biBy Jason SegedyOctober 14, 2015Follow me on Twitter @thestile1972In Copenhagen, all major streets are designed with separate rights-of-way for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists - in descending order of priority.NOTE: This is the first of a multi-part series on what I learned on a recent Knight Foundation-sponsored trip to Copenhagen and how we can apply what I learned to transportation and urban design in Akron.I was recently interviewed by The Akronist about bicycling in Akron. My trip to Copenhagen last month (which I will blog about in much greater detail in the future) informed many of my answers. I’ve included the interview at the bottom of this post. The trip was wonderful and inspiring (thank you Knight Foundation!) The Danes were friendly, hospitable, and incredibly informative. We spent a lot of time talking to them about how transportation and land use are planned in Copenhagen, but we spent even more time experiencing what it was like to walk and bike in that amazing city. As a result, we experienced the city as end-users, and not simply as theoreticians or academics. Unfortunately, the theoretical approach is all too common of a modus operandi in public policy, in general, and urban planning in particular. We need more planners walking and biking their streets, and less planners staring at maps in an office. We need more elected officials doing the same, before they propose or approve the legislation which governs our transportation and development decisions.My two biggest takeaways, based on what the Copenhageners told us,
were:1) Protected, separated bike lanes are the only way to get
people to bicycle in large numbers (unprotected lanes are largely a waste of
time/money)2) Infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure –
if you build high-quality, safe (both statistically safe and perceived to be safe) bike
infrastructure, more people will ride bikes. If you don’t, they won’t. Riding a bike in Copenhagen was a life-changing experience – to
see what a city that is truly bike-friendly can actually be like. As pictured above, every
major street has a high-quality sidewalk, a separated bikeway, and lanes dedicated for
cars. If there is a bikeway, it is illegal to ride a bike
in the car lanes. If there is no bikeway, then it is fine. Copenhagen has done an awe-inspiring job of separating bike, pedestrian, and car traffic – and it is
consequently safer and more pleasant for everyone.A caveat to the second takeaway, is that in
Akron we will also have to work hard to improve our built-environment in other ways
(e.g. increase population density, zone for mixed use, employ traditional urban
design principles that make cities appealing places to be at three miles-per-hour). Copenhagen has a huge leg-up in terms of the quality
of its built-environment (dense, mixed use, pleasant streets) that serve to
“populate” the bikeways with thousands of people. We can do the same in Akron, but it will take a commitment of time, energy, and money. It will be well worth our while. Q: Why are Akron roads in need of “road diets?" Akron has lost 91,000 residents since its 1960 peak population of 290,000.
We’ve also lost nearly all of our heavy manufacturing, and the considerable
truck traffic that came with it. The consequence of losing 1/3 of our
population and much of our industry is that many of the city’s streets are
“supersized” for the amount of motor vehicle traffic that they carry
today. In short, we have too much pavement, and not enough cars and
trucks to justify it. This is the opposite of the situation in many other
cities. But, in many ways, it is a good problem to have. It enables
us to think about ways to reutilize this space – providing more opportunities
to improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians, with bike lanes and wider
sidewalks. Road diets, by eliminating through lanes, also tend to slow
car traffic, which is safer not just for cyclists and pedestrians, but for
people in cars. And all of this can be accomplished in the existing
street right-of-way, inexpensively, by the use of paint to restripe the road to
a different lane configuration. Drivers travel slower, not because we are
paying police overtime to give them tickets, but because the road design
encourages them to do so. Road diets, where practical, are win-win-win
situations.Q: What are some current road diets being put into effect at
this moment? What are some roads you’d love to see get a road diet? The first official “road diet” in Akron was on Copley Road between
I-77 and Storer Avenue. This project followed the prototypical road diet
configuration – transforming a 4-lane street into a 3-lane street (two through
lanes and a center turn lane) with two bike lanes. It was a matter of
using the same 48’ of pavement to accomplish a different set of goals – slower,
safer motor vehicle traffic, and safer conditions for cyclists and
pedestrians. The City of Akron has plans to expand this road diet to include the
remainder of Copley Road from Storer Ave to Edgewood Ave, as well as the
adjacent stretch of Maple St. from Edgewood Ave to W. Market St. My
organization, AMATS, has also funded upcoming road diets on Tallmadge Ave in
North Hill between N. Main St and State Route 8, as well as along the one-way
portions of W. Exchange St and W. Cedar St downtown and in West Hill.I’d like to see the “Bridge-to-Bridge” bikeway on N. Main St through North Hill completed, as well, which would permanently implement the bike lanes that we tested on the Better Block project, connecting the Y-Bridge in downtown Akron with the High-Level Bridge to Cuyahoga Falls.My organization, AMATS, has completed a comprehensive road diet
analysis, which identifies over 60 potential locations where we have the
opportunity to reduce the number of lanes and reutilize that space to make our
streets safer and more attractive to people.Q: In your opinion, how safe is Akron for bicyclists?I don’t think that Akron is particularly unsafe for
bicyclists. I ride my bike on city streets quite often, so, for me, this
is not just a theoretical urban planning consideration. What I do think
that Akron is, though, is not particularly friendly or appealing to
cyclists. Other than the Towpath Trail, we have almost no “protected”
bike facilities. What I mean by that term is that there are almost no
places where bikes have their own right-of-way separate from cars and
pedestrians. Cyclists must either ride in the street, and compete with
cars, or ride on the sidewalk (which is statistically more dangerous than the
street) and compete with pedestrians – and with cars at intersections and
driveways. I was recently in Copenhagen, a city where 50% of commuters get to
work daily by bike. One of the biggest ingredients in their success was
providing high-quality, protected and separated bikeways where cyclists have
their own right-of-way. This is ultimately the direction that we should
be going. These types of bikeways are safer, and, just as importantly,
“feel” safer. The average person will not ride a bike on West Market
Street, not necessarily because it is objectively more dangerous than driving –
it simply feels uncomfortable (and thus unsafe) to most people. In
Copenhagen, 70 year-olds routinely ride bikes, as do 8-year old children.
