Cycling and Safe Streets in Amsterdam: A Movement Sparked by Parents and Children

Bicycle parking garage in Amsterdam

My family recently returned from a trip to Amsterdam, where we got to try out cycling in one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. When we exited the train station, we were greeted by a multi-story parking garage clogged with more than 3,000 bikes, a now famous landmark in Amsterdam, reflecting how predominant cycling is here. Approximately 38% of all trips in Amsterdam are by bike compared to 2-3% in Austin.

I have been reading up about how these infrastructure changes came about. This video chronicles Amsterdam's history as a cycling city, pointing out that Amsterdam has not always embraced cycling like it does today. In the 1970s, after a record number of children were killed on Dutch roads, Dutch parents and their children led mass protests and organized around the country, demanding a transportation policy that prioritized safe streets.

Cycling in Amsterdam

While much attention has been given to how this fierce activism helped launch the construction of the nation's world-famous cycling infrastructure, families across the Netherlands worked for much more than that.  A wonderful documentary from 1972 captures how Dutch families have taken to the streets for a whole range of measures to make streets safer for children in dense urban areas. The Dutch government responded by creating play streets, "street corner havens," car-free Sundays, and an array of other traffic calming measures.

One of Amsterdam's biggest infrastructure challenges today is, ironically, addressing the deluge of bikes that fill the streets. Before our trip, a Dutch friend had warned us to not cycle in Amsterdam with children in the busy urban core unless they were super experienced urban cyclists.  It is true that making the jump to cycling in Amsterdam for my family was, well, terrifying at times. Sort of like going from driving a car in a small town to an L.A. freeway. My preteen children had to learn on the fly that they could absolutely not stop, much less slow down, while we were cycling in rush hour cycling traffic. And this was while cycling without helmets (no one wears them in Amsterdam and they were unavailable at the bike rental shop). The worst part was avoiding the speeding mopeds that weaved in and out of cyclists in the cycle lanes—apparently a widespread problem in the city. Luckily, it sounds like the government recognizes this is an issue and is working to ban mopeds in cycle paths.

Speeding mopeds and rush hour traffic aside, overall we were extremely impressed with Amsterdam's cycling infrastructure—an incredible opportunity to try out in person what we can aspire to here in Austin. The dedicated cycle lanes, the cycle-centric street crossings, the traffic lights for bikes, the ubiquitous bike parking facilities, and more. All these things were a delight to see in person.

Today, the Netherlands' traffic fatality rate is 60% lower than it was when parents and others first set out to advocate for safer streets. Meanwhile, Austin's traffic fatalities are on track to be a record high this year.  It is good to keep in mind the experiences of the Netherlands in making its street safer: that changes are more than possible, but they will not come about until the public demands them.

Off-street cycling lanes in Amsterdam

Cyclists even have their own lights!

A highlight: cycling through the famous Rijksmuseum

More dedicated cycling lanes with nice big buffers from the street

Gettings Kids to Bicycle to School

New bike racks at Hart Elementary School in Austin
(photo courtesy of the City of Austin)

Back in 1969 (what my kids now refer to as the “olden days”), walking and bicycling to school was part of everyday life. Nearly half of all students traveled to school on foot or by bike. Today, that’s no longer the case, with only 13% of children walking or bicycling to school. Meanwhile, the percentage of children arriving at school by private automobile has increased from 12% to 44% (the rate of school bus ridership has stayed almost the same).

Austin is home to a number of innovative programs to encourage kids to bicycle to school. Last month, the City of Austin launched a major bicycle/walk-to-school initiative at Hart Elementary School, which serves a high proportion of low-income students with limited opportunities to be active. Along with the installation of a 1.3-mile cycle track connecting nearby apartment complexes to the school, the City secured 300 bikes to donate to children who commit to cycling to school. As of this week, more than 80 kids were cycling to school regularly!

The Bike Train at Hart Elementary School in Austin
(photo courtesy of the City of Austin)

As part of the program, the City has set up bike trains and walking school buses with adult monitors to pick the students up from their apartment complexes and supervise their commute to school. (A bike train is an organized group of students who cycle together along a pre-arranged route to school under the close supervision of adults.  A walking school bus is the pedestrian version of a bike train.) When the students arrive on campus, they swipe a special card so their parents can know they arrived safely.

