Student blog posts from the Great VCU Bike Race Book

Becker, Matthew

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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 1Matthew BeckerVirginia 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/411/24/2016 Bicycle Friendly City Blog | Bicycle Urbanismhttps://rampages.us/bicycleurbanism2015/bicycle­friendly­city­blog/ 1/2Bicycle UrbanismPart of the Great VCU Bike Race Book CourseBicycle Friendly City BlogOctober 1, 2015 Student Post dpittWhat makes a city bicycle-friendly? To me, cities that are bicycle friendly are cities that promote,encourage, and entice citizens to choose cycling as a safe and viable option of transportation.Promoting and encouraging cycling are key parts of a city becoming bicycle friendly. Supporting andencouraging citizens to choose cycling is an important step. To be bicycle friendly, cities shouldadvertise the health benefits of cycling, inform their citizens on how an increase of people riding bikescan decrease the amount of automobile related pollution, and educate their citizens on how cyclingis a safe transportation option. Cities should have city wide programs like “ride your bike to work day”and promote bicycle related activities such as competitive cycling and mountain biking. Richmondtook a step in the right direction to becoming more bicycle friend by hosting the UCI Road WorldChampionships. It was the perfect opportunity for Richmond to showcase itself to the world while atthe same time making the citizenry more aware of cycling and showing that as a city, Richmond isready to take improving its cycling conditions and cycling culture seriously. The third and mostimportant part of what makes a city bicycle friendly is actively enticing citizens to choose cycling as apractical, every day mode of transportation by providing a safe way for cyclists to navigate the city.This is really the implementation stage of becoming bicycle friendly. This includes vastly improvingbicycle infrastructure by establishing safe bike lanes. A lot of the “bike lanes” I have seen in Richmondare not really bike lanes, they are just bike icons painted on the street. There is no actualinfrastructure in place that establishes them as bike lanes. Nothing properly dierentiates betweenwhere motorists are allowed to drive and where cyclists are allowed to ride. Streets like Floyd andGrove are good examples of this. They are “bike lanes” on established “bike routes” yet the only thingthat identifies them as bike lanes the bike icons painted on the street and the signs that areperiodically posted that say bike route. The only thing Richmond did to establish these streets ashaving bike lanes as compared to other streets is by saying they have bike lanes. There is no physicalinfrastructure or markings that safely separate cyclists from motorists. With this being said, there area few examples in Richmond of bike lanes that are safe, clearly marked, and eective. The bike lanethat has been established on Leigh Street is a great example. On Leigh Street there is a bike lane thatis clearly marked and there are traic lines that explicitly separate the bike lane from the automobilelanes. Some parts of the bike lane on Leigh Street have even been painted green to further establishthe bike lane. This is a good example of a bike lane that Richmond has created that is safe and11/24/2016 Bicycle Friendly City Blog | Bicycle Urbanismhttps://rampages.us/bicycleurbanism2015/bicycle­friendly­city­blog/ 2/2enticing to current and potential cyclists. The attached photograph is of a bike lane in Copenhagen.This should be a model for which Richmond should base its future bike lanes o of. The bike lanepictured clearly dierentiates the bike lane from the automobile lanes and the bike lane’s safety isensured by its raised elevation and physical infrastructure (curb) that separates the cyclists from themotorists. In summary, for a city to be bicycle friendly it has to not only promote and encourage itscitizens to choose cycling, it has to entice its citizens to choose cycling by putting into place theproper cycling infrastructure that will ensure that cycling is a safe transportation option. Cycling is achoice. Cities have to encourage and entice their citizens to want to choose cycling over driving. Oncethe citizens understand the benefits of choosing cycling and know they have a safe way to get aroundtown on bikes, more and more citizens while choose cycling and that city will be known as being“bicycle friendly”.Submitted by Matt2 thoughts on “Bicycle Friendly City Blog”LuandaDo you think that distance might be the number 1 barrier to bike riding? A personmight consider riding to the store if it was less than a mile away. Low densitymeans every things is spread out thus making cycling less enticing. I think you’reright about cities taking on infrastructure improvements but what about allowingmixed uses so people actually have the option of walking or riding to the grocerystore? A lot of communities are food desserts and require residents to rely onvehicles in order to get to grocery stores. Building bike infrastructure can be aboutcreating more eicient and self-reliant communities.October 6, 2015 at 2:00 amAlex CortesNice blog. Those markers on the streets are referred to as “sharrows,” as in, sharethe road. I feel as though sharrows could serve some purpose in low-traicneighborhoods and streets. One interesting thing I have just reflected on is that Ididn’t notice sharrows in Copenhagen, as I was just living there for a year studyabroad. It is interesting to think that when there is safe bicycle infrastructure,sharrows are practically imbedded in the mindset of the people living in thesecommunities.October 9, 2015 at 3:26 pm

Bicycle Urbanism, Blog 1

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Bicycle Urbanism, Blog 1

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