Thirsty Horses
Chapel Hill and Carrboro love to brag about their bicycle infrastructure and their respective bronze and silver “bicycle friendly” awards. And, to some extent, they’ve got good reason. Though the bicycle infrastructure is disjointed, the two towns have pretty high rates of bicycle use (at least by North Carolina standards), but we’ve still got a long way to go before we’re Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or even Davis, California.
Cohesive infrastructure is a necessary component of increasing bicycle use, but it is far from sufficient. As this study of bicycle use in Davis, CA illustrates, whether or not people choose bicycles as a means of transportation depends as much on attitude as infrastructure: http://uctc.net/access/39/access39_davis.shtml
thanks for posting this, a little disappointing but I am not surprised by the results
Some of the numbers are disappointing, while others are encouraging. I find the positive examples of towns that have successfully changed attitudes through design to be particularly encouraging.
I think my favorite idea put forth in the article is the “green wave”, timing the lights to correspond to average bicycle speed rather than average car speed.
education is always second nature to a good community!