PORTLAND OFFICIALS HOPE one in four residents will regularly get on a bicycle by 2030. But a new report by a leading bicycle advocacy group shows how city leaders are falling short: On Portland’s bike paths, women, poor people, and minorities are getting left behind.
“More than 25 percent of Portlanders and over 45 percent of [schoolchildren] are people of color. And yet ridership does not reflect this. We wondered why,” says the 12-page report, called “Understanding Barriers to Bicycling,” prepared by the Community Cycling Center (CCC).
The CCC assembled its report over the past 18 months, thanks to a $70,000 grant from Metro [“Bicycle Race,” News, Nov 19, 2009]. It offers no hard numbers tracking bicyclists by race or income, but says anecdotal evidence gleaned from a survey and 70 community meetings indicates that if Portland is going to meet its goal, “more must be done to address the needs of Portland’s increasingly diverse population.”
The main concerns are simple: the cost of buying a bike, worries about personal safety, and having no way to repair or safely store a bike. Of the 148 people who completed CCC’s survey, 62 percent of Latinos and 74 percent of African immigrants, for example, said they did not own a bike because they are too expensive.
“Anecdotally, we heard that bikes are toys, bikes are for kids, we heard some about bikes being symbols of gentrification,” says Alison Graves, the CCC’s community and programs director.
On the night of Thursday, August 26, a racially mixed group of nearly 40 people gathered on NE 102nd for a city- and CCC-sponsored “Equity Ride.”
“We should look at the people and places in our community that have been historically overlooked, who lack the resources like bike lanes and sidewalks that others take for granted,” said Shelli Romero, an Oregon Department of Transportation public affairs advocate, before the group set out for the new I-205 bike path.
One rider, Debora Leopold Hutchins, said she was inspired to start a bike club for black women after riding in the 2,000-person Cycle Oregon ride 10 years ago. “I loved it, but I was the only African American out there,” says Hutchins. But she has had some trouble persuading her friends to hit the road. “A lot of my friends don’t like riding on the street, they feel unsafe.”
The city is aware of the challenges. To promote biking among lower-ridership groups, for example, it has started issuing bike maps in Spanish and sponsoring women-only rides.
While stats showing ridership by race or income aren’t available, census data shows a clear gender split: 7.3 percent of Portland men rode their bikes to work in 2008, versus 4.4 percent of women.
Portland State University researcher Jennifer Dill looked into that discrepancy back in 2008, using GPS responders to track how men and women ride in the city. She found that women opt for safer routes, like quiet bike boulevards and off-street paths, and are less likely to ride on busy, on-street bike lanes.
But only 76 of Portland’s 317 miles of bike lanes and paths are off-street, so until the city beefs up its supply of safer routes, the stats show that women are likely to stick to cars and buses.
Read the cycling center’s “Understanding Barriers” report, here.
“It offers no hard numbers tracking bicyclists by race or income, but says anecdotal evidence gleaned from a survey and 70 community meetings…”
How the fuck does anecdotal evidence cost $70-fucking-thousand dollars? Did someone get paid $1000 per meeting to ask a question or two? Was it just $500 per meeting, and then $35,000 to a Soc. major to design the survey?
Safety is not the only issue that keeps women from biking. In terms of biking to and from work (which is the commute most folks make on their bikes), there’s a huge discrepancy in how women are supposed to look at work and how men are supposed to look.
Most work places don’t have showers. My fiance, for instance, couldn’t care less if he shows up to work sweaty, and the clothes he wears most days are easy to ride in. I myself (and many women, especially in certain industries) see patients at work and need to show up smelling nice and in nice clothes. That means a lot of packing, preparation and hauling for me if I want to ride and not drive. I won’t even mention the concerns of hair and make-up, which a lot of people feel are trivial but which many women (and their bosses) care about.
If you want women to ride, more work-places need showers. Also, it would be nice if bike proponents could change the double-standard between women and men and how we’re supposed to look as professionals (that’ll be easy, right?)
“PORTLAND OFFICIALS HOPE one in four residents will regularly get on a bicycle by 2030”
Does anyone ever study the negative impact of repetitive motion injuries with bicyclists? Sure, the occasional recreational ride may show no problems, but try riding 10-20 miles, day after day. Then there is the possibility of injuries from crashing, taking a spill or a collision. And many injuries to joints and ligaments can become arthritic later in life,too. Just wondering.
@ Sarahfina: Excellent point.
@ Captainron: How about the injuries from being in car crashes? “The US Department of Transportation estimates that the typical driver will have a near automobile accident one to two times per month and all will be in a collision of some type on average of every 6 years.” I just pulled that from http://www.dcdoctor.com/pages/rightpages_h…
@ Sarah: I’ve actually looked a little deeper into the numbers from this 70K “study” of only 134 survey respondents (thanks to commenter ROM), who were apparently induced with gift cards to respond. My concern is that if this 70K of taxpayer money had been flushed down the drain on anything OTHER than a project whose aims were to get more minorities biking, you would have been leading the charge to city hall to ask them why the hell we spent 70K on a flimsily done study to learn what we all already knew (“no big surprise,” in your words).
@CC Ugh, I didn’t mean to tell you that incentives were used in this study. I do not have that information. I was trying to explain where some of the cost could have gone. Incentives are commonly used in research projects that involve human subjects.
Take it to Metro, maybe? You have a beef with how they allocate money. I imagine that each year they have *this much* to spend on projects that *involve minority something something*. Then people write grant proposals to suggest how that money should be spent. Then the money is allocated…
I messed up: the report says 148 surveys were collected, and the inducements were (somewhat oddly) bike helmets or lights, not gift cards.
Huh, i could’ve sworn that half to bicyclists i see are women & i’m pretty sure alot of ’em ride their bikes to works. But that’s just *my* observation. I understand safety being [one] issue, as you’re way more exposed on a bike & the anonymity that a closed-in motor vehicle offers can encourage “assholeism’ in some people.
As for the race thing: eh, all i can say is i’m Black & i ride a bike all the time. I suppose that makes me some sort of wierd anomaly i guess. Whatever.
Btw, how was this “survey” conducted? B/c noone ever asked ME how i felt about bikes & biking in this city.
I’d like to comment on the question about repetitive motion injuries. As a female bike commuter in her 50’s, I’ll tell you that biking helps with keeping a strong body. I used to have more aches and pains and since I’ve been biking regularly (15 miles round trip) most of them have gone away. My doctor agrees that the symmetrical motion and regular exercise has made me stronger and healthier.