In addition to the City’s program at Hart Elementary, at least five other elementary schools in Austin low-income neighborhoods have recently started walking school bus programs. Meanwhile, parents and PTA organizations at a number of local schools have started their own bike trains. The City of Austin’s Child Safety program provides support to parents who want to set up their own bike trains, by providing maps for customized biking routes and reflective arm bands for participants.

Boltage program at Doss Elementary School
(photo courtesy of AISD)

Several area schools, including Doss Elementary and Martin Middle Schools, have adopted high-tech approaches to get kids on bikes. One of these programs, Boltage, uses a solar-powered reader that records each child’s bike trip to school. The records are then used to reward students who commute to school regularly by bike.

While Austin has made great progress recently in encouraging kids to cycle and bike to school, our community has a long ways to go if we want to reclaim the days when one out of every two kids bicycled or walked to school. By helping kids walk and bicycle to school, we can make a dent in child obesity rates here in Austin, where 38% of children in grades 3 to 8 are overweight or obese.  Increasing cycling and walk-to-school rates also reduces traffic congestion. In some communities, as much as 30% of vehicle traffic in the morning rush hour is from children being driven to school.

 

Safety remains the biggest barrier to getting more kids on bikes. We should all be advocating at City Hall for more local funding to create safer routes to schools, including sidewalks, cycle tracks, and neighborhood traffic calming. I love seeing what other cities are doing in this regards. Portland and Seattle, for example, are both building a network of neighborhood greenways that give priority to cyclists and pedestrians. By 2015, 80% of Portland residents will live within half a mile of a neighborhood greenway.

At a neighborhood and school level, setting up a bike train or walking school bus can go a long way in overcoming parents’ concerns about safety. In Portland, bike trains are now a predominant feature of kids’ commute to school, supported by a robust cycling culture and even a website with information on bike trains in operation around the city. In Seattle, the school district is working to set up a bike train or walking school bus at every elementary school in the district.

Austin is lucky to already have lots of success stories to build from to help our children bike and walk to school. Working together as a community to address the remaining barriers, I see no reason why we cannot reach the same goal that Seattle recently adopted—to get 50% of children walking and biking to school again.

(Look for a longer version of this blog post in the November issue of Austin Fit). 

When to Allow Your Children to Navigate Austin's Streets Alone on a Bike?

Cycling with my son down South Lamar: Not for the faint of heart!

As my sons approach their teens, they are wanting something I had as a kid: the ability to explore their neighborhood on bikes without their parents hovering over them.

A typical arterial street in our neighborhood.
Lots of parked cars, leaving no room for two cars to pass each other,
let alone two cars and a cyclist.

But our inner-city neighborhood streets today are not like the quiet streets in the suburbs where I grew up. Today, our streets are crowded with parked cars and traffic while lacking basic pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Our kids have to regularly navigate weaving in and out of parked cars while distracted drivers speed by them. When there are sidewalks (which are rare), the kids must confront huge cracks, uneven pavement, and missing curb cuts.  It's one thing to navigate these hazards as a 40-year-old with many years of experience cycling, and another thing when you are 9.

Our neighborhood is by no means alone in this regards in Austin.  Throughout the city, parents must regularly confront this question: At what point is it safe enough to let your child ride his bike or scooter without an adult nearby?

One of our rare neighborhood sidewalks.
Notice the lack of curb cuts.

Six years ago, Lenore Skenazy wrote a controversial article about how she let her 9-year-old son ride the New York subway home alone. This sparked a national conversation about parents becoming too obsessed with theirs kids' safety, stripping kids of the independence that they need to grow into healthy, confident adults. More recently, an article by Hanna Rosin criticized parents' pre-occupation with safety and cites evidence that links the loss of children's ability to engage in independent, risk-taking discovery  to increases in "depression, narcissism, and a decline in empathy."

Both of these articles, however, ignore the hazards we observe everyday as we travel through our neighborhoods: absent-minded drivers who text, ignore crosswalks, and regularly speed through our neighborhood streets. Rosin asserts that the world is not a more dangerous place than it was when we were growing up, but she bases her argument solely on crime stats and child abduction rates, not on traffic safety. Meanwhile, pedestrian fatalities have been on the rise. A pedestrian is injured every 8 minutes in a traffic crash in the United States, and 19% of these injuries are to kids 15 and younger. Pedestrian injuries are the second leading cause of accidental death among children 5 to 15. 

