A good path from here to there

The unofficial tongue-in-cheek motto of the great state of Maine is “you can’t get there from here.” Here in Virginia, when you’re riding your bike, that motto can also apply all too often. Many times, when I’m running an errand to a new place that I haven’t biked to before, the path will suddenly end leaving me stranded. Then I have to wend my way back to a bikeable path, sometimes over obstacles and through mud, sometimes on a road with scary traffic.

Now, I am an enthusiastic and experienced bike rider, committed to using human-powered transport whenever and wherever I can. But that makes me an outlier. If we hope to appeal to a larger audience, and to derive the benefits that come from converting more car trips to bike trips, we need to step back and look at our transportation network with an eye toward fixing these gaps.

Here in our little corner of Northern Virginia, one main factor contributing to the gap problem is that much of our pedestrian/bicycle infrastructure is built by subdivision developers as a condition of their build permits issued by the local government. After a time, the subsequent maintenance is generally taken over by the various Home Owners Associations (HOAs) governing those new developments. In practice, this means that a path can end abruptly, like the one shown in the picture above, at the edge of a subdivision boundary. Also, the paths themselves are built and maintained to different standards. This results in piecemeal infrastructure with gaps that make it inconvenient or even dangerous to ride, even on routes that are mostly well-provided with good bike infrastructure. Having gaps in the bike/pedestrian network really puts a damper on people deciding to use more human-powered transport.

Another big factor is the automatic priority given to cars in our street design standards. Our goal when designing a right of way is almost always to get as many cars where they want to go as efficiently as possible. We are so used to giving total priority to motor vehicles and their needs that we forget that that is just a choice we have made—a choice with lots of high costs for municipalities, for people’s commutes, for the air that we breathe, for the health of our communities, and for our global climate.

Many places have shifted their priorities. Instead of getting as many cars where they want to go as efficiently as possible, they have started to design for getting as many people where they want to go as efficiently as possible, which includes by car where that form of transport is the best option. Everyone benefits from this shift in perspective.

Drivers benefit by having fewer cars on the road when it becomes quick, cheap, and convenient to do many kinds of trips on foot, by bike, or by public transit.
Businesses benefit because pedestrian traffic is much more profitable than car traffic in many situations. And when zoning regulations are adjusted to reduce minimum parking requirements, costs to businesses are significantly reduced.
Municipalities benefit because huge swaths of their land currently dedicated to expensive-to-maintain roads and parking can be repurposed for activities that produce revenue instead of costing taxpayers.
Citizens benefit when it is a reasonable option to choose not to devote upwards of $12,000 per year of their income on a car since they can get where they want to go quickly and easily on foot, bike or public transport.

It is possible to change our thinking and to choose a better way to do things. A major goal of Bike Ashburn is to encourage the development of infrastructure that supports people being able to choose the right vehicle for every trip. If lots of people go to the same place every day, good public transport can drastically reduce the space, fuel, and commute times needed to get all those people where they need to go. For everyday errands to the nearby places where we go all the time, using a bike can seamlessly build exercise into our day while avoiding a surprisingly huge amount of car-related costs.

These two obstacles to connectivity—piecemeal infrastructure and always giving priority to car traffic in our street design—can be greatly improved by having a solid master plan. And everyone benefits from this. A good plan means that we don’t have to fall prey to a zero-sum mentality where the needs of bike riders, car drivers, and pedestrians can only be met at the expense of the other groups. Rather, we can intelligently adapt our existing rights of way so that some routes and areas have motorized traffic emphasized, and other routes and areas prioritize the needs of human-powered transport. That is, we can create places where bikes and pedestrians are at home and where cars are the guests, and we establish other places places where the cars are at home and everyone else is a guest. This is basically a shift in perspective from car-centric to people-centric planning.

This intentional creation of different routes suited to the different modalities will naturally help reduce gaps in the infrastructure supporting those different modes of transport. And it also naturally reduces the interactions between types of transport that differ significantly in size, power, and speed, making transportation flow better—and more safely—for everyone.