National Bike Summit Summary

I went to several free components of the National Bike Summit, but I had work to do that week so I couldn't attend much. Luckily many other people have twitblogged about it on the interspace. First Adam Voiland wrote about the Tuesday night presentation by Andreas Røhl, the head of Copenhagen’s Bicycle Office, [and the 10 best tweets from the Summit] and I watched a similar presentation by Rohl on Wednesday night. Some highlights we both gleaned.

There are about 500,000 bikes in Copenhagen. 25% of people now have cargo bikes and that is requiring them to build unique facilities to handle them. 60% of voters own bikes.

As of 2003, there's more bike traffic in downtown that automobile traffic, meanwhile safety has increased (there were 50% fewer deaths in 2003 than in 1995). The more cyclists there are the fewer accidents they have, because, he theorizes, people get used to it. They still have less than half as many cyclist as they did in 1950.

He listed the usual reasons to encourage biking: less congestion, a better environment, better health, improvement of urban life, bike changes can be implemented in a single election cycle, they're cheap and have visible effects, they reduce CO2 footprint.

They've calculate that every mile biked gives $1 in health benefits. “A 10 percent increase in cycling would save $10 million per year”

They've been instituting a Green Wave (which means retiming lights for "cyclist speed" on certain streets. This reduces travel time by 15% and makes cycling more pleasant since cyclists use less energy). They're also pulling the ASL line back for motorists, so that cyclists (who are usually placed to the right, in their own lane) are clearly visible and ahead of the motorists. This reduces the chances for right-turning cars to hit straight-going cyclists.  They're also creating carless streets (which allow buses, cyclists and pedestrians).

Bike parking at train stations is a serious problem, because the train stations are handled by the National government.
 
The average bike trip is around four miles.
 
“Nobody in Copenhagen sees themselves as a 'cyclist.'"
 
"In the last 15 years the distance traveled on bicycle has risen by 15 percent.”

GGW found this highlight

One of Røhl's many interesting statistics came from a biennial survey of Copenhagen cyclists. When asked for the primary reason why they bicycle, a combined 61 percent of respondents said it was either because cycling was easy and fast or because it was the most convenient mode of transportation. 19 percent cited exercise, 6 percent pointed to financial reasons and a paltry 1 percent were motivated by environmental concerns.

Røhl's conclusion was that, in order for cycling to become a mainstream transportation option, it has to be promoted and planned for based primarily on its convenience.

For more on Copenhagen you can check out presentation here, here and here. And for full coverage of Røhl's talk go to bikeportland.

There were quite a few members of Congress at the events, it's not just Blumenauer and Oberstar anymore. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Representative Dan Lipinski (D-IL) - card carrying member of LAB, and Representative Doris Matsui (D-CA) showed up to the summit. And at the reception I saw and talked to Michael McCaul (R-TX). Since he represents the area between Austin and Houston I'm somewhat familiar with him, and he's a pretty conservative Republican, but proving that cycling isn't a red-blue issue he talked about the great bike facilities in Austin, how much he loves to ride, trying to get his kids to ride more and an eagerness to build a safe bike route from Houston to Austin.  Blumenauer argued earlier that bike projects are more shovel ready, less environmentally harmful and create more jobs per dollar than highway projects. And that cyclists and pedestrians account for 13% of traffic fatalities but they only get 1% of safety funding.

A few of the bills they were lobbying for include

Doris Matsui reintroduced the Safe & Complete Streets Act (HR 1443) which would require every state to have a law or DOT regulation requiring all transportation projects in the State to accommodate the safety and convenience of all users in accordance with complete streets principles.

CLEANTEA "Clean, Low Emissions, Affordable, New Transportation Efficiency Act" (HR 1329, SB 575) introduced by Blumenauer it would require each state to establish the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. One way is to "increase mobility options" which includes cycling.

America Bikes has an agenda for the new Transportation Bill.

And IMBA is pursuing an increase in Recreational Trails Funds to $550 million. This year the program gets $85 million. I'm not sure if that $550 is per year or over the length of the new Transportation bill, but I suspect the later (if not, that's a cargo-bike load of money).

And last, but not least, at the LAB annual meeting, Revolution Cycles won LAB's "Consumer Choice Bicycle Shop" for Region 2, which I assume includes the DC area. So congrats to them.