I wonder if I would feel more comfortable letting my kids ride a New York City subway alone than, say, riding their bikes or walking to their local library. I might. According to a report released last week by Smart Growth America, the Austin metro area is the 24th most dangerous region for pedestrians (and probably not any better for cyclists); New York City is 48th (out of 51 metro areas). To get to our neighborhood library, my kids have to navigate several hazards, including crossing a very busy and dangerous intersection on South Lamar where I regularly see cars turning left that fail to yield to oncoming cars, let alone pedestrians and cyclists. (Here's a link to a prior post about our cycling adventures together on South Lamar).

All this being said, I think that ultimately the decision about whether to let your child ride his or her bike alone is a very personal one. It depends on the conditions in the neighborhood, as well as the child's cognitive abilities and experience riding with adults and learning good cycling safety judgment. What also helps: a leap of faith, a kiss on the cheek, and maybe a prayer or two. 

The cast from the broken arm!

Taking all these things into account, last month we finally decided our kids were old enough to go off alone on their scooters to buy snow cones on the edge of the neighborhood.  The outcome? Did our kids survive? Yes. Although my oldest son's scooter hit a big piece of broken pavement in the sidewalk, causing him to fall and break his arm. I kid you not.

Will we let our children ride alone again? Yes, although next time I will remind them to look out for the cracks in the sidewalk.

Here's the uneven pavement that was the source of the fall and broken arm.
This is very typical of the state of neighborhood sidewalks in Austin.
Despite several calls to the City of Austin, this sidewalk has still not been repaired.

Cycling in San Francisco with Kids

The Which Way blog has been offline in vacation mode these past few weeks but is back now. After wrapping up a four-day visit to San Francisco, there are tons of things I am excited to post about the city. First up, cycling in San Francisco with kids:

Yesterday, our family went on the most gorgeous city ride we have ever been on before, cycling across the Golden Gate Bridge. In the morning, we rented bikes at the Embarcadero and then followed a popular and well-marked route, which took us along the waterfront, past Fisherman's Wharf and Crissy Field and then across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. We took the ferry from there back to the city.

There were a few parts of the ride that felt unsafe--those parts where the lanes were not buffered from a busy street or towards the end where we were sharing the road with cars--but otherwise the ride was glorious and very friendly for kids ages 8 and up if you are fine with walking up the steeper hills. Unmatchable views, great stops along the way, and no finer way to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. On the ride there we got to view the America's Cup boats in the bay, and we even came across a large group of kids participating in a week-long summer camp for exploring the city on bikes. Very cool! The only downer (aside from my kids bickering along the way) was at the end when we had to wait in line with hundreds of other cyclists for more than an hour to take the ferry from Sausalito back to San Francisco. Apparently, the key is to get to the ferry terminal earlier in the day to avoid the crush of cyclists arriving. As it was, we barely got back in time to return our bikes before the rental stand closed at 7pm. From another website, here is a summary of the route we took, along with good navigation tips.

In San Francisco, 3.5 percent of trips are by cycling, but the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is aiming to increase that number to 8-10 percent by 2018, as part of a larger goal for half of all trips to be by sustainable modes of transportation. The agency's strategy to get there includes getting more families with kids to ride bikes, which means creating safer bike lanes, such as cycle tracks separated from cars. Like Austin, San Francisco is one of 6 cities taking part in the Green Lane Project to install more protected bike lanes throughout the city.

Here are some more pictures from our ride:

We started the ride on San Francisco's newly painted green bike lane along Embarcadero.  In terms of safety, I liked the green lane a lot better than no color on the pavement, but this part of the ride still made me nervous and required lots of supervision on my part since my youngest son is prone to weave in and out of his bike lane. I would have preferred to have seen some kind of buffer from the cars here.

This part of the ride was wonderful, with a shared bike-pedestrian path completely separated from cars.  Some parts of the path were marked off to separate the cyclists and pedestrians. In other parts, cyclists and pedestrians shared all of the path (see below), which worked out fine except for a couple instances when I had to warn my kids to watch out where they were going and to give pedestrians the right of way.

Approaching Golden Gate Bridge

The ride into Sausalito

Picking up our bikes on the ferry after our arrival back in San Francisco

Exploring Austin on Bikes with Kids: Duncan Park and Shoal Creek Trail

Duncan Park, Austin

Yesterday my family headed out on our bikes for an afternoon outing and discovered Duncan Park in downtown Austin (aka 9th Street Trails), a mecca for dirt bikers and kids of all ages.  Younger kids appear to congregate here earlier in the day, followed by older, more hard core BMX bikers in the later hours. My kids fell in love with this park, although (thankfully for my sanity) they stuck to the smaller dirt hills. There are several things I love about this park as well: its organic development and maintenance by a community of local BMX bikers; its prime location in downtown Austin; and the fact that you can access it via the Shoal Creek trail. 

