-by David Green
I’m a bit compulsive and have been conducting an uncontrolled experiment for the last 10 years to find out if I could live without a car. It’s a bit of a conceit since I have access to a car anytime I want it. But it has been entertaining. And it has been a success: with a trailer and good weather, riding is pretty straightforward; with rain, good rain gear is needed; lights and a hi-viz vest are needed after dark; add studded tires and liberal use of sidewalks and winter riding is great in all but the deepest snow. An e-cargo bike would add a level of convenience that would make it easy to replace a car for almost all situations.
And then…a medical problem and I’ve been off my bike for three months and counting…what to do? Do I have to start driving?
I like walking. Walking is good for my rehab. I’ve been walking to medical appointments and to the grocery store for small amounts of groceries. What I learned was surprising. I don’t think there is a block in this town where you can walk on a sidewalk without crossing a sloped driveway or be diverted around a mailbox, a street sign, or a tree, or not stumble on broken concrete or a sidewalk slab tilted up by a tree root. And so many streets don’t have sidewalks. Walking in the street between rows of parked cars with a moving car approaching is more unnerving than riding a bike in the same situation. Did you notice that there wasn’t much snow this winter? Even so, the couple times it did snow, those sloping driveways are treacherous, sliding me off the sidewalk towards the street. I miss my studded tires, but wearing cleats doesn’t make sense when the pavement is mostly clear of snow and ice.
I often think of people trying to navigate these sidewalks and streets without good vision, or with unsteady legs, or in a mobility device or wheelchair. What happens on those sloped driveways, or on rough pavement? What happens when there are no sidewalks?
And then there is the time involved. I am retired and my schedule is relatively unconstrained. Even so, my limit for walking is about 30 minutes, maybe 45, each way. This puts me 2 to 3 miles from my house. That is a tiny part of this small city. I just can’t walk far enough to get to many stores or medical offices or to see friends. What then?
The bus. The bus works well when it is where you want to be, when you want to be there I love the bus drivers–they are friendly, helpful, and are likely the safest drivers in town. The buses are mostly on time. But they just don’t come often enough. If you miss a bus, the wait for the next bus is 30 or 45 minutes. Transfers at Hawthorne Station are 15 minutes or more. This means that you don’t dare miss a bus which means you have to be at the stop early and plan on long travel times. For example, I could bike to one medical office I visit in about 20 minutes. It is about an hour on the bus. The bus schedule isn’t coordinated with my appointment times so the wait after arriving can be substantial. And the buses quit running at 7:00 pm, much better than it was last year, but still too early for evening meetings or evening work schedules. So when it is too far to walk or you don’t have time to ride the bus, what then?
Driving is by far the most convenient way to get around town because we’ve spent 100’s of millions of dollars making it that way. Except for a couple of hours a day, it is quick. We make sure that anywhere you want to get, a street will take you there. But it is expensive–it costs about $12,000/year to own and operate a car. And streets are expensive–the estimated cost for widening a single partial two-lane roundabout to a two-lane roundabout is about $3 million. Cars make me not want to go downtown or to any of the major shopping areas because of the noise, the smell, and the danger they pose to people not in cars. They make it so dangerous for kids to walk or bike to school that many parents have started driving their kids to school, putting more cars on the street. The funny thing is that biking is often quicker and more convenient than driving–I was supposed to be at a meeting downtown last week and spaced it out so I was late starting out. I couldn’t bike, it would take too long to walk, the bus was not even in the running. So I drove. Between the traffic and parking, it took 20 minutes, and I was part of the problem. Biking would have taken half the time! Driving is not the answer.
What is there to do? In the short term, I want to get healthy so I can start biking again. In the long run,
I want a more compact city so everyone is closer to the grocery store, hardware store, coffee shop, medical office… This means changing our housing and land use patterns.
I want more small retail and commercial areas in our neighborhoods so it isn’t so far to places I want to go. Again, this would be a change to our land use patterns.
I want sidewalks on our streets and I want them maintained. This will require more public investment and probably higher taxes.
I want safe bike lanes that are separated from traffic on busy streets and which connect to the places I want to go. Again, more public investment but cheaper than more and wider streets.
I want narrower, slower, safer streets so people feel more comfortable walking and biking and so driving is safer. It is easy to think that driving faster gets you to work sooner, but that’s a mirage. As we build more neighborhoods, the new streets should be designed to be slow and safe. As streets are changed, they should always become safer. Over time, that’ll save money as smaller streets serving denser neighborhoods are cheaper to build and maintain than the streets we have now.
I want a bus system with more frequent buses and more complete coverage of town. This won’t be cheap but it would bring huge advantages to all of us, whether we drive or not.
Now I’m dreaming about getting back on my bike. But this interruption to my transportation habit has given me a new perspective about our lack of transportation options. We can provide our community more freedom of choice without telling people they can’t drive. But we must shift away from a car-only mindset and commit to making biking, walking, and buses just as safe, reliable, and convenient as driving.
So keep biking, but start thinking about a transportation system that is safe and convenient, and affordable for all of us. I’ll see you on the road soon!