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2017 | Buch

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Bike Boom

The Unexpected Resurgence of Cycling

verfasst von: Carlton Reid

Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

In this volume, the author uses history to shine a spotlight on the present and demonstrates how bicycling has the potential to grow even further, if the right measures are put in place by the politicians and planners of today and tomorrow. He explores the benefits and challenges of cycling, the roles of infrastructure and advocacy, and what we can learn from cities that have successfully supported and encouraged bike booms, including London; Davis, California; Montreal; Stevenage; Amsterdam; New York; and Copenhagen.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Abstract

How do we measure whether a bike boom is, or is not, happening? By mileage cycled, or bicycles sold? There are good stats for the latter, fewer and often less reliable ones for the former. Or how about modal-share, the percentage split between different modes of transport? Some cities have certainly seen expanded cycle usage—for instance, between 2000 and 2015 New York City witnessed a 381 percent growth in its bikeway network and a 207 percent rise in bicycle trips—but dig down and the impressive jumps often turn out to be starting from pitifully low bases. Going from, say, 1 percent of all journeys to 2 percent is, indeed, a doubling in cycling use, but in big-picture terms it’s more of a blip than a boom. And not all of the increases in cycling trips can be put down to the provision of bikeways. Seattle has seen a 235 percent growth in its bikeway network over the last fifteen years and a 123 percent uptick in bicycle trips, whereas Portland, Oregon, saw a 391 percent growth in bicycle trips in the same period, even though its bikeway network grew by “just” 53 percent.

Carlton Reid

1. How Cyclists Became Invisible (1905–1939)

Abstract

The bicycle in the boom of 1896–97 was the plaything of the American and European elites, a signifier of status, health, and wealth. In post-boom America, the bicycle regressed, becoming a vehicle solely for juveniles. In 1920s Europe, the mass-produced bicycle evolved into a transport tool for working stiffs. On both sides of the Atlantic, cyclists faded from view. They became invisible in the Netherlands because bicycles were classless and ubiquitous; and they became invisible in Britain and America because bicycles were deemed to be proletarian or for play.

Carlton Reid

2. From Victory Bikes to Rail Trails (1940–1969)

Abstract

“Last June in driving into Pembroke, Canada, my nerves were suddenly set on edge by a cloud of cyclists leaving the gates of a factory,” wrote William Pierce Randel of St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1942. “If in the United States workers take to the bicycle in increasing numbers, our city streets will present new traffic hazards,” continued the professor of English, “and it seems logical that certain streets should be closed to all but bicycles, which could then be excluded from other streets.”

Carlton Reid

3. Davis: The Bicycle Capital of America

Abstract

Tasteless tomatoes? Blame Davis. Or, more specifically, the food science faculty at the University of California, Davis. Founded as an agricultural research station in 1907, UC Davis was where, in the mid-1960s, plant breeder Jack Hanna and engineer Coby Lorenzen created “vf-145,” a tomato bred tough to survive mechanical harvesting. Tough, but bland. The development revolutionized the ketchup industry and put UC Davis on the map. Unlike Sacramento, twelve miles to the west, the flat and sleepy town of Davis still had a cycling culture in the early 1960s, but with a growing influx of students, and their cars, this culture came under threat.

Carlton Reid

4. Cycling in Britain—From Swarms to Sustrans (1942–1979)

Abstract

The Tweed Run is a dandy’s delight—Brylcreem and bow ties for the gentlemen; capes and cycling skirts for the ladies. This gloriously eccentric bicycling bricolage matches top hats with Harris tweeds, and conflates Steampunk romanticism with verifiable vintage. A typical outfit consists of 1890s-style waistcoat and breeches coupled with a 1920s-era working man’s flat cloth cap. A typical bicycle is a 1930s-style roadster with “mustache” handlebars. It all makes for a strong look but, like many of the chic ensembles on these now-international rolling fashion parades, it’s an amalgam of faux nostalgia. Harking back to a presumed golden age of cycling is great fun, and a peloton of tweedy riders is visually arresting, but one mustn’t get too misty-eyed about the indeterminate period that is being evoked. Once motorcars muscled their way onto the real scene, the golden age was a goner.

Carlton Reid

5. The Great American Bike Boom (1970–1974)

Abstract

Before the Black Friday mall stampedes and before the Cabbage Patch Doll riots of 1983, there was the Great American Bike Boom. “Crowds press into Chicago’s Turin Bicycle Co-op hunting for new models,” reported Life in July 1971. Under the headline “The Bicycle Madness,” Life’s article featured a double-page photograph of a diverse crowd waiting to buy bikes: men and women, black and white, young and old. “So far this year, Turin has sold over 3,000 bicycles and could have sold several thousand more if supplies had been available,” continued the magazine. Today, the retail madness that is Black Friday lasts just a day. The Cabbage Patch Kids craze was over within weeks. The bike boom lasted for the best part of four years.

Carlton Reid

6. The Rise and Fall of Vehicular Cycling

Abstract

In the early 1970s, the imagined compulsory use of a bicycle route system in the cycle-friendly California university town that spawned the hippie movement led a high-speed cyclist to codify and popularize the concept that cyclists “fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.” The town was Palo Alto, the cyclist was John Forester, and the concept was “vehicular cycling.”

Carlton Reid

7. Where It’s Easy to Bike and Drive, Brits and Americans Drive

Abstract

The provision of a dense network of car-free cycleways offers no guarantee that people will flock to them on bicycles. At least not in the United Kingdom and the United States. That is if the experience from “New Towns” can be extrapolated to other urban areas, which is not at all certain, of course. Columbia, a privately owned planned community in the state of Maryland, and the English “New Town” of Stevenage are examples of where providing for trips other than car trips might only work if people are discouraged from making those car trips by use of restrictions such as pay-per-mile usage fees or circuitous driving routes. Equality of transport-mode provision does not necessarily lead to equity in use—for instance, there are many factors that either encourage or discourage the use of bicycles, and we sometimes wrongly believe separation of modes leads to equality.

Carlton Reid

8. How the Dutch Really Got Their Cycleways

Abstract

Brexit-besotted Brits may have voted—by a wafer-thin margin—to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union, but you wouldn’t know it from the bus shelters on Oxford Road in Manchester: in block orange letters, and with a windmill icon beneath, those waiting are advised to “Go Dutch!” This isn’t guerilla stenciling from the city’s beleaguered cycle advocates; it’s an official message from Transport for Greater Manchester. A £1-billion makeover has made the road—one of the busiest bus routes in Europe—safe for cyclists. Cars are funneled onto parallel roads; cyclists have their own wide curbed lanes, and buses are now faster than ever. This is what the Dutch call “unraveling”: separating the vehicle types and protecting the squishy humans. Such makeovers are normal for the Netherlands, but very much not normal for the UK.

Carlton Reid

Epilogue: New York City’s Protected Bikeways: Then and Now

Abstract

The provision of bikeways in New York City has had a checkered history. Congressman Ed Koch was all for bikeways in the early 1970s, and he rode on demonstrations calling for their creation—demonstrations such as those organized by activists like the Village Voice columnist David Gurin, friend of urbanist Jane Jacobs, and cofounder of the confrontationally named Action Against Automobiles. Koch became mayor and Gurin became assistant transport commissioner, but in 1980s-America keeping the protected bikeways they had both long called for didn’t pan out.

Carlton Reid

Backmatter

Titel: Bike Boom
verfasst von: Carlton Reid
Verlag: Island Press/Center for Resource Economics
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-61091-817-6
Print ISBN: 978-1-61091-872-5
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-817-6