Cyclism & Sustainable Urban Design Strategies to Increase Bicycle Ridership
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Date
2014
Authors
Wilson, Richard H.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon, Dept. of Architecture, Portland Program
Abstract
Cyclism as an ideology should be taken into serious consideration by every resident of
Earth. Questioning current beliefs concerning urban planning will help educate human kind and
biofuel the Sustainable Revolution. This research paper provides reasoning for why bicycles
should be treated as the new means of primary transportation. On average bikes are two times more
efficient than other primary means of travel, compared to bus, car, and walking. Bikes require
substantially less space than the Single Occupancy Vehicle, or SOV (which this report will
generally use as an opposing factor). The primary issue for increasing ridership is that a large
percentage of the human population may be interested in biking, but concerned due to safety.
Rightly so. In the United States riding a bike in the urban setting in not yet supported by current
social culture. This social culture may only be altered by educating people, providing the
infrastructure for bikes, and encouraging ridership as a primary goal aimed at a sustainable future.
Some successful ways of increasing safe riding in the urban setting are repainting the streets for
bike lanes, permanent infrastructure improvements, or implementing the most revolutionary urban
retrofit the Multimodal Tri-Split (MTS). The MTS involves cutting dedicated motor vehicle streets
to 1/3 existing conditions, and converting the other 2/3 into dedicated cycle and transit routes. This
may only happen in conjunction with another currently socially unacceptable idea, urban
densification. Altering cultural believes about SOVs will be a major hurtle. This research will be
intended to convert all non-followers of the bi-cycled machine to Cyclism.
Description
28 pages
Keywords
Cyclism, Portland bicycling, Urban design, Portland (Or.)