What gets a person to ride a bike?

This is the $6000 dollar question (the average annual cost of owning a car). Some people need some mentoring and encouragement from a cycling enthusiast to get them started.  Others need to have bike lanes or be fed information about best routes. Others, still, are so set in their ways that getting on a bicycle seems like a far-fetched notion. There are many motivations to ride: saving money, saving the world, saving one’s waistline, or simply enjoying the pleasures a bicycle offers. Conversely, there are many barriers that discourage people from choosing two wheels over four. Safety, weather, distance, health, and facilities are but a few. I aim to explore these motives in this and future postings.

I started riding to work three years ago. Let me provide some context and back up to 1994. When I was in high school, my bike was stolen from my parent’s garage. At the time I didn’t really think it was cool or safe to ride anyways, so for a period of 10 years I didn’t bother to replace it. In university, I was oblivious to the precious minutes of extra sleep I could have had if I cycled to class, in breezy style I might add, instead of making the 15-minute trek by foot. Worse, I drove a navy 1988 Cadillac DeVille around town, an eight-cylinder boat of a car that downed 15L of black gold for every 100 km travelled.

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Photo by Dylan Passmore

Last year, I bought a bell for my bicycle. I installed it on the wrong side of my handlebars and I noticed this one day as I was approaching an opening door. Having survived a near dooring and having moved my bell to the proper side of my handle bars, I now feel qualified to write about usability for cyclists.

Usability is a term that is used in the web design world to refer to interfaces which are ‘user-friendly’ or easy for people to use. During recent travels, I have been reminded to think about how the concept of usability relates to cycling. How can technologies and towns and cities be designed to better meet needs of cyclists?

To begin the discussion, let me introduce you to two brilliant technologies which are widely available in Vancouver and that inspire me: buttons for bicyclists, and bike racks on buses.

Buttons for bicylists: In Vancouver on certain designated routes like 10th Avenue, bicyclists encounter buttons which they can easily control when they reach traffic lights. These buttons are available from on the road, and are located at the proper height for a bicyclist to press while remaining on their wheels.

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To some people who have spent their whole lives downtown the 905 might seem like something out of M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village.’ Stray too close to Steeles and the monsters in their SUVs will jump out and grab you…

In a recent discussion board thread about improving transit in Mississauga, one opinion about the improvements already in place was that “unfortunately, the political response has been with absurdities like creating HOV lanes on the 403 (taking away an active traffic lane from an already-congested highway), dedicated diamond lanes, giving consideration to bicycles and other such nonsense.” While this might not represent the opinion of the average 905er, my 15 year experience in the suburbs suggests that sustainable transportation, as a culture, may not be the default frame of mind.

The 905 isn’t the most sustainable place to live. It’s not the most walkable or transit-friendly place to live either. But, it is a place where many people have chosen to live, and many more will continue to make that choice. It’s not going away, and if we want to transform this region into a place where sustainable mobility is the first and best choice, then we have to work within the confines of the low-density, car-oriented suburb. (more…)