{"id":754,"date":"2010-06-10T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wabikes.org\/2010\/06\/10\/wagners-music-skydiving-and-getting-americans-to-ride-their-bikes\/"},"modified":"2010-06-10T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-10T15:00:00","slug":"wagners-music-skydiving-and-getting-americans-to-ride-their-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2010\/06\/10\/wagners-music-skydiving-and-getting-americans-to-ride-their-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Wagner\u2019s music, skydiving, and getting Americans to ride their bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWagner\u2019s music,\u201d Mark Twain once observed, \u201cis actually much better than it sounds.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Which reminds me of trying to convince my non-bicycling friends that riding a bike is actually much safer than it seems.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI would never<\/i> ride a bike in Seattle,\u201d they declare. \u201cAll those cars. It\u2019s just too risky.\u201d <\/span>And I\u2019ll respond: \u201cI know it might feel dangerous, but it\u2019s really not. Statistically<\/a>, only 5.8 cyclists die for every 100 million kilometers cycled in the United States.\u201d And they\u2019ll say: \u201cStatistics be damned. Bicycling on the street makes me feel like I\u2019m roller-skating in a buffalo stampede. I\u2019ll keep jogging, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

If perceived danger keeps Americans off their bikes in droves, then how can you convince them that they\u2019re wrong? <\/span>I think the answer is: You can\u2019t. People\u2019s first-hand impressions will trump cold statistics every time. <\/span><\/span>Only when bicycling feels<\/i> safe will more people will do it.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

European bike blogger David Hembrow<\/a> likens it to skydiving<\/a>. Statistics show that there\u2019s only one death for every 122,000 jumps. That means that you could skydive once a day for 334 years before you were killed. Great–but it doesn\u2019t convince most people to jump out of airplanes, because it still doesn\u2019t feel like a safe thing to do.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

It\u2019s the same thing with bicycles. Hembrow believes that the only way to increase cycling rates is to increase riders\u2019 sense of \u201csubjective safety<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

How do you do that? Hembrow argues that the key is good infrastructure<\/a> that separates cyclists from cars, and the statistics support him.<\/p>\n

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The highest cycling rates<\/a> in the first world are in countries where the infrastructure is best. <\/span>Both the Netherlands and Denmark have emphasized construction of first-rate separated bike facilities. The result? In the Netherlands, 27 percent of all trips are made by bicycle. Compare this to the United States, where the bicycle\u2019s share stands at a miserable one percent. <\/span>In Copenhagen<\/a>, which has 350 kilometers of physically-separated bicycle \u201ctracks\u201d along its arterial streets, 55 percent of all residents get to school or work by bicycle. <\/span>In \u201cbike-friendly\u201d Seattle, it\u2019s three percent<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

You can see how separated infrastructure increases \u201csubjective safety\u201d by taking a ride on a local bike trail. I was on Seattle\u2019s Burke-Gilman Trail last Saturday morning. It was sunny, and the trail was clogged with cyclists of all descriptions. Not just road warriors, either. There were kids<\/a> in bike trailers, kids on the bike behind mom or dad, and kids on their own bikes with training wheels. <\/span>If parents are willing to let their children ride somewhere, then you know they believe it\u2019s safe.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Yes, building good bike infrastructure costs money. But it\u2019s sure cheap compared to building new highways<\/a> and parking garages<\/a>. <\/span>And it\u2019s the only way we can bring bicycling out of the realm of fringe activities and into the mainstream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWagner\u2019s music,\u201d Mark Twain once observed, \u201cis actually much better than it sounds.\u201d Which reminds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[19,13,22,15,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commuting","category-bike-infrastructure-wa","category-kids","category-safety","category-transportation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWagner\u2019s music, skydiving, and getting Americans to ride their bikes - 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