Last week Education Director Preston Tyree and Bicycle Friendly America Director Bill Nesper were in San Antonio, Texas for the San Antonio Bike Summit. The city invited League staff to come and speak about helping San Antonio become a Bicycle Friendly Community, and we jumped at the opportunity! The Summit was attended by the mayor and city manager, as well as leaders from city departments, local businesses, and cycling organizations. The day was filled with great ideas and next steps to making San Antonio a better place for cycling. The group ended the excellent event with a ride through downtown led by Mayor Julian Castro. Local media picked up the story here and here.

And this past Saturday, Bicycle Friendly America Program Specialist Jeff Peel participated in the PA Mountain Bike Club Summit in Chambersburg, Pa. with our good friends at IMBA and 40 other off-road cycling advocates from across the state. Advocates learned about funding and grant options for trail construction from Michael Piaskowski of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources (DCNR), as well as the recent work that went into Pennsylvania’s State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP) – which addresses both on and off-road cycling issues in accessing the state’s parks and open lands. Recreation Program Manager Heather Bennett discussed the role mountain biking plays in the plan and how, through their tireless advocacy, IMBA now has a seat at the table and is seen as a partner.  In working on the plan, DCNR surveyed Pennsylvania residents to find out what they wanted to see change in their community for cyclists, and there was an overwhelming response in favor of more bike lanes, paths and access to trails.

Following the findings of the survey, Peel discussed ways participants can create a Bicycle Friendly Community in their hometown. Building off workshops at the IMBA World Summit, National Bike Summit and IMBA/League collaboration on “Linking Downtown to Dirt” article in Dirt Rag Magazine; Peel described ways communities have used off-road cycling as a way to encourage more bicycling and examples of how off-road riding is being accommodated in urban environments, highlighting High Bridge Park in New York City, Gateway Green in Portland, Ore. and Singletrack Mind Initiative in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Cyclists of all ages can enjoy riding pump tracks.

The event then moved to the Chambersburg Pump Track. Linked by the Chambersburg Rail Trail and PA Bike Route S, the park is a great example of the type of recreational riding facility both the League and IMBA hope to see communities create more of in the future.

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The study itself is not available – it was presented at the American College of Surgeons’ 95th annual Clinical Congress in Chicago – so we are left to interpret the Reuters article and a news release from the University of Colorado.

From Reuters:

The severity of injuries and time spent hospitalized for bicycle injuries tended to increase in the past decade, according to the findings…The number of chest injuries rose by 15 percent, while abdominal injuries increased threefold over the last five years.

It may well be true that bicycling injuries are becoming more severe, but before we jump to too many conclusions about what this means, there is a lot more we need to know. From what we already know, however, it is clear that the reporting on these findings has been overblown and sometimes plainly inaccurate.

The first obvious point to make is the limited scope of the study – 329 bicycling injuries in one Denver hospital between 1996 and 2006 – hardly justifies the headline’s claim that the study says anything about what is happening in the entire U.S. How much can we generalize about the findings from the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center in Denver? The author of the study, Jeffry Kashuk, made this point in the University of Colorado release saying, “These results were stunning but we must remember that this is only a single center study. Our findings and data need to be verified by a larger, multi-centered national study.”

It is not actually clear how stunning the results are. According to the University of Colorado release, one of the researchers plotted the locations of the crashes on a Denver map, and noticed that the “major concentration of collisions took place in the downtown urban areas and the majority of riders were older males, suggesting a greater frequency of urban commuters opposed to recreational riders.”

Reuter’s continues:

The rise in injury severity likely reflects an increased rate of “motor vehicle associated injuries, which might suggest, along with a trend toward older age, that the injuries occurred in commuters more frequently than the past, as opposed to recreational riders,” Kashuk said.

He is saying that injuries are more severe when a bicyclist crashes with a car than in other types of bicycle crashes. He is not saying that there is a greater risk of crashing with a car than before. He is also not saying that car-crash injuries are getting more severe. It appears that the study did not control for the type of riding that led to the injuries, focusing instead on the change in injury severity over time. He is saying that as people ride in traffic more, there will be more “motor vehicle associated injuries.”

