What Happened!?!
The year was 1967. My Weekly Reader was reporting on a rail road turned into a bike path between Sparta and Elroy Wisconsin. This was too amazing for me to believe at the time. I am sure there were earlier cycling stories, but this set me off. 32 miles seemed like an exciting, Herculean journey back then (some are well over a hundred now). It would be 40 years before I would actually ride this trail just 180 miles from my home.
About the same time, The City of Davenport started talking about limiting speeds and painting something called a Sharrow. They were actually talking about adding bike lanes! The whole country was in to alternative transportation and walkable streets. While Copenhagen was still adding lanes to their over motorized streets, we were talking about riding bicycles all the way across our country. I have friends that rode The Bikecentenial, which inspired RAGBRAI.
This is Copenhagen 1970.
We were so full of hope through The 70’s. We led The World! What happened? All the promises made still have not come to fruition. The rest of the world has passed us.
Every mile of segregated bicycle path actually saves us money. Our many bicycle trails and multi-use paths (MUP’s), which until ten years ago went no where, are now magnets for business. It is not like they have not proven themselves.
You can go almost anywhere and do almost anything on our MUP’s, but they leave out most of pur population and places of employment. Most still feel safe only hauling their bikes and strollers to them. What happened?
I have been commuting by bicycle for 30 years. I get it. Some might find Vehicular Cycling on the street to be a bit scary, but why aren’t we doing anything about it? According to The NHTSB, the AVERAGE motorist is speeding at any given moment. This, inspite of the fact that you cannot cross any of our cities one minute faster doing so! Rarely do you even see our police obeying limits (can you blame them? They’d be issueing tickets every day to morons who rear end them).
Now, I love MUP’s and rail trails. I encourage everyone to join The Rails To Trails Conservancy (there are several great trails to visit in every state of our union). How much more might we enjoy them if we didn’t feel the need to haul our bikes to them? What if we could go to stores, restaurants or our businesses on them (e-bikes make this a lot more palatable for most)? How much gas would we save for important trips, rural folks and hauling things, if we felt safe riding our bikes on the street or on segrgated paths? Would the price of gas even be a consideration?
Fun fact: The City of Bettendorf has more miles of segregated bike lanes than even Copenhagen. The problem is that they aren’t really protected. You have to stop every hundred yards or less so motorists can turn off the main road, on to side streets. This is absurd! Ours is the only means of transport, including walking, that does not have the right of way in a crosswalk or going straight vs turning! No, it was a good thought, but Bettendorf is not an example for the rest to follow. Besides, they leave out areas of concentrated employment and all of their downtown, including The MRT and bridge crossing (apparently, safety is only a consideration for wealthier residents and relaxation).
The Quad Cities is well behind places like Iowa City, Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Minneapolis, Milwaukee etc. Muscatine and Clinton appear poised to pass us as well. Still, we are light years ahead of most of the country. People are coming here from all over to see our new bridge and ride our downtown loop. Imagine though if all of our streets were walkable. How much more tourism might we bring in? How much better would our community be for the environment?