Two-wheeled Paradise

I just got back from a long weekend visiting my Brother-in-Law in Madison, Wisconsin. I could go on about the trip, what we did, where we went and all the gory details but what struck me the most was the biking environment.

Everywhere I went, there were bike trails, bike lanes, bike routes, bike shops and bike racks. My Brother-in-Law lived in a new housing development in the middle of a series of shopping plazas, light commercial and restaurants but there were bike lanes available to access the whole area. All the restaurants had bike racks. In Madison proper, there was a two block section that had three bike shops.

It’s a big difference from Pittsburgh where bike routes exist only on maps and as signs on some of the most dangerous streets in town. Advocates at Bike Pittsburgh have convinced the city to allow them to install bike racks throughout the downtown area but the city didn’t drop a dime in support. There are only a handful of bike shops that are small and don’t have a broad selection of either bikes or accessories. Shopping malls and centers are designed for cars and bicyclists and pedestrians would be risking their lives to attempt an approach.

Of course, there are environmental differences between Pittsburgh and Madison that make one more conducive to bicycles than the other. First, Madison has flat, wide open spaces. Being flat is simply more friendly to biking. When the city was growing, there was plenty of space so streets were wide. When it came time for streets to be rebuilt, the availability of space made it easier for city planners to sacrifice some of that space for the use of bicycles.

Since Pittsburgh is so hilly and penned in with rivers and was born a century earlier than Madison, there isn’t a lot of space available. Bicyclists have no choice but to share the space with automobiles, trucks and busses who, because they “own the road” are not willing to share this limited commodity. And even out in the newer developments like Cranberry, the planners are still stuck in the car mentality, building exclusively for those who drive.