We know from the U.S. Census Bureau that the percentage of bicycle commuters in Denver increased 93% just between 2000 and 2006. Thus an increase in the types of injuries more associated with commuting is not surprising.

The study is not saying that bicycle commuting is becoming more dangerous – just that more people are doing it and therefore there are more serious injuries in one Denver hospital. That makes headlines like this one from Denver’s ABC affiliate – “Injuries To Cyclists Who Commute Becoming More Severe” – inaccurate and misleading. The injuries may be more severe, but the study doesn’t appear to claim that commuter injuries are becoming more severe.

The author of the report rightly calls for more safe accommodation of cyclists to avoid these injuries. And he is certainly correct that “There is a paucity of studies looking specifically at bicycle injuries”.

Headlines like the ones being attached to the Denver study may deter some people from riding. That would actually have a negative impact on the safety for the rest of us. Peter Jacobson’s famous study “Safety in Numbers” showed that as more people ride, drivers become more aware of cyclists, making everyone safer: “The likelihood that a given person walking or bicycling will be struck by a motorist varies inversely with the amount of walking or bicycling.”

Researchers John Pucher, Jennifer Dill, and Susan Handy recently published a review of the literature on bicycling, “Infrastructure, Programs, and Policies to Increase Bicycling: An International Review”. They conclude: “The combined evidence presented in these studies indicates that the health benefits of bicycling far exceed the health risks from traffic injuries, contradicting the widespread misperception that bicycling is a dangerous activity.”

So do not let any scary headlines make you think that bicycling is becoming more dangerous. There certainly are risks, and education, proper care and investment from communities all over the country are extremely important. The good news is that the more of us out three riding, the safer – and healthier – we’ll all be.

UPDATE: The author of the study, Jeffry Kashuk, was kind enough to speak with me. He mentioned that the name of the presentation and upcoming study is Increased Popularity of Urban Bicycle Transportation in America: The Perfect Storm for an Injury Epidemic.

He summarized his argument in this way:

a. There are more bicycle commuters today

b. Bicycle commuters appear to be at risk for more severe injuries than trail-only, recreational cyclists

c. Too many urban areas, like Denver, are encouraging bicycle commuting without investing in the needed facilities to keep them safe

The result, he says, will be an epidemic of injuries to bike commuters.

He makes a perfectly legitimate point, as far as it goes. From the point of view of promoting safe cycling, there is a bit of a chicken and egg question here. Cities won’t invest in safe infrastructure if very few people ride, and people won’t ride if all they hear is about how dangerous cycling is. In my view, both promotion and safe facilities are necessary to encourage safe cycling.  Again, Dr. Kashuk is right to call for more safe facilities, but not to call for a halt to cities’ promotion efforts. We can and should do both.

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~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

We’ve seen other programs like this be successful across the country. For example, in Platinum Portland, Ore. the Community Cycling Center (CCC) offers their Create a Commuter program, partnering with job placement programs in helping the unemployed get back on their feet and access to jobs without the expensive of a car. Local shop Joe Bike has lent a hand to the CCC and set-up their own Cash for Clunkers program.

We know that 1/3 of the population are either too old or too young to drive, and an article in last week’s New York Times even highlights the fact that when given enough choices, people may even choose to give up their cars. However, programs like Bikes for Work and Create a Commuter are reaching those who are looking for a new transportation option, not out of choice to be personally more sustainable, but out of economic necessity. We’ve shown there are economic benefits to creating the infrastructure needed to support cycling, but how is your community serving those with the greatest need for affordable transportation options? Email the League, and let us know!

~Jeff Peel
League BFA Program Specialist

Additionally, the American Community Survey (ACS) recently released their 2008 report, which includes community bicycle mode share percentages from 2000 to 2008. We crunched the numbers and found that BFCs had higher levels of bicycle commuting than cities not participating in the program. The average BFC bicycle commuter share is 1.5 percent, 2.5 times the national average. St. Louis, MO, for example, is one of the 70 largest cities surveyed in the ACS and a new bronze level BFC. The community nearly doubled their number of bicycle commuters from 2000 to 2008. The city has completed several noteworthy projects within the past year, including 53 new miles of on-street additions to the bikeway system, a $10 million investment, and an expansion of bicycling education offerings for children and adults. This shows that like cities across the country, making smart investments in building a welcoming community for biking that will inevitably lead to more, healthier and sustainable transportation options and increased recreational opportunities.

