Adapted from an essay originally written for Professor Barnett’s Theory and Principles of Urban Design class at the University of Pennsylvania on November 13, 2003.

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If the goals of planners and urban designers truly include creating healthy, safe, cost-effective, sustainable, and equitable, then the current trend of developing walkable neighborhoods connected by public transit needs to be reexamined. While such designs are definitely improvements over the auto-dominated city and suburb, they do not maximize the potential of the bicycle, which can achieve the goals of stated above more powerfully than any other option.  According to Tomlinson*, simply building bikes and striping bike lanes are not enough to create a bicycle-oriented city (or country); specific measures must be taken to encourage bicycle usage [Tomlinson, 17]. Below are seven ideas to make this happen:

  1. Ban Automobile Traffic from Some Streets: Mixed use is good for buildings and zoning codes, but not so good for bicycle safety. In Philadelphia, even closing off just one street (Walnut?) would be a sufficient first step. A three-lane road has a capacity of allowing 120,000 bikers to travel through one of its intersections each hour; that’s more than enough to start.  This approach would go a long way in addressing traffic safety concern of would-be cyclists, which is “the most frequently cited factor discouraging them from [commuting by bike]” [Tomlinson, 8-9].
  2. Replace Auto Parking Lots with Bike Parking Lots: Let the autos park in the expensive garages. Tens of thousands of bicycles can fit into current parking lots. Charging a dollar per bike would end up being more profitable than current rates for cars.
  3. Increase the Auto Tax: This tactic is worthwhile for creating solely “pedestrian-oriented” cities as well. The Netherlands, which has over ten thousand miles of bikepaths, charges a gas tax five times the amount charged in the US. New York State, in contrast, guzzles gas and has ony 250 miles of bikepaths.
  4. Increase the Distance Between Transit Stops in “Walkable City” Designs: Such a shift can probably occur only after automobile traffic has been curbed sufficiently or else people will just opt to start using their cars again as public transit is scaled back. Major transit stops can be at least a mile apart, since biking to a locale between stops would take no more than five minutes.
  5. Add Bike Racks to Long-Distance Transit and Provide Space for Bikes on Short-Distance Routes: If I just need to get to Frankford from Penn, let me get on a “biker-only” train car where I can stand next to my bike for five minutes and chat with a fellow rosy-cheeked biker. If I need to get to King of Prussia (God forbid!), give me a “biker express” train car where I can “park” my bike on a rack and then sit down to read the paper.
  6. Campus Design: Pundits of the “walkable city” call for the revival of the good old Main Streets, a haven for the pedestrian shopper, clubber, businessman, and resident alike. Without dismissing this traditional form, a bicycle-oriented city would probably need more areas resembling the traditional college campus. Tree-lined curbless paths wide enough for pedestrians and bikers to travel safely alongside one another without driving one or the other into a dangerous auto-oriented street should connect all major nodes of activity to maximize the ability of the biker to get anywhere he needs to.
  7. Office Showers: If fake waterfalls in parks are an amenity and downtown spas and gyms command huge portions of the city dweller’s income, a shower in the office isn’t too much to ask, is it?  In fact, forty-seven percent of New Yorkers claim that they would ride a bicycle to work if they could do so in a designated bike lane, park their bike in a safe place, and could shower at the office.

Assuming that new schools of thought in urban design that promote “pedestrian and bicycle-oriented” cities will actually create spaces in which biking is safe, welcome, and encouraged would be a mistake. New Urbanist literature frequently clumps together the pedestrian and the biker when describing “walkable cities”, assuming that if an area is walkable, then it is also bikeable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Based on my own personal experience, Philadelphia, occasionally called one of America’s “last great walkable cities”, terrorizes the biker. Bikers are not welcome on the congested sidewalks, nor should they be, where they run into throngs of stationary targets are living out Whyte and Gehl’s visions of urban social life. Nor are bikers welcome on the roads, where a simple lane change will incite the raging honking of car horns and every attempt to cross a street invites death from an automobile performing the “South Philly Crawl”. Not even bike lanes are safe, as cars usually end up dominating them anyway. Walnut Street in University City is a perfect example of all three of these problems at once. The bike lane only adds to the width of the road, allowing more auto traffic to flow down the street more quickly, establishing the street’s reputation as the “fastest street in Philly” and inviting hordes of motorcycle gangs to rumble down its length through out the day. At the same time, Walnut Street is probably one of the most heavily trafficked pedestrian avenues in the city, with its wide sidewalks, inviting storefronts, and nearby residential and campus life. Clearly, the auto and the pedestrian coexist here, but wither the biker?

Creating a bicycle-oriented city requires first reducing the dominance of the automobile by restricting its use on some streets and increasing the cost of gas consumption, and then orienting the public transit system towards bike use by providing special bike cars and spreading out station stops. Land design should consider looking at college campus design as an interface between bike transit and general use, and, yes, showers should be provided at major destinations.

* Tomlinson, David. “The Bicycle & Urban Sustainability,” FES Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Series, York University, Toronto, January 2003.

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