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.

Why have a community where it is easy to get around in a bicycle and transit? Cars provide a very personal mode of transportation. It is customizable to one’s own timetable while being selfishly polluting and heightening the dependency on one type of natural resource. I have serious problems of living in a community where all other options of transit are discouraged, maybe unintentionally but surely foolishly. Jacksonville is one such city.

Living in the southside area is of extreme inconvenience. It is a horrifying experience to ride my bicycle around town trying to do normal things. The majority of the people do not see bicycling as a mode of commute. It is purely a mode of recreation. First Coast MPO is the organization for diverting federal funds towards improving the bicycling infrastructure and they are concentrating on building trails and green ways that are outside the city where a normal person would not go. By a normal person I am referring to a non-lycra wearing bicycle commuter. Commuting is shit. Recreation is gold. That is where the money is. The city like most of the country seems to be lost in a tidal wave of consumerism by encouraging it and creating more opportunities to do more of it. I thought that the American dream was that everyone can make it. It is actually everyone consumes…a lot of shit, and by doing that, you can show that you have made it.

I use the coarse language to startle people because it is way past the time to give that gentle wake up call. People have lost the meaning of quality of life and have equated it with standard of living. Hence they perceive more quality with a higher standard of living such as owning that single family home and that car. The fact is that quality is dead because people don’t care. They don’t care about the environment and about fellow citizens in their quest of that lofty standard of living. Care is quality and it is in complete absence. Therefore, people are living in a faux sense of quality which verifies their standard of living whereas the absence of quality totally neutralizes any standard of living there is.

I was consuming a lot of gas to be able live in this city till I decided to get on my bike and live car-lite and soon to be car-free. Now, I am consuming a lot of patience to live in this city…and it is peaking just like oil is (see peak oil in sidebar).

It should have been no object of frustration when the rear tire of the old Amsterdam city bike blew. I was on my way to work from home. Lunch and a can of diet coke in a plastic bag was wrapped around my handlebar. A black rain jacket was stuffed in the book rack in response to the intermittent dark clouds. I had covered half the way to work breathing clean air under the tree lined road. This stretch of Deerwood Park Blvd slopes down gradually and is always under shade making it the best part of my ride to work.

All of a sudden, the cushioned ride was gone and my butt could feel every slight bump. I promptly got off the bike and the brittle rear tire lay squished between the rims and the tarmac. All I could think of walking on my way to work was how unreliable this bike has become and that I should buy a newer city bike. The dormant consumerist inside me wanted to order the Biria Classic Dutch (I dont want to go broke on the Velorbis Churchill Balloon yet). Once home, I dismantled the rear wheel, which took a little while since a ton of hardware had to be removed. I will be buying two puntcure resistant tires for the bike and two tubes. I am making this road worthy. It was built for riding and it shall be ridden.

The old Amsterdam bike, of which a photo shoot is still pending, is an old geyser. It is also becoming increasingly popular for my work commute. That is roughly 8 miles a day, 5 days a week. I am pending the photo shoot till after Hanna (link) but the brakes had to be looked at today. The front brake is a single pivot caliper and it is made of thin aluminum. It is bent and the rubber was brittle. The max I could get done is the brake pads replaced. Newer Single pivot caliper brake systems do not fit on the frame.

I have thought about buying a new city bike (preferably a Velorbis Churchill Balloon) and preserving this 30+ year old Amsterdam bike, but bikes are made to be ridden. So, I shall honor the creation of this bike and it shall be my mode of leisurely short distance travel. For those who have not experienced the joys of a city bike (not hybrid but dutch design bikes), you don’t know what you are missing. I even bought a pair of aviators to match the bicycle.

Today, I ordered a Solvit Trackr Dog Trailer, large, for Laya. The internal dimensions measure up well with Laya’s collar to butt length. If she likes it, my trusty 2007 Saturn Aura will receive its last oil change from me and will be put up for sale.