{"id":683,"date":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wabikes.org\/2010\/10\/12\/northwest-bicycle-commuting-washington-gets-the-booby-prize-but-why\/"},"modified":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-12T15:00:00","slug":"northwest-bicycle-commuting-washington-gets-the-booby-prize-but-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2010\/10\/12\/northwest-bicycle-commuting-washington-gets-the-booby-prize-but-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Northwest Bicycle Commuting: Washington gets the booby prize–but why?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Want to increase the rate of bike commuting everywhere? It’s all about the infrastructure<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

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The League of American Bicyclists may have anointed Washington as America\u2019s most bicycle-friendly state<\/a>; but when it comes to bike commuting in the Northwest, we rank dead last.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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That news came in an October 7 post<\/a> on Sightline Daily<\/i>, an e-newspaper from the Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based non-profit think tank devoted to Northwest sustainability. <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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Sightline\u2019s Eric de Place analyzed census data about commuting in the four-state region (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana). The fact that Oregon leads the pack, with 2.3 percent of all commuters getting to work on two wheels, probably won\u2019t surprise anyone. But what\u2019s sobering is that Washington was whooped by Montana (with a 1.7 percent bike-commuting rate) and Idaho (with a 1.2 percent rate) as well. Washington’s bike-commuting rate is 0.9 percent.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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Northwest bike-commuting statistics look pretty anemic everywhere when you compare them with world leaders such as the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips<\/a>–not just commute trips–are by bike. But Washington\u2019s comparatively poor showing even among local states should be food for thought among local bike advocates and transportation planners.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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As might be expected, three of the top six regional bike-commuting cities were college towns. Eugene came out on top with a 10.8 percent bike-commuting rate, and was the only city to reach double digits.\u00a0 Missoula, in weather-unfriendly Montana, came in second, at 7.2 percent; while Bellingham was number four at 5.2 percent.\u00a0 Others in the top six were Portland (number three, at 5.8 percent), Boise (number five, at 4.2 percent) and Seattle (number six, at 3.0 percent, or a little more than half of Portland\u2019s rate).<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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Other Washington cities were well down on the charts. Spokane was Number 9 with a 1.9 percent bike-commuting rate; Tacoma was Number 18 (0.7 percent), Vancouver was Number 19 (0.6 percent), Everett was Number 20 (0.5 percent), and Bellevue was Number 21 (0.4 percent). Kent had the honor of being last among all listed cities, coming in at Number 28 with zero percent of its citizens getting to work by bike. (If you work in Kent, I\u2019d love to have you prove the United States Census Bureau wrong on that one.)<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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The good news is that Washington was ranked Number 1 in the Northwest for the percentage of workers who take public transit to work (a relatively low 5.9 percent, but still better than the other states).\u00a0 Seattle was the most transit-oriented of the region\u2019s cities; 19.5 percent of workers there get to their jobs by transit.\u00a0 Also, Bellingham and Seattle ranked Number 1 and 2, respectively, in the percentage of those who walk to work. (De Place\u2019s post called Seattle \u201cthe Northwest\u2019s clear leader in commute-trip alternatives.\u201d) Finally, Washingtonians do carpool at a higher rate (11.3 percent) than other Northwest states.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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But why does Washington do relatively badly when it comes to cycle commuting? I put the question to de Place by email. \u00a0He didn\u2019t have a definitive answer but did offer some ideas.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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First, he said that Seattle\u2014at least compared with most other North American cities–wasn\u2019t a bad cycling town. \u201cBiking in big, dense congested cities is hard,\u201d he said, \u201cat least given American transportation culture and bike infrastructure\u2026There\u2019s no question that Seattle can do better, but it\u2019s not like there are all that many [American] big cities that do wildly better. Portland has done awesome things, no question about it, but it\u2019s also the leading edge.\u201d<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n

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But de Place added that \u201cthe alarm bells go off when I see the dismal stats for Tacoma, Bellevue, Spokane, etc.\u201d\u00a0 He said there may be many reasons for the low bike-commuting rates in these cities, but added that \u201cthe sheer size of the Puget Sound Metro area is a factor that prevents or discourages biking for some significant share of the trips.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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<\/span>But to de Place, in the end it gets down to infrastructure. \u201cI strongly believe there\u2019s a big pent-up demand for bike infrastructure. Make it safe and even relatively convenient and I think we\u2019ll see huge numbers of people shift to [cycling] for at least a portion of their commutes and trips. But as long as our transportation policies treat bike infrastructure as basically ornamental, we\u2019ll only see piecemeal and incremental progress.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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Want to increase the rate of bike commuting everywhere? 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