09 December 2008

Portland, Oregon, Embraces Bike-Friendly Urban Infrastructure

Multiple factors make bicycles viable alternative to cars

Cyclists pedal on one of many bridges in the Portland area.

This is the fourth and final article in a series on smart-growth policies in Portland, Oregon.

By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Staff Writer

Portland, Oregon — On an average day, thousands of cyclists cross major bridges over the Willamette and Columbus rivers to reach their workplaces in Portland’s city center.

Residents are crazy about riding bicycles in this city. No wonder.

Not only do they enjoy one of the most extensive networks of bike routes in the country, but they also count on a “city bicycle coordinator,” free cycling maps and ample parking. Cycling enthusiasts have developed 150 small businesses around bicycles, and organized a yearly bazaar of bike-themed arts, craft and fashions.

Portland embarked on a bike-commuting path in 1990, when it enacted a bicycle master plan as part of a solution to car-based urban transportation problems.

“Biking is a perfect solution to problems with air quality, congestion and obesity,” said Rex Burkholder, a council member of Metro, the regional government. “On top of that, it is cheap and fun.”

Portland boasts a 435-kilometer (270-mile) network of bike lanes, boulevards (or elevated bikeways separated from traffic) and off-street paths, as well as a bike-friendly urban infrastructure. New developments and redevelopments are required to provide bicycle parking. More than half of area businesses provide bike parking, and 10 percent offer incentives to employees to bicycle. Even low-income residents can cycle to work on city-provided commuter bikes.

All these conveniences and incentives have produced at least a fourfold increase in the number of bicyclists since 1990, without any increase in bicycle crashes. Now, 5 percent of residents cycle to work, compared to 1 percent in 1990.

Bicycle commuters load their bikes on a shuttle leaving suburban Oakland, California, for downtown San Francisco.

“If they had driven cars, or even if we had had to provide buses for them, we would have had to increase infrastructure significantly,” Burkholder said.

Until 2000, only a few other cities — including San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado — put serious effort into making cycling a viable and safe alternative to driving. But in recent years, local governments around the United States, alarmed about obesity, traffic congestion, air pollution and rising fuel prices, have become more friendly to bike commuting. Policies requiring that roads include sidewalks and bike lanes have been put in place in 14 states and 40 metropolitan areas. In October, the U.S. Congress extended to bike commuters the same tax benefits that were until then limited to commuters who use public transportation.

Bicycle ridership is skyrocketing nationwide, according to Elizabeth Preston, a spokeswoman for the League of American Bicyclists, an advocacy group. In New York, for example, the number of commuter cyclists jumped 77 percent between 2000 and 2007.

Still, U.S. cities have a long way to go to catch up with bike-friendly European cities, particularly those in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. In a 2008 study, Rutgers University professor John Pucher concluded that the keys to catching up to those countries are bike boulevards along major roads, traffic-calming efforts in residential neighborhoods, ample bike parking and full integration of the bike-lane network with public transportation.

Taxes and restrictions on car ownership, use and parking also contribute to biking’s popularity.

A full array of walking and biking options can help reduce the number of trips by car in U.S. municipalities by 10 percent to 20 percent, according to Lester Brown, the founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a private research group.

But most European cities are more compact than those in the United States, and many solutions such as high gasoline taxes or congestion pricing that are mandated in Europe have been unpopular and not politically feasible in the United States. Even in Portland, a 2007 proposal to finance the extension of bicycle boulevards through a combination of car and utility taxes failed.

Also, efforts to make cities more bicycle-friendly sometimes encounter opposition from critics who see bicycle lanes as a “liberal plot” against car culture or part of an unrealistic green-transportation utopia.

For example, in San Francisco, an activist and blogger has effectively blocked through litigation an ambitious 2004 municipal bike plan by arguing that it might have an adverse environmental impact.

Burkholder said car commuters need to feel comfortable and safe riding bicycles to make a switch. That is why Portland, in its plan to add 644 kilometers (400 miles) to its network of bike paths in the next decade, puts strong emphasis on road safety features and education and training of both cyclists and motorists.