Shoal Creek trail is now passable in most parts from Lady Bird Lake, providing a safe alternative for families with kids to bike through Downtown Austin, off the streets.  With our beautiful January weather, it was a wonderful outing!

Duncan Park

Riding back home, we also discovered the new interactive public art installation next to the Zach Scott theater: Rhytons by Cliff Garten

Shoal Creek trail 

Parts of Shoal Creek trail still need work

Most of our group on the pedestrian bridge over Lady Bird Lake

Will Children Be Able to Access Austin's New Bike Share Program?

The City of Austin's new bike share program is quickly moving forward, with 40 kiosks slated to open this spring.  But will families with children in tow be able to use the program? It's unclear at this point according to city officials. I hope the City can find a way to make the program accessible for children, keeping in mind that families with children constitute close to 25% of Austin's households. 

Apparently no other U.S. bike share program offers access to children who cannot fit on adult-sized bikes, so there are no nearby models to learn from on this front in terms of best practices. Why is this the case? Is it because families with children won't use the bikes if they are available? Or, is it because these other cities lack the vision to support families? Or are there other barriers?

One issue is helmets, although presumably parents could carry kid helmets with them. Many adults using Austin's bike share program will also likely be bringing along their own helmets--especially in a city like Austin with such high incidents of bicyclist deaths. In DC, 30% of local riders using the Capital Bikeshare program wear their own helmets.  

Or, there could be a dispenser for helmets in addition to bikes, although dispensers are not widely offered at this point in bike share programs and have their issues.  Other cities around the world have compulsory helmet laws for all bicyclists and have still figured out ways to address the helmet issue. Portland is looking to offer helmet vending machines, and Vancouver is in process of installing them.

In addition to serving Austin's families, developing a bike share program that is accessible to children is also important for tourists traveling here with kids. During my family's travels, we have found that cities with bike share programs that don't serve children make it harder for families to bike b/c they drive the private rental shops in the city core out of business or farther out of town.

Austin's City Council has adopted a vision that our city will become the most family-friendly city in the country; a bike share program that leaves out up to 25% of the population is not representative of this vision. Hopefully the City can figure out a way moving forward to address this issue.

Envisioning the Transformation of South Lamar for Pedestrians and Cyclists

As I reported on Wednesday, transportation experts from the Netherlands met with Austin city planners and residents last week to looks at ways Austin can become more accessible to cyclists of all ages. An update: The presentation from the South Lamar group--which looked at transforming South Lamar Boulevard into a safe, accessible, and attractive corridor for cyclists and pedestrians--is now up on the City's website, along with presentations from the other teams. These are fascinating to review. 

The main issue that the South Lamar team sought to tackle was how to increase transportation capacity along the South Lamar corridor via improvements to the pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, given that the roads are close to being maxed out at certain times in the day (with 35,000 vehicular trips per day and thousands of new apartments coming online). Forty percent of the car trips on South Lamar are for less than 5 miles. If part of these car trips could be converted into trips on foot or bike, then we have a win-win for drivers, neighbors, AND businesses along the corridor. Bad traffic = bad for businesses. Increased pedestrian and bike access = good for business.

Think Bike Presentation from Team Lamar Corridor

Dutch Ideas for Making Austin More Accessible for Cyclists

Last month I blogged about a cycling outing that my son and I took on South Lamar, a major transit corridor here in Austin.  "Scary" and "dangerous" are words that hit the mark in describing what it is like to cycle on South Lamar. Last week a team of Dutch bicycle experts visited Austin and, after riding along the same corridor, agreed with this assessment. The experts, who were here courtesy of the Green Lane Project, ended their visit with a workshop that explored ways to make this corridor less scary and dangerous for cyclists.  Here are some great photos from their ride on South Lamar.

