Bicycling for Transportation in Suburbia

The city of Encinitas and even the Main Street associations have been telling people to “get out of your cars” for several years. They’ve shamed people for driving and pitted bicyclists against drivers. They’ve put a lot of focus and money into bicycling infrastructure. They’ve claimed big health benefits and significant greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions from bicycling instead of driving.

In recent weeks, I’ve driven Highway 101 between Leucadia and Genesee Avenue in La Jolla daily at various times of day, including morning and evening commutes. I’ve used those opportunities to observe how many people are out and about on bikes. I combined those observations with what I’ve seen during regular jaunts around Encinitas.

Depending on time of day, I’ve seen anywhere from a few to dozens of recreational bike riders. The greatest number of transportation bicyclists I’ve seen is four. I’ve seen hundreds of cars on every trip.

For measurable GHG reductions to result from people switching from cars to bikes for transportation, huge numbers would have to do it every day. That’s not happening.

It’s not that people aren’t concerned about GHG emissions and don’t want to do what they can to reduce them. It’s just that riding bikes for transportation isn’t an effective means. Here in America, people get around in cars. It’s been that way since Henry Ford popularized the Model T in the early 1900s. It will be that way for the foreseeable future. Nearly the entire US infrastructure is built around cars for personal transportation. Cars are an important part of American industry and culture.

Bicycling for transportation is not convenient or practical, especially in suburbia. It’s just too hard. You can’t go far or carry much. You can’t do it in bad weather. It will never be popular enough to make a difference in GHG emissions.

Nobody wants bicycling to be unsafe. But the city’s insistence on bicycling for transportation is a misappropriation of staff time and taxpayer money. It would make a lot more sense to incentivize driving electric cars.

Now, just in case anybody is tempted to accuse me of being anti-bike on a local social media site: I rode various 10- and 12-speed bikes between La Jolla and San Clemente for 28 years. That chain broke with my umpteenth knee injury in 1998.

— Doug Fiske