Women ride just as often as men (and perhaps even more). The typical
cyclist looks like a typical person – not like Lance Armstrong. This is
because cycling feels safe and pleasant, and is convenient and practical.We have some painted bike lanes in Akron, but I often call these
“crimes of opportunity”. They are done with good intentions when the
opportunity presents itself, but they often lack continuity, and therefore,
appear and then vanish regularly, connecting to few, if any, other bike lanes
or trails. Examples of vanishing bike lanes include those on Portage Path,
Merriman Rd, and N. Hawkins Ave. Akron also experimented with “sharrows” - painted bike stencils that tell motorists to “share the road”, which were
well-intentioned, but ineffective.Q: In the city of Akron specifically, why do you think it is
important to advocate bicycling as a means of transportation?First and foremost, I think it is important to advocate for
bicycling (and walking) because these are low cost means of transportation that
are available to everyone, and they are the primary mode of transportation for
our large population of lower income residents. Many of these residents
also ride the bus – which always entails a walk, bike, or wheelchair ride at
the beginning and end of the trip. Therefore, I think it is an incredibly
important issue from a standpoint of simple equitability, fairness, and justice.
When you think about it, it is incredibly unfair that we, one of the richest
countries on earth, make spending an average of $10,000 per year to own and
operate a car, a prerequisite for good access to social and economic
opportunities.But I also think it is important because when a city is
bike-friendly, it also tends to be doing other complementary types of “good”
urban planning and urban design. Buildings tend to be built up to the
sidewalk (there are sidewalks for that matter!) Parking lots
are smaller, and built in the back. Residential and commercial uses are
mixed more frequently. Land is developed more densely, meaning more
people are a shorter walk or bike ride from more things. More attention
is paid to aesthetics, artistry, design, and beauty. This is because
these are many important details that one notices at 12 m.p.h. on a bike, or 3 m.p.h. on foot,
but one does not notice at 40 m.p.h. in a car. As such, I think that creating a bike-friendly city goes
hand-in-hand with creating a beautiful city, a welcoming city to people of all
ages and incomes, and a city that is competitive in an increasingly competitive
world. Akron needs new residents and businesses. In order to
attract them, we need to look and feel better than we do. We need to do
things differently than we have done them for the past 60 years. It’s not
just an Akron problem. It’s an American problem.Q: What does Akron receiving a bronze Bike Friendly Community Award mean for the
city? What will it take to be a platinum awarded city?It means a great deal. It was a small, but important victory
for a changing perspective in our community. It was well-deserved
recognition for the fact that more and more people are working hard to make our
city an easier place to get around for those without cars. Our Towpath
Trail, the Safe Routes to School Program, our Road Diet Analysis, and our
upcoming comprehensive Bicycle Plan are all steps in the right direction. To become a Platinum city, we will probably need to get to the point
where 5% of all trips are on bicycle. Right now, we are at a small
fraction of 1%. Five-percent is a doable goal in Akron, but to do that we will need
to build the high-quality network of protected bikeways that I mentioned.
We’ll also need to increase our population density and more frequently mix
commercial and residential development, so that more opportunities to cycle to
things are created – riding a bike is a quite viable option for trips of less
than 4 miles, and extremely easy for trips of less than 2 miles. If more
activities (stores, schools, workplaces) are closer to more residents, and if
we provide safe, appealing bikeways, more people will bike. They will
bike because it is safe, easy, and convenient, not because a public service
announcement told them that they should.Q: Do you think the number of active bicyclists in Akron is
growing? Why?Yes. The number is growing slowly, but surely. Bike rack
usage on METRO RTA buses, for example, has increased by over 50% since
2010. Younger Gen-Xers and Millennials are more interested in riding
bikes as a means of transportation. Lower income residents, regardless of
age, often use bikes as a regular mode of transportation as well – especially
now that METRO RTA has bike racks on all of its fixed-route buses. These
trends are likely to continue, but we will reach a natural limit to growth in
bicycling, unless we take our bike infrastructure and our urban design to the
next level, in the ways that I mentioned earlier.
