Bicycle Improvements Just Make Sense

Portland officially opened a cycletrack today on SW Broadway (downtown). What’s a cycletrack? Well, on this street, each side has one auto traffic lane. On one side, to the right of that lane is a lane for parked cars. To the right of the parked cars is a buffer zone for opening car doors and walking. And to the right of that is the bike lane — between the parked cars and the curb, rather than right next to auto traffic. You can see some good pictures of it at BikePortland.

Local TV station KATU reported on it first, with an article many called erroneous. KATU’s article has spawned 225 comments so far. The first one says “Too bad they weren’t re-routed into the Willamette.” I’m not sure whether that commenter was referring to bikes or cars! Either way, it’s a rude comment, and most of the rest run along the same lines, and mainly in an anti-bike vein.

I’m so tired of the cyclist bashing. It’s a problem both on OregonLive (the local newspaper’s website) and on the local TV station websites. Only teachers and teachers’ unions are possibly more hated by the online commenters.

I’m so tired of it that I’m not going to bother defending the cycletrack or cycling in general from its detractors. I’m just going to tell you the truth.

Portland is right to be making bicycle improvements now. Maybe only four percent of residents are daily bike commuters right now, but that’s going to continue going up, and not just in Portland, because we are going to run out of oil and/or kill ourselves through pollution and climate change.

And if we were really serious about reducing climate change and conserving energy, we would do more. If we were really serious, we would raise gas taxes to the point that taking public transit really would be cheaper. We would make accessible, reliable public transit a priority.  We would have a Bikes for Clunkers program instead of Cash for Clunkers (just think how many free bikes could have been given away for the same amount of money!). And we would make bicycling infrastructure a priority. I’m proud to say that Portland is leading the way in this at least – because this is how it’s got to be.  Our current gas-powered motor-vehicle culture is not sustainable, and plug-in hybrid and electric cars will still consume a great deal of energy (where do you think the electricity comes from?).

I know it won’t be easy. We still own and drive a car, and being motivated to use a bike instead is often difficult. But I’m convinced that it is both possible and necessary to make bikes a priority.

Photo by Portland Pedalworks, used under Creative Commons licensing.