When the cover of Parade magazine teased a story with “A Bike Friendly City,” my wife asked me to guess the city.
I immediately guessed Portland, Oregon. Wrong.
Parade chose Columbia, Missouri, and its bicycling mayor Darwin Hindman, right, as a prime of example of what a city can do to rescue itself from motor vehicle addiction.
It's a good choice. Columbia was one of four US cities in 2005 to be granted $22.5 million in federal funds to become more bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly. The others were Minneapolis, Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, and Marin County, California.
Bike paths
So far, the city has begun installing concrete bike paths along Columbia's streets, improved intersections for bike safety, and transformed some residential streets to bike boulevards. The city sponsors bicycling safety classes.
The city council has even passed an ordinance that makes it a crime to harass a bicyclist. That includes throwing items from cars, threatening or frightening cyclists, or honking a horn to scare a bike rider. (Missouri readers will know this hasn't been a smooth process. Check out BikeMoFed says about it.)
Pay off
All those efforts are starting to pay off. Mid-week bicycle traffic tallies comparing 2007 and 2008 show a 71% increase, and some 10,000 people bike the streets.
That's great progress. Hindman says he'd like to see people use their bicycles for 20% of their short trips. Former Portland bike program manager Mia Birk told Parade that kind of change takes time:
no overnight magic wand you can wave. It takes a generation to change an ingrained habit like
driving, but Columbia is on its way.”
The day after this Parade article appeared, the Cafe Berlin demonstrated just how pro-bicycle some residents are. About 30 people moved the entire contents of the restaurant, including tables and chairs, to a new location using only bicycles.
See more at the Ride Columbia blog
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