Courtesy of © Renee Renteria Photography

The folks I talked to who attended the workshop were very excited about the Dutch delegation's recommendations for transforming South Lamar into a safe, accessible, and attractive corridor for cyclists and pedestrians. An update from Eileen Nehme, a mother of young kids in one of the adjoining neighborhoods who spent two days with the team:

Cycling the length of South Lamar with Andre Botermans, the Dutch Cycling Embassy representative and urban planner working with our team, was eye opening. In The Netherlands, roads with >10k auto trips per day get bike tracks physically separated from motor traffic. South Lamar has >35K. He was aghast that we would create a bike lane with a stripe of paint on a road as dangerous as South Lamar. . . . The full design includes two-way cycle tracks on both sides of Lamar, which would be shared with pedestrians until the 15' pedestrian zone was completed. These tracks would be separated from motor traffic by a 3-5' planted buffer that serves as a rain garden to filter road runoff. This design preserves the current five motor vehicle lanes (two each way, plus center turn) where room exists. . . . This vision is thrilling to those of us who want to address the exploding transportation demands on South Lamar and be able to bike safely to Wheatsville or Target. Making cycling a viable and significant transportation mode is essential to Austin's future.

Ideas from the Think Bike workshop on transforming South Lamar into a cycling-friendly transit corridor 

Discovering the Power of 10 in Chicago

On a recent trip to Chicago with my oldest son, we discovered the Power of 10 for creating a great public space. The space? Millennium Park, an extraordinary outdoor space that attracts 3 million visitors a year and has been recognized as one of the best public spaces in the country.  There is something for people of all ages to discover and explore in this park, which was built on top of a railroad yard and parking garages.  Our favorite discovery was the interactive public art, at both the Crown Fountain and the Cloud Gate sculpture.

The Power of 10 was discussed last month in a fabulous article from the Urban Times on "10 Ways to Improve Your City through Public Space."  (Thanks to my friend Terry for sharing this article). The concept is simple: to create a great public space, make sure it provides at least 10 different things to attract people to that space.

At the end of our visit to Millennium Park, we rented bikes in the park and set out on 2 wheels to explore the lakefront area next to downtown Chicago. Other than the lakefront route, the options for cycling safely with kids through and around downtown Chicago were somewhat limited as far as we could tell, but the lakefront route provides for miles and miles of wonderful safe cycling with children.

Millennium Park's Crown Fountain showing video clips of local residents
and providing a water play are for children in the summer months

Millennium Park's Cloud Gate sculpture, referred to as "The Bean"

Close up of The Bean in Millennium Park

McDonald Cycle Center in Millennium Park

McDonald's Cycle Center in Millennium Park

Headed out on bikes from Millennium Park

Cycling along the lakefront in Chicago

Kidical Mass -- Group Cycling for Kids

There are all sorts of fabulous blogs out there on cycling around cities with kids. One of my favorites is Family Ride, which features a family traveling around Seattle with two small children. Today I came across a great site for Kidical Mass, which started in 2008 to promote family-friendly cycling in cities and towns through group rides.  Chapters have sprouted up around the county, including Kidical Mass Seattle as well as chapters in Portland, San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and D.C.  Surprisingly, no listing of a chapter in Austin.

There's a great flickr group site on Kidical Mass rides. Here are some pics from the site:

Kidical Mass ride in Eugene, Oregon
flickr/shanerh (Shane MacRhodes)

 Kidical Mass ride in Saskatoon, Canada
flickr/Scott Woods-Fehr

Kidical Mass ride in San Luis Opispo County
flickr/SLO County Bicycle Coalition

Cycling Through an Obstacle Course: South Lamar

Today my 9-year-old son and I ventured out again on our bikes down South Lamar.  We rode from the Walgreens down to Bicycle Sportshop on a patchwork of sidewalks and driveways.  The route was an obstacle course that made Austin's Barton Creek greenbelt seem like a breeze to get through on a bike. Cycling with kids on South Lamar is NOT for the faint hearted.

Cycling with Children on South Lamar

We were more adventurous on our bikes this week, heading out to Kirbey Lane on South Lamar one morning for pancakes. Would never take my kids on the bike lanes along South Lamar. Too close to vehicular traffic for children. Instead, we navigated over a hodgepodge of sidewalks and driveways to get there and back. Verdict? Not as bad as I thought it would be, although definitely some treacherous parts and one bike crash from navigating around the noxious corner at Bluebonnet and South Lamar.

Headed out on the new cycle tracks

Headed to Kirbey Lane on eastside of Lamar

Navigating around the bus stop

Headed back on westside of Lamar; no sidewalks in parts

Sidewalk closed.

No curb cut or way to stay on bike without riding into oncoming traffic
or picking up bike and walking over flower bed (which we ended up doing)

The noxious curb
Why are there so many utility poles in the middle of sidewalks?

Bike crash! Bruised knee and bruised ego.