A recent Scientific American article suggests that if we want to get serious about getting more people riding bikes for transportation we need to focus on the needs of one group in particular: women. The article quotes several reports that show cities and countries with high bicycle usage also have a near equal male/female usage ratio The U.S. by contrast has a 2:1 ratio. By focusing on safety and practicality, cycling will appeal to more women, one of the signs of a healthy cycling movement.

For years, there have been arguments in the cycling community about how best to get more Americans using bicycles for trips instead of the car. Vehicular Cyclists said that cyclists just needed to act like cars on the road, that we didn’t bicycle infrastructure, and in fact bicycle infrastructure actually hurt cyclists by making the bicycle a second class citizen on the road. This theory was pervasive in U.S. planning for decades with the results being extremely low bicycle use. Moreover since this theory actively discouraged the construction of bike lanes or paths, it forced many cyclists who couldn’t hack acting like a vehicle onto sidewalks, the most dangerous place by cyclists to be. Fortunately, other theories have prevailed, and Vehicular Cyclists have largely fallen out of favor.

The focus of recent planning has been on bicycle infrastructure as is evident in the recently adopted Austin Master Bike Plan. Much of this is in the form of bike lanes, a relatively low cost, low impact way to make space on the roads for cyclists. Unfortunately, reports sited by the Scientific American article indicate this form of infrastructure may have a limited effect on getting more bikes on the road. A Portland State study found that women were less comfortable than men with on-street bike lanes, and that they were more likely to go out of their way to use a route that was car-free like a bike path or traffic calmed like a bike boulevard. Austin is getting it’s first bike boulevard this spring which would seem to be a helpful addition.

All bike paths and boulevards aside, it seems this infrastructure is still of limited effect if it does not connect people to everyday tasks. Austin has miles of bike/ped trails, but the focus is almost exclusively on recreation. Riding your bike along Lady Bird Lake may be a joy, but it doesn’t get you to the grocery store, dry cleaning, or to pick up your kid from school. Rutgers University urban planning professor John Pucher indicates in the article that this is a problem when trying to increase female use. Despite growing social gender equity, women still do the majority of the errands in most households, and unless biking can be presented to be as easy and safe as a car, it will be hard to make change.

Some of this has to do with land planning, but bicycle infrastructure planning is part of this as well. I attended the October Austin Cycling Association meeting where staff from TX DOT solicited responses from the cycling community about where cycling infrastructure was needed. In the face of a frustrated audience tired of TX DOT inaction, the staffers said the problem was they didn’t have enough data on where cycling traffic is. I pointed out that this was a backward approach, and they already had all the data they needed. I suggested they look at where people live and where they shop, go to school, and go to work and that will tell them were to build cycling infrastructure. The approach TX DOT took perpetuates the idea that cyclists are this separate extreme group that specific corridors must be made for instead of cycling being a natural, organic part of every day life. One of the TX DOT staffers said she wouldn’t feel safe riding a bike on our roads. If their own staff aren’t comfortable using their own facilities, I’d say they are a failure.

The one item left out of the Scientific American article was the actual vehicles readily available to the public. The U.S. bicycle industry has been dominated by performance and recreational use. Little but lip service has been paid to biking for transportation, and it has shown with the “commuter bike” offering being a recreational bike with a rack and (sometimes) fenders slapped on. More maintenance intensive components like rim brakes and external derailleurs are the standard while practical accessories like chain guards, kickstands, and lights are the exception. There has been a recent trend towards a more practical design, but while many of these bikes take style cues from English Roadsters, French Porter bikes, and Dutch city, they still present an incomplete package or maintain some of the performance, higher maintenance parts.

I would argue providing the market with bikes that make everyday trips practical in regular clothes are as important as more infrastructure and better planning. Safe bike routes and sensible urban streets lay the groundwork for more transportation biking while a well designed bike provides the tool to make it practical. It is yet to be seen if the bike industry will make a real, long term commitment to making this a reality, but it seems clear it would be wise for them to listen to what women want.

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