Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities

Introduction

7 Introduction F rom New York’s Williamsburg Bridge to San Francisco’s Market Street,rush-hour traffic jams—those iconic emblems of American life—teem with millions of cars, trucks, and buses. At first glance,only the increasing miles of congestion and the stylized curves of the cars distinguish twenty-first-century gridlock from decades past. But now, bobbing lightly in the exhaust-filled urban streams is a new addition: the bicyclists. By the hundreds of thousands,these unlikely transportation revolutionaries are forgoing the safety of a steel cage with airbags and anti-lock disc brakes for a wispy two-wheeled exoskeleton as they make their way to work, school, and store. There are, of course, the ever-present bike messengers, fueled by pure adrenaline and their own private code of survival. But stand on the new bicycle and pedestrian ramp over the Williamsburg Bridge and you’ll also see well-dressed men and women, riding upright on shiny bikes outfitted as carefully as an executive’s BMW. Tattooed young hipsters rush by, handling their battered bikes with nonchalant ease.Young women glide by on beach cruisers. Grim-faced riders in spandex and aerodynamic helmets speed by on expensive road bikes that seem more air than metal. Only their document-packed saddlebags hint at a day of serious desk work. For the first time since the car became the dominant form of American transportation after World War II, there is now a grassroots movement to seize at least a part of the street back from motorists. A growing number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as they create a new society on Pedaling Revolution 8 the streets.They’re finding physical fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity—and, still all too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury. These new pioneers are beginning to change the look and feel of many cities,suburbs and small towns.In the last decade,thousands of miles of bike lanes have been placed on streets around the country, giving cyclists an exclusive piece of the valuable asphalt real estate. As gas prices rise, traffic congestion worsens, and global climate change becomes an acknowledged menace, a growing number of cities have launched programs to shift a measurable percentage of travel to cycling.Take Chicago, for example.When it comes to transportation, the Windy City is known as the nation’s railroad crossroads. But it has adopted a blueprint calling for 5 percent of trips under five miles to be made by bike. In the concrete canyons of lower Manhattan, New York City is literally pioneering a new kind of street, one designed to allow cyclists to peacefully pedal while largely separated from cars and trucks.And in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, local officials have built a bike network that in the span of a little over a decade has helped turn about one in twenty commute trips into a bike ride. In these cities and elsewhere, motorists are learning to share the streets with a very different kind of traveler, one who often perplexes and angers them.Listen to talk radio and you can hear the backlash as callers vent about bicyclists who blow through stoplights or who ride in the center of the street and slow drivers behind them. Bicyclists express their own anger at inattentive drivers and a car culture more concerned with speed and aggressiveness than safety.And that sense of fury helps fuel a bicycle-rights movement that is growing in visibility. Bicycling, once largely seen as a simple pleasure from childhood, has become a political act. The burgeoning bicycle culture is a rich tapestry. It ranges from the anarchic riders of Critical Mass to the well-heeled Lance Armstrong look-alikes on bikes expensive enough to rival the cost of a low-end car.For the young“creative class”that cities are fighting INTRODUCTION 9 to attract, bicycles are a cheap, hip way to get around town.That’s why Louisville—not exactly a beacon of the counterculture—has made a determined effort to become friendly to bicycling. The city’s mayor sees it as a good way to attract those young people who will power the economy decades from now.On the other end of the age spectrum, bikes are a low-impact way for AARP...