Getting families to bike comes down to one factor: the speed of the cars

By Lindsay Sturman

Bikes are our happiest form of transportation. Bikes are joyful, meditative and free to use, and a great form of exercise. When a street is designed and engineered so it is safe to bike, 60– 80% of people bike.

The same way a bridge is engineered to never fail and a plane is engineered to always fly, a bike lane can be engineered to always be safe.

What’s the secret to safe engineering? The Dutch have cracked the code. For 40 years they have designed and built safe bike lanes so everyone who wants to bike can do so – which allows residents to get to transit. The result: only a quarter of Amsterdam residents own a car, while about 80% own a bike. And 60% of residents use their bike daily, according to Chris Bruntlett from the Dutch Cycling Embassy. In L.A., nearly 90% of people own and get around by car.

For families, the decision to get on a bike comes down to one thing: the speed of the cars. What is the speed we want the car going when one inevitably hits a child on a bike?

• 9 mph – everyone lives

• 20 mph – 90% of people live

• 30 mph – 50% of people live

• 40 mph – 10% of people live

Roger Geller Bicycle Coordinator Portland Office of Transportation wrote a paper titled “Four types of cyclists” – illustrating the four categories of bike riders.

Which aligns almost exactly with mode share of bike commuters in cities such as Los Angeles (1%), New York City and Portland (6-8%), and Copenhagen, where 62% of trips to work or school are by bike:

The Dutch have long understood how to get the majority of people biking. There are two types of streets – and the ideal street simply has slow cars. It’s called a Woonerf – “cars are the guests.” Woonerfs have a speed limit of 9 mph.

The second type is safely engineered protected bike lanes. The lanes are separated from cars with curbs and planters, and the speed limit for cars is 18 mph. And importantly, the intersections are highly engineered to slow the cars down so when they hit a pedestrian or biker, they are going so slowly that the person hit will survive. The intersection has a textured street (using pavers or cobblestone), speed tables, stop signs, and a sharp 90-degree turn so cars have to slow down so they don’t flip over. Then they are iterated and improved over time to get rid of every “pinch point” – moments in time when a fast car can kill someone biking or walking. Because if there are pinch points, bike riding plummets.

If we think of it as the equivalent of driving a car that has been recalled for exploding, or flying on an airline with a spotty safety record – it makes sense that people simply won’t do it – regardless of what a transportation manual says. In America, we don’t even start from a place of comfort and safety. Instead, we categorize bike lanes by the level of stress that the car traffic creates for the biker. The categories, which align with Geller’s four types of cyclists, go from LTS 1 (Level of Traffic Stress) to LTS 4. The safest category we have, LTS 1, is not even safe for children. (We need a new category – LTS 0, or a renaming – Level of Traffic Death = LTD 0).

And safe streets can maximize mobility, not diminish it, by allowing for all types of transportation, not just cars: bikes, e-bikes, trikes, adaptive bikes, cargo bikes (which are outselling cars in Europe), small vehicles like golf carts and NEVs (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles), car share, peer-to-peer car sharing, walking, wheelchairs, scooters, and high quality transit.

A street can be transformed into a safe street also overnight with temporary planter boxes and paint (“planters & paint.”) We saw it during COVID with al fresco dining popping up virtually overnight in cities across the world.

In Los Angeles, we can transform classic Main Streets with shops and restaurants – think Westwood Blvd – into safe “family streets” and 15 Minute Cities, where people can live car-light or car-free. And if you don’t need to own a car to get to work, run errands, and get your kids to school (kids in 4th grade can bike to school in a neighborhood like this), then you don’t need parking – which is the key to affordable housing. Small apartments without on-site parking are naturally occurring affordable housing – they simply don’t rent for luxury prices.

Who would want this option in LA?

• Seniors, who outlive their ability to drive by 7-10 years – a decade where people have to choose between a retirement community or being trapped in a suburban home

• 61% of 18-34 year olds who want car access but prefer not to own a car

• The majority of Americans of every generation who want to live in a walkable neighborhoods

• Students, recent grads, and their families who struggle with high housing costs

• People who commute long distances to get to LA jobs and want to live closer

• People who can’t drive or who would rather keep the $7,000/year (minimum) we spend every year on the cheapest car on the market

• Actors, writers, artists, people who work from home

• Young professionals

• Anyone who wants to live an urban, SoHo-like life and walk outside to a corner story, cafe, or corner bar

• Young families who want a sustainable, relaxing, different kind of life – many would call it the good life

Bike infrastructure for families is essentially an all-or-nothing proposition – because parents won’t let their kids bike in a situation with even a 10% chance of death. We need to slow the cars down to allow for people to bike safely, and bikes allow transit to scale, which allows a massive shift away from cars. Building housing without parking, slowing cars down and building safe bike lanes lead to plummeting rates of car ownership, creating a 15 minute city where we can build an abundance of affordable housing. It’s a system – synchronicity – an ecosystem. It’s a city that works for people.

And it all starts with the speed of the cars.