The Salem Bicycle Club is known for recreational cycling but advocating for cycling and safety have been a part of our charter since our beginning. This focus continues to be important and needed, and is something on which we are working to increase our visibility and impact.
Our club board recently supported my attendance at the “Active Transportation Summit” in Portland hosted by The Street Trust. The Street Trust is the renamed and refocused Bicycle Transportation Alliance and the conference. The purpose of this article is to communicate some of what I learned along with some observations from my involvement with these issues during the three-day conference.
First, I am encouraged by a number of catchy programs/slogans that all move our communities in a positive direction – Complete Streets, Vision Zero, 20 is Plenty, and Street Diets. Although existing transportation plans claim to focus on multi-modal mobility, in reality they address motor vehicle mobility seeking to maximize speed and traffic “throughput.” Other modes are largely tacked on as an afterthought or, if required, in a manner that has the least impact on vehicle travel. The focus is not on promoting other modes, the quality of the community, the environment, health, or safety.
These newer efforts seek to change that focus. Complete Streets works to make incremental improvements when they can be made at little or no extra cost. Street repaving, for example, is a good opportunity to make a street safer and welcoming to other transportation modes. Can it be restriped to include bike lanes, possibly separated from traffic with low-cost, flexible wands? What about bump-outs or better crosswalks to increase pedestrian safety? Should parking be eliminated on one side to create opportunities for safer travel using bicycles, scooters, or other “micro-mobility” options? Can parking and other obstructions be reduced at corners to increase sight lines and safety?
If there is interest and commitment in the community, at these times, a lot can be done to improve, at little or no extra cost.
Under the Vision Zero concept, any traffic death or severe injury is unacceptable. The goal is to make mobility safe for everyone. People make mistakes so you design a system that reduces the likelihood of making a mistake and minimizes the consequences when something happens.
Ryan Sharp, director of Transportation and Parking for Hoboken, NJ, (population 60,000) said in a keynote speech that his city has gone six years without a traffic fatality. Getting there requires not only paying attention to locations where accidents have happened, but others that are understood to be dangerous. A city also must be willing to reduce traffic speeds. Even with no fatalities for six years, Hoboken continues it effort to reduce speed limits on all city streets to 20 mph. Excess speed is clearly a significant safety hazard increasing both the likelihood and severity of an accident.
20 is Plenty recognizes this and works to reduce speed. In Boston and other communities, neighborhoods can request a city reduce speeds to 20 mph and, if approved, the city will put in signs and traffic humps.
Street Diets recognizes that the best and possibly only reliable way to reduce speed is to make it physically hard to go fast by narrowing lanes and shortening straight sections. This also makes room for other features such as bike lanes, sidewalks, plantings that improve the quality of the area and reduce traffic speeds.
Striking were the before and after photos of streets in Hoboken. Early photos showed multiple lanes, parking on both sides of the road, concrete, glare, and few people. The latter photos showed spaces full of vegetation, people walking, biking, and hanging out. Thee was less parking and no glare. In addition to safety, there clearly was an improved quality of life.
We are at a turning point in funding transportation maintenance and improvements. It is not clear what the future will bring, but we know it will be different than the past and present. Gas taxes have not been increasing with inflation while construction costs have been increasing faster than inflation. Addressing climate change is resulting in increased fuel efficiency and electrification both of which de-couple road use from petroleum usage. A new funding model has to be implemented.
It is believed that this will come to a head in Oregon’s 2025 full legislative session. What will be the nature of future funding and will it be able to be used for something broader than just roads? Options include tolling (is this just for usage or does it include congestion pricing?), some usage tax based on miles driven (how would this be structured and collected?), keeping a gas tax as is, or changing it to a carbon tax (possibly opening it up for broader uses than just roads)? An important change is coming, how we fund the future will have significant impact on our communities and how we live and move in the future; the time to help define and significantly impact that future is now.
The transition is also apparent in the Oregon Department of Transportation. They insist that they are changing and are working hard to improve all mass transit options, micro-mobility modes, walking, and not just motor vehicle mobility. They have new employees working to improve safe routes to schools, intracity transit options, and traffic safety. But, it is hard to turn something large that has a lot of inertia; we shall see.
A forester once told me that the current needs, knowledge, and reality of a forest have changed, but that the management and policies are defined by what was learned previously; they are generally a generation out of date. I am very pleased with the evolution in Oregon’s transportation agency, but I fear it may be similar to forestry and be much slower than needed or desired.
All for one, one for all. No, not the Three Musketeers, but cyclists and potential cyclists in our community. I recently have been involved with transportation planning efforts in our area. As I make input on behalf of the club, either the agency seeking input or other participants in the session have dismissed our interests as simply being those of “recreational riders.” By implication, recreation riders are less important than “true transportation” users like those going to school, work, or shopping. In reality, our interests are the same and we need to work together to create a transportation system that works for us all.
In town, the desired infrastructure and policies that make it safe for one cyclist, work for us all. Creating an environment that promotes safe bike and pedestrian travel outside of town creates a culture that encourages and makes all cyclists and pedestrians safer. Users who feel unsafe either stop the activity or drive to a start location that feels safer. These actions increase car use and congestion that are harmful to personal and community health, and are antithetical to all current goals relating to quality of life and the environment. Instead of increasing mobility, our roads become a cage through which we can only pass with a vehicle.
Existing transportation plans in our area are motor vehicle plans. They focus on increasing vehicle speed and traffic throughput. Transit, cycling, and pedestrian needs are added as required, but there is not an effort to look first at a bike or pedestrian plan; a plan that would promote the enjoyment, safety, and use of active transportation to connect to destinations in and around our communities. All cyclists need to work together to generate and advocate for those plans as well as near term improvements that work to make what exists as safe and inviting as possible.