Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Grenzebach, Justin

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VCU Scholars Compass

Virginia Commonwealth UniversityVCU Scholars CompassGreat VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts Great VCU Bike Race Book2015Bicycle Urbanism, Blog 5Justin GrenzebachVirginia Commonwealth UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_studentPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA4.0) License.This Blog Post is brought to you for free and open access by the Great VCU Bike Race Book at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted forinclusion in Great VCU Bike Race Book Student Blog Posts by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, pleasecontact libcompass@vcu.edu.Downloaded fromhttps://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/bike_student/2611/24/2016 The Base of a Bike Friendly city | Bicycle Urbanismhttps://rampages.us/bicycleurbanism2015/the­base­of­a­bike­friendly­city/ 1/2Bicycle UrbanismPart of the Great VCU Bike Race Book CourseThe Base of a Bike Friendly citySeptember 27, 2015 Student Post dpittWhen I Think of what makes a city bike friendly, I think of dedicated lanes, separate lights, dedicatedbridges, and all the bells and whistles of places like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Which are all thingsthat can definitely set great cycling cities aside from other cities, but there is definitely somethingmore to using bikes as everyday transit than just infrastructure like parking and facilities. I think thatthe real bicycle use and friendliness comes from public use and social norms of transit. Morespecifically I think that a bike friendly city must contain a strong number of people who arepassionate about bikes as transit, and Richmond definitely has a good start to that. One thing thatcame up a lot in my surveys was the fact that there are a lot of local bike shops in Richmond that haveunique characteristics and an overall strong bike culture. Which made me think that the communityand cultural aspects of cycling act as the foundation for bike friendly cities and that the people musthave a demand to bike in order for a city to achieve this. In addition, the use of designated bikeinfrastructure must be socially popular or a social norm in order for the infrastructure to be successfuland biking to become a widely used form of transit. About half of the people I surveyed said that theywere not comfortable biking on higher volume streets such as Cary, Broad, or Main and the peoplewho said they were comfortable on the larger and faster roads acknowledged that riding down thosestreets was less common and more dangerous. Which gave me the sense that if more cyclists ingeneral didn’t shy away from using the busier streets the Infrastructure on those specific paths wouldfollow suit and compliment the transit that is already happening there opposed to directing andcontrolling it. Which leads me to my next point that is the major arteries of the city like Main, Cary,Broad, etc. need to receive the most attention in terms of new bike infrastructure because they arethe most e࠼icient in going from point A to point B throughout the city and are not reserved for carsexclusively. In my field studies I found that taking Cary to get to downtown, which was a part of mysection, was the roughest in terms of comfort but was also the fastest. I rode both Main and Cary toand from downtown several times and every time I could tell I stressed a few cars out and had somecars come much too close when passing. Although it wasn’t a horrible experience I feel that it couldbe very discouraging for a first time rider to take their bike into work downtown and feel the pressureof a busy one was street going down steep hills. In conclusion and in relation to my section I thinkthat the city should focus on Signage, lanes, parking, and other infrastructure along at least two11/24/2016 The Base of a Bike Friendly city | Bicycle Urbanismhttps://rampages.us/bicycleurbanism2015/the­base­of­a­bike­friendly­city/ 2/2specified routes that cross 95 because that would open up a lot of housing in Churchill to downtownvia bike.Submitted by Justin2 thoughts on “The Base of a Bike Friendly city”BrittanyProsiseThis is the second blog I’ve read that mentions Copenhagen, maybe Richmondshould send some of it’s city planners there to take notes. I never realized how hard it is to get downtown on a bike. Driving is obviously finebut on a bicycle it’s like a roller coaster ride. There’s a lot of oneway streets anddrivers that don’t check for people on bikes when making turns or switching lanes.There is a lot less bike riding in the downtown area than in the fan because of howmuch less bike-friendly it is down there.October 2, 2015 at 11:16 pmMariamSankohI am writing to compliment you on your post it actually really helped me write myown post and notice that in many of the community areas I went to in Richmondthere was a severe lack of bicycle parking and general infrastructure, and how thatrelated back to the general attitude towards cycling in the city of RichmondOctober 5, 2015 at 10:48 pm

Bicycle Urbanism, Blog 5

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Bicycle Urbanism, Blog 5

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