We’ve seen the BFC program revolutionize the way states and communities evaluate their quality of life, sustainability and transportation networks, while allowing them to benchmark their progress and work toward improving their bicycle-friendliness. The application process to become a BFC is rigorous (though staff is on hand to assist!); currently only 124 of the 318 total applicants have a BFC four-year designation. The renewal process and four levels of the award – platinum, gold, silver and bronze – provide a clear incentive for communities to continuously improve.

Interested in learning more about how your community stacks up? Take a minute and rate it with our new quick scorecard, or get in touch with Bicycle Friendly Community program staff at info@bicyclefriendlycommmunity.org or 202.822.1333.

2009 Fall Bicycle Friendly Community Winners
(Bronze award unless otherwise noted)
Breckenridge, CO (Silver)
Anchorage, AK
Baton Rouge, LA
Calistoga, CA
Grand Rapids, MI
Greensboro, NC
Greenville, SC
Indianapolis & Marion County, IN
Iowa City, IA
North Little Rock, AR
Riverside, CA
Sioux Falls, SD
Sonoma, CA
St. Louis, MO
Tallahassee, FL
Boca Raton, FL (Renewal)
Chandler, AZ (Renewal)
Eugene, OR (Renewal, Gold)

2009 Honorable Mentions
Annapolis, MD; Baltimore, MD; Cedar Rapids, IA; Charleston, SC; Cumberland, MD; Emerald Isle, NC
Gresham, OR; Hamilton County, OH; Jacksonville, FL; Nashville, TN; New Orleans, LA; Norman, OK
Palm Desert, CA; Portland, ME; Rockville, MD; Sumter County, SC; Warrenville, IL

~Jeff Peel
League BFA Program Specialist

Click here to view the ACS journey to work results for the 70 largest US cities, including the 27 largest Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs), since 2000. Scroll right (or click on the following links) to find the share of American workers who bicycle, walk, use public transportation and drive alone. The tables show the share of commuters for 2000, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and their percent change over time. (UPDATE: the “largest BFC average” was updated on October 22 to include the four newest BFCs that are among the 70 largest US cities.)

Click here to view the ACS journey to work results for the 50 US states (and Puerto Rico). Use the tabs at the bottom for bicycle commuters and walking commuters. The sheets also include the amount of federal dollars spent on bicycle and pedestrian project between 2000 and 2008.

Here is a summary of bicycle commuting levels in the US over the past eight years.

On average, the 70 largest cities in the US, from New York City (population eight million) to Plano, Texas (population 259,000), had higher bicycle commuter levels and larger increases than the national average. The average bicycle commuter share for the largest 70 US cities in 2008 was 0.93 percent, having grown by nearly 50 percent since 2000.

Among the 70 largest cities, the 27 that have been designated by the League of American Bicyclists as Bicycle Friendly Communities (BFCs) for their pro-bicycling policies saw even higher levels of bicycle commuting and greater increases over the past eight years. In 2008, the average BFC bicycle commuter share was 1.5 percent, nearly three times the national average. BFCs also grew 60 percent more than the national average and 40 percent more than the 70 largest city average.

Bicycle Friendly Communities far outpaced the 43 largest non-BFCs, whose average bicycle commuter share is growing slower than even the national average. Between 2000 and 2008, the bicycle commuter share in the 27 largest BFCs increased by nearly 70 percent. In contrast, the share in the non-BFC cities increased only 23 percent, to 0.57 percent. This strongly suggests that the efforts of the BFCs to improve bicycling conditions by investing in engineering, education, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation and planning are paying off with larger increases in bicycle commuters.

Some of the fastest growing communities were those that started with relatively low bicycle commuter shares in 2000. Nashville and Cleveland tripled their share, and Cincinnati doubled its, but all three still have not reached three-quarters of a percent. On the other hand, some the cities with the highest bicycle commuter levels in 2000 also saw some of the largest increases. Platinum BFC Portland, OR saw the largest growth among all 70 large cities, more than tripling their bike share, to nearly 6 percent. See complete summary for more.

