Too far to ride? 'Park and Pedal' to work or school

Let me admit upfront that I don’t commute to work by bike. I walk. Upstairs. Telecommuting is one of the great ways we’re reducing traffic congestion, but this isn’t a story about working at home.

I’m fascinated by the idea of the “park and pedal,” which is one way of getting more people on bikes. You don’t have to do the whole trip on two wheels, but every little bit helps.

As the author of a book, “Breaking Gridlock,” on public transit, I learned the concept of “inter-modality.” You need a seamless transition from car to bike, car to train, bus to light rail. Some cities are just dumb about this — refusing to co-locate their facilities, or to even vaguely synchronize schedules to make transfers practical.

The average round-trip commute in America is 25 miles, the Department of Transportation says. It takes 50 total minutes daily, or eight days over the course of a year. And that’s a little far for most sedentary citizens to go with pedal power.

The average Chinese person of 30 years ago would have thought nothing of it, but even they have rapidly motorized their cities. And they’ve motorized their bicycles, too: According to electric bike guru Ed Benjamin, something like 30 million e-bikes were sold in China in 2011. The market for them is expected to grow to 130 million annually by 2025, but so far Americans have resisted the clarion call of e-bikes — just 100,000 were sold here last year.

The “park to pedal” is a compromise that doesn’t require Iron Men or Iron Women. Drive halfway to work, park and then ride the rest of the way.

Buying a folding bike, like one of many models made  by Montague, might make sense for storage both in your car and at work. Laurel Goldstein of Montague told me, “You don’t even need a bike rack — the folded bike will fit inside a Mini or even a Smart car. Our heaviest one is 31 pounds, and the lightest 24 pounds.”

It’s kind of weird that we ride stationary bikes at the gym, but not real ones, isn’t it? America leads the world in bike ownership, but we’re down at the bottom in actual usage.

I decided to check in on Portland, Ore., because it rules when it comes to bicycle commuting. No other city comes close. I was awed when I saw the arrays of bikers crossing the Hawthorne Bridge — 7,400 a day? Really?

Portland is the No. 1 city for trip data on bicycling. Rob Sadowsky, executive director of Oregon’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance, told me that 5.5 percent of Portlanders bike to work, though maybe not every day. Cyclists have actual rights there, instead of getting indiscriminately mowed down on the streets by speeding cars.

“No one thing makes a great bicycling city,” Sadowsky told me. “We have an environment here that promotes and is excited about outdoor activity — that’s why Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear are here.

“We also have some of the best situations for cyclists — bicycle lanes, bicycle parking and creative solutions to complicated land-use issues. We have transit-oriented communities, with bicycle parking at the stations. It’s easy to ditch your bike in Portland — you can put them on bus bike racks, and on hooks in the TriMet light rail system.”

Sadowsky says bicyclists aren’t just an annoying interest group in Portland — they contribute $100 million annually to the economy. The city is a bicycle industry center, with frame builders, parts makers, apparel companies and helmet manufacturers. It’s also the headquarters of Alta Planning+Design, which manages large-scale bicycle-sharing programs for other cities.

The alliance — big enough to have more than a dozen full-time employees, runs a “Bike Commute Challenge” for Portland businesses. “The awards are pretty coveted,” Sadowsky said. “Some companies bleed to win, then do everything they can to get the award back if they lose.”

—

Jim Motavalli, a regular contributor to the New York Times, is the transportation blogger for Mother Nature Network (www.mnn.com/featured-blogs/jmotavalli).

Bike-friendly cities
The most bicycle-ready cities, according to Rob Sadowsky, executive director of Oregon’s Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance:

• Portland

• Minneapolis

• San Francisco

• New York

• Chicago

• Philadelphia

• Honolulu

Standout cities: Boulder; Davis, Calif.; and San Diego, Calif.