u2019t mind if we share their lanes. They are gems we are always grateful to find. I would love to hear about other cities\u2019 bicycle strategies and their plans to expand and manage bike usage within their cities and surrounding areas. Tell me what you\u2019ve heard or know in the comments\u2019 section.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Baljko<\/strong>
Bangkok to Barcelona<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On The Nature of Cities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walking may be my main form of transportation these days, but I often daydream about wheels\u2026bicycle wheels\u2026and the way they move people through urban and rural spaces. Most of our 14,000-kilometer journey to date is speckled with memories of two-wheeled riders, and my longing to join them in their pedaling outings. I have frequent flashbacks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":32128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[605,273,938,298],"tags":[49],"coauthors":[383],"class_list":["post-32117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangkok-to-barcelona-on-foot","category-essay","category-europe","category-essay-people-and-communitites","tag-communities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/231"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32117"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thenatureofcities.com\/TNOC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}