Since the bicycle boom in 2020, cyclists have been all over the United States. While biking is great exercise, it’s often dangerous due to a lack of biking infrastructure.
But imagine a future where everyone, regardless of age or ability, feels safe and confident on two wheels.
Creating inclusive access isn’t just about safety; it’s about fostering a healthier, more connected community.
What is Biking Infrastructure?
Biking infrastructure is many things and can manifest as a bike lane with a curb between the bike lane and the road or a place to lock up your bike at the store or at public places.
It seems like taking up the road for bike lanes would be a bad idea because it would raise taxes and it would make lanes smaller, but making the lanes smaller is kind of the point.
To elucidate, the Streetsblog USA study of 2023 shows that there are 50% more crashes with lanes 12 feet than 9 feet, this infrastructure would turn them from 12 to 9 feet and end up reducing speeding rates significantly.
7. It Gives a Place for Cyclists to put their Bikes
The biking infrastructure would create more places for bikes to be locked up at work offices, dental offices, grocery stores, therapy buildings and many more places.
This would make more people use bikes because they would be less likely to be stolen. Only a professional bike-stealer carries a grinder with them wherever they go, but it is not that common.
Another way to reduce the likelihood of your bike being stolen is to lock it up correctly, wrap it around the thickest bar of the place you are locking it up to, thread it through your front wheel, through the frame of your bike and over the handlebars. If you just put it through the front wheel, then they can take the wheel off and take the bike.
6. It Puts Something Physical Between the Cars and Cyclists
When cyclists are biking on the road, it is very dangerous for them to bike that way because there is nothing stopping the cars from hitting the cyclists.
Many people who drive cars don’t know what the paint means when they put paint on the road to make a bike lane, and if they do, most people don’t respect it.
Only this morning, I saw over 4 cars treat the bike lane as a separate lane to get around heavy traffic in a Elementary school, school zone. This is a big problem that is caused by having no biking infrastructure and threatens lives.
5. People will Become More Healthy
If we put in infrastructure, then it will both optimize bike travel, making more people buy bikes and ride them, and it will make people more healthy.
Although people will keep overeating along with not getting proper nutrients, those people who overeat just might get much stronger by cycling with all that extra weight. It might also convince people to lose weight so that it is easier to bike where they need to go.
It will optimize bike travel by making it so that cyclists have a defined area to bike along with helping the cyclists not have to bike where all the cars are going, because if they did that, traffic would slow them down significantly.
4. It will Protect the Cars
I know what you are probably thinking, “You have been talking about the bikes, why would it protect the cars?” well good question. If you were thinking that.
The answer to that question comes in the form of the Streetsblog USA study of 2023 that shows that there are 50% more crashes with lanes 12 feet than 9 feet, this infrastructure would decrease the amount of crashes significantly.
The reason that narrowing the lanes would decrease the amount of crashes is because the crashes come when people speed, with narrower lanes, the less safe people feel when speeding, so the slower people go.
3. It Decreases the Amount of Pollution From Cars
Greenhouse gasses: carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and water vapor cause our earth to act like a greenhouse, making the world warmer and warmer.
Global warming is a big problem, and a cause of that problem is that cars release greenhouse gasses when they are used, if we can reduce the amount of people driving cars, then global warming will become slower than it is now.
Cars also emit other pollutants, including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, benzene, and formaldehyde which can be very dangerous.
2. It Encourages Cyclists to Use a Bike, Not a Car
There is always going to be someone who uses a car instead of a bike, but if the States start putting in infrastructure, it will make cyclists and bike enthusiasts feel more safe doing what they love.
If every street was safe to drive on, and every area accessible by bike, then we would start seeing people all year biking to places that they want to go.
Cars can be very costly, having to pay for gas and car insurance, along with having to pay a car loan, but with infrastructure you have another solution.
1. It Protects The Cyclists
All the people who are biking get so happy when they find out about the biking infrastructure we are putting in, because it protects them.
When they are thinking about a method to get somewhere within a 20 mile radius, they probably want to bike, but they feel like they won’t be safe.
It protects the cyclists and this is important because they are people just like us, they deserve safety from 10,000 pound killing machines (cars) that are driving at about 30 miles per hour when the fastest the average person can go on a bike is about 20 miles per hour.
To Finish
Furthermore, when people want to use transportation to get to the store or to another place like therapy, the gym, or even the doctor’s office, they don’t feel safe biking there because their bikes can be stolen, they can be crushed by a car, or they could be run off the road.
An easy fix for this momentous problem is to put in biking infrastructure which will not only protect bikers, but drivers as well. If you are a cyclist put a comment down below of your opinion on this. We can make a change if we all work together, have a great day and thanks for reading.