~Darren Flusche
League Policy Analyst

photo: Jeff Peel

And then I went to Copenhagen.

I had heard the Head of Copenhagen Cycle Program Andreas Rohl at our National Bike Summit talking about the high levels of bicycling in Copenhagen and the widely held view that everyday cycling is perfectly normal, not a political statement or a daring act. Like everyone else, I thought, “Wow, that’s cool. That’s what we need to be shooting for.” But it was truly an eye-opening experience to see in person how bike-friendly a place can be. A place where bicycling is as normal of an activity in daily life as using a vacuum cleaner. As a bicycle culture consultant and leader of the Slow Bike/Cycle Chic movement, Mikael Colville-Anderson puts it, “We all have one. We all know how to use them. But we don’t have a fetish about them or think about them every day.” And that is exactly what I experienced. From ages 8 to 80 – everyone rode. Drivers respected cyclists’ space, as they are likely cyclists themselves! No special outfits, gear or fancy equipment was needed – though wasn’t shunned when used. After a few days I settled in and stopped thinking about it. In Copenhagen bicycling is the most convenient, quickest way to get around, nothing more.

In addition to mocking my inability to convert miles to kilometers and Fahrenheit to Celsius, Mikael was gracious enough to share his thoughts on world bicycling culture, normalizing the use of the bicycle, how far Copenhagen has come (they haven’t always been so bike-friendly) and even how far they need to go to grow beyond the 36% of the population who commute by bike. For those of you who live in the D.C. Metro area you can hear his thoughts September 30th along with League President Andy Clarke at Forum: Cycle Chic–Bike Culture and Policies in Denmark.

photo: Jeff Peel

I do think we have some wonderful examples here at home, and communities throughout the U.S. are moving in the right direction. The growth in League recognized Bicycle Friendly Communities is evidence. Learning from cities like Copenhagen helps us see what is possible, and how far we still have to go to reach our goal.

~Jeff Peel, Program Specialist, Bicycle Friendly Communities

If car parking is often overshadowed in traffic talk, bicycle parking is even more obscure. For many people in the United States it might be hard to imagine what there is to talk about. Why don’t you just stick it in the garage? Or, Isn’t that what street signs and trees are for? But as the share of trips made by bicycle has grown in recent years—in Portland, Ore., for example, bicycle use has grown nearly 150 percent since 1990, and an estimated 5 percent of people bike to work—new attention is being paid to what happens to those bicycles when they are not in motion.

Vanderbilt does a good job spelling out the need for quality end-of-trip facilities, pointing to Portland, Ore. and the high demand for on-street bike parking corrals, the groundbreaking Bikes in Buildings legislation recently passed in New York City, and even gets in a plug for the Bike Station opening at Union Station here in D.C. in the coming weeks.

Parking has been on the minds of the Bicycle Friendly America staff a lot recently. We’re in the process of updating the Bicycle Friendly Community application to include more questions about the various policies and physical accommodations like the ones mentioned in Vanderbilt’s article. The new application will be released in September.

The League sent seven staff members to last week’s Safe Routes to School National Conference in the Pacific Northwest’s BFC Platinum paradise. We met with city staff and toured around to see how Portland carefully considers bicyclists when they design roads to enhance access, awareness and on street accommodation. Portland’s Bicycle Coordinator, Roger Geller, took some staff and other conference attendees on a tour of the city’s bicycle facilities and discussed the soon to be released Portland Bicycle Plan for 2030.

Port of Portland sign at the airport. Photo by Jeff Peel

Scott Bricker of Portland’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance was the MC for Wednesday night’s opening plenary. He introduced the leaders of the two national Safe Routes organizations, Lauren Marchetti of the National Center for Safe Routes to School and Deb Hubsmith of Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Both women applauded the efforts of the planners and advocates in attendance to make their communities safer and more pleasant for children to get physical activity on their way to school.

Much of the conference talk focused on children’s health and the need for a built environment that encourages active transportation. Robert Ping of the National Partnership reported that an alarming number of school principals do not allow children to bike to school because of liability concerns.

Another hot topic this year was school siting. New schools are often built on cheaper land located further from central residential areas, making it more difficult to walk and bike to school. During one “mobile workshop” – a conference session on bikes – attendees saw where a freeway was built, splitting a neighborhood in two and forcing students to bus or drive to school. The tour then went to a location where a highway was actually removed by the city.

