Shek's Footprint

Bicycle commuting improves the general quality of life. It lets the environment sustain while improving the health of the people. Cars are a great invention and are surely a convenience. Bicycling makes us more independent from cars giving us a renewed sense of freedom.

I have been having an interesting discussion on BikeJax about the feasibility of bicycle commuting in Jacksonville FL. See discussion here: link. I am of the opinion that a 20% goal of bicycle commuters is a realistic goal in Jacksonville. The successful execution of the goal needs a bicycle infrastructure in the form of bike lanes, urban trails and motorist awareness. Moreover, there needs to be parallel infrastructure towards mass transit such as street cars, light rail/commuter rail etc to compliment bicycle commuters.

What the future of bicycling needs the most, however, is a Cycle Policy. A piece of document depicting the mission of the city towards cyclists. A mission statement will provide a strong foundation to the efforts and development of bicycling in this city.  There are a series of videos on youtube that I stumbled upon and have embedded at the end of this post. They are about Copenhagen’s bicycle culture. I understand that Copenhagen is a much smaller city than Jacksonville is and they are much more starved for land to park cars than we are. With the growth of population, car usage increases but bicycles soften that rise.

Here is a list of Copenhagen’s Cycle Policy and my takes on what they may translate for Jacksonville. It is taken from the videos below.

1. Increase cycling to work to 40%. Jacksonville can aim at 20% to begin with.
2. Decrease risk of being injured by 50%. This is a common goal that will resound harmoniously among bicycle commuters and recreation cyclists in Jacksonville.
3. Increase feeling of security so 80% of cyclists are satisfied. This would go along making bike lanes along strip-mall-infested roads more safe by installing barriers between cars and bikes. Strip malls create frequent drive ways that increases the chances of accidents and feeling of insecurity. This policy statement may be used as is for Jacksonville. It should also target unsafe driving among inattentive motorists. A start would be to apply the hands-free only cell phone driving laws.
4. Increase cycist travelling speed by 10%. My average speed on the cyclocomputer is 10 mph on the dutch bike. 90% of the usage of this bike is for work. If there were bike lanes all the way to work, my average speed would definitely increase. I think this is a modest goal that will make bicycle commuting more and more favorable.
5. Improve cycle track comfort leaving less than 5% of surfaces unsatisfactory. This statement deals with the maintenance of comfortable road conditions so it is satisfactory for bicycles and they can commute without breaks and detours. This one may need a lot of infrastructure to achieve through out the entire city of Jacksonville. The city can try to acomplish that goal in the major corridoors of bicycle commuters first.

Cophenhagen spends 3 million euros a year on cycling infrastructure. Adjusting for the cost of labor in Denmark, I can safely assume that they would spend a lot more if they were to widen roads constantly. A natural population increase will keep demanding more roads, more lanes on existing roads, more interchanges and proportional maintenance. Roads require a lot of maintenance due to wear and tear which vehicles produce easily and bicycles barely.

For people who complain about the bad Florida weather, Copenhagen summers range between a high of 72 and a low of 57, winters hover around 32 (reference wikipedia). Showers are possible in any season. Bicycle commuting drops down to 70% in the winter (reference video). Using mass transit or showers at work will solve the hot weather commuting problems. I commute 2 miles in a dress pant and a dress shirt. That is a manageable commute in summer.

Please see this video. It is playlist of five parts.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 10:13 am and is filed under Commuting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.