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No offense, but Santa Cruz is hardly a bicycling mecca. It's actually kind of bad for cycling - downtown is too congested, Pacifc Avenue is a one way, the east
by rdouble 15y ago
No offense, but Santa Cruz is hardly a bicycling mecca. It's actually kind of bad for cycling - downtown is too congested, Pacifc Avenue is a one way, the east side is too spread out, once you go up the hills on the west side it's also too spread out, there are a lot of small and winding busy roads with no shoulder that you need to use to get from one part of the city to another, and the cops are hostile to cyclists. Even in California, you don't need to imagine a more bike friendly city, you can just visit Sacramento.
The parent is right - studies have shown that if you improve bicycling infrastructure, you increase the number of bicycle commuters. However, you are also correct... even in the American city with the most bicycle commuters (Minneapolis) the total percentage of commuters using bicycles is less than 3%. Unfortunately, the density of American cities does not lend itself to bike commuting. Even though it's not even ranked in the "best places to bike" articles, I thought Manhattan was the easiest place in the USA to get around on a bike.
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- tokenadult 15y agoeven in the American city with the most bicycle commuters (Minneapolis) the total percentage of commuters using bicycles is less than 3% Agreed with your agreement with comments above. We live in (the suburbs of) Minneapolis, and we bike-commute. Most of the time I actually walk to shopping or to the nearest branch of the county library system, but I bike to do various errands. My wife is a regular bike commuter, who has put on 2,000 miles of bike commuting in all seasons since a year ago. But this area is terribly spread out, and for purposes such as bringing children to soccer games we have to drive. (Yeah, I know, driving to go get exercise sounds more than a little odd, but that is why it is called "travel" soccer. Just getting to different "home" fields for practices in different age groups in the sprawling territory of our local soccer club involves a lot of driving, even though our U14 player does his utmost to bike himself to practices and some home games.) Quite apart from the weather here, it's hard to imagine the percentage of bike commuters in greater Minneapolis going much over 5 percent, simply because of how sprawling the metropolitan area is. For a description of bicycling culture in Minnesota in January (winter), see http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-minneapolis http://www.bicycling.com/news/featured-stories/1-bike-city-m...
- bricestacey 15y agoI played travel soccer as a kid, but that's because we played all over the Southeast, mostly tristate area... Not because our parents drove us to practice.
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- sahaj 15y agoSac is a good place to bike? Better than SC? You've got to be kidding me. Davis - now that's a great place for biking.
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- david927 15y agoExactly, but that proves the point: Davis is a not a suburb -- it's exactly the kind of small town that started to disappear fifty years ago.
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