Let's Change Our Infrastructure to Accommodate Cyclists

Of course the environment -- not to mention our health -- would be better off if more people were riding bicycles. But, there's one little problem with that: 'Tis not safe to be a bicyclist these days. Fatal bicycle accidents are outstripping all other traffic-related deaths. The problem is -- if I can use a big word (but one that everybody knows) -- infrastructure. The highways and byways and city streets were created for cars, not for bicycles. 

Bluntly, what that means is if you share a lane with a car, you share your body with a casket.

Reflect on this, though: The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that 52 percent of all trips in the U.S. are less than three miles. and almost 60 percent of the trips are under six miles from the person's home. 

Sounds like a job for a bike, right?

And, could this ever put a dent in greenhouse gases. The studies show carbon emissions would dip 12 percent if only 15 percent of the car trips were instead made by e-bikes and peddle bikes. Ride for your health and save the environment at the same time. Bicycles leave bicycle tracks, not carbon footprints. 

But, lest we forget, there is that little, little problem of infrastructure. The guess here is that we ought to devote more attention to giving the bicyclists safe passage. Don't make them share the road with cars that will kill them; dedicate full lanes to the bicycles. 

Oh, this is where a quote from Utah Sen. Mitt Romney comes in. The issue is a national topic right now, what with federal legislation being proposed for more bike lanes. Mitt doesn't like that -- thinks it's stupid. "Removing automobile lanes to put in bike lanes is, in my opinion, the height of stupidity," he told Insider this week.

Adam Ismail with Jalopnik is quick to counter what Romney says. "When you create more lanes for car traffic, what you get is more car traffic. This isn't theory -- it's the reality of induced demand, and there have been far too many examples of it globally for anyone involved in this conversation to feign ignorance about it."

Ismail probably ought to go a little easier on Romney. Romney is not feigning ignorance. It is quite normal not to have heard of the studies.

At any rate, back to what Ismail has to say: "If anything, creating bike lanes encourages some drivers to ride a bike instead, which takes cars off the road, which reduces emissions."

One thing, though, that should accompany restructuring our infrastructure so bicycling can be a bigger component: mass transit. Not everyone can hop on a bike. Some of us are not physically sound enough. Those of us in that category need to have the option of hopping on a bus, not a bike. 

(Index -- Climate change info)