The trip gave the League staff a chance to experience what it’s like to ride around a Platinum Bicycle Friendly Community. It also gave some of us a chance to ride around town in a group from the League that consisted of a tandem bicycle, a mountain bike with 29-inch wheels, and a Brompton folding bike. See some photographs below from the conference photographer Greg Conyers.

Riders on the “Dead Freeways” mobile workshop. Photo: Greg Conyers

Jeff Mapes, author of Pedaling Revolution, speaks to Safe Routes to School conference attendees. Photo: Greg Conyers

Portland. Photo: Greg Conyers

Photo credit: Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

The League’s Bicycle Friendly Community program recognizes cities that promote and protect bicyclists through the five E’s – education, engineering, encouragement, enforcement, and evaluation – to become better places to ride. These cities are models to emulate. But there are plenty of other cities out there making progress in the up-hill climb to reverse unfriendly bicycling conditions. The BFC program is offering these communities a road map and the technical assistance needed to improve. The New York Times featured one example in this past Sunday’s edition.

From their article on Boston’s efforts to improve cycling conditions:

Boston, long known as a minefield for bicycle riders, is feverishly working to shed that reputation by creating bike lanes, installing bike racks, restoring bike paths and urging residents to switch from horsepower to pedal power. Plans to link the city’s existing bike paths and create a bike-share program are also in the works.

Boston’s new Bike Czar, Nicole Freedman, says the city’s grand plan is to “change the culture,” something the League is working on across the country.

One lesson from Boston’s experience is the importance of a well-positioned champion – by champion I am not just referring to Freedman, a former Olympic cyclist – but the enthusiastic leadership of Mayor Thomas Menino. Menino recently rediscovered bicycling after 40 years off a bike. The Mayor’s chief of policy and planning talked so passionately about bicycling that eventually the Mayor decided to join the fun. He had his new three-speed Trek delivered to City Hall. Now his staff expects early morning phone calls from the Mayor identifying potholes during his 5 a.m. rides. In addition to pushing for more facilities, the Mayor has asked the City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting parking in bike lanes. He even has a Facebook page called Mayor Menino’s Boston Bikes.

Mayor Menino also kicked off last October’s Boston Bike Summit, which the League helped organize along with the city, the Livable Streets Alliance and MassBikes. The summit brought together advocates and decision-makers to craft a strategy to advance bicycling in Boston. In another best practice, the city sent a delegation to New York City to see what other large U.S. cities are doing to promote bicycling. In March, the Livable Streets Alliance received an REI Bicycle Friendly Community Grant – administered by Bikes Belong and the League – to help Boston develop its Bicycle Network Plan.

Although Boston’s infamous aggressive driving culture and tricky traffic engineering presents its challenges, the city is moving in the right direction by taking the first steps by convening advocates, investing in infrastructure, appointing staff, and raising the public profile of bicycling in Boston.

Ironically, Flint’s fall from its heyday could yet be its salvation. Flint was a booming city of more than 200,000 when Buick City and Chevy in the Hole were churning out cars hourly by the train-load in the 1970s and 80s. Now the city is barely half that size and there are conspicuous gaps on most city blocks where buildings have been razed rather than remain as eyesores, drug havens or fire hazards. One small bright spot is that the streets are anything but congested!

Additionally, the city has some terrific higher education institutions that once served the car industry and an incredible enthusiasm for recovery led by various Mott family foundations and community activists who help make up the Safe and Active Flint coalition (and many other groups beside). Indeed, the city is rediscovering itself as a college town and planning to use extra street capacity to crate two-way streets and gateway boulevards – hopefully all including bike lanes, sidewalks and street trees.

The one big worry has to be the disconcerting absence of the city – staff, elected officials, anyone – from any of the meetings of which I was a part. I did a one-hour briefing and half-day workshop, attended a regional trails committee meeting, participated in a Community Dialog session, and met with the local Health Coalition without once seeing anyone from the city participate. I’ve never had that happen before.

And frankly, the wonderful kids at Williams Elementary deserve better than that from their city administration if they are to have a real future in this proud city.