Data from Houston suggests most cyclists there are low wage workers, not affluent hipsters – a fact that is overlooked in the debate about building bike friendly infrastructure.
There’s an interesting piece over at Governing.com that shines a light on an under-reported aspect of the “transportation alternatives” debate: how important bikes and other non-car transportation are to working Americans.
The article talks about the concept of “invisible cyclists” – a term of art within the bike advocacy community that refers to working-class and poor Americans who rely on bikes as their primary means of transportation. Long and short: the movement to create more infrastructure and support for cyclists has largely passed by a big population of bike riders.
From the article:
“A number of people are wondering how we can do more comprehensive bike advocacy that includes people who can’t afford to get involved,” said Adonia Lugo, an anthropologist who left her job at the League of American Cyclists earlier this year because of a disconnect she perceived between bike advocates and those who ride bicycles regularly. “They’re on bikes, so they should be involved.”
The problem? “There’s this cultural gap between bike advocates and others who bike,” Lugo said. The focus on cycling as an “urban lifestyle alternative” for well to do “hipsters” overlooks the basic reality that cycling is an affordable transportation alternative for the working poor – green or not. “You don’t do it because it’s cheap and you need to get somewhere. It’s presented as an opportunity to be part of urban chic fashion,” Lugo said, describing the current mindset about biking.
Jim Longhurst, a professor at University of Wisconsin – La Crosse who recently wrote the book, Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the Road said that misperceptions about who actually rides bikes aren’t new. But the current image of cyclists is a confusing mishmash. A situation in which cyclists are “simultaneously associated with elites displaying conspicuous consumption, those sacrificing for the good of society, competitive athletes, children, and sometimes those who are coming home from their job washing dishes at 2 a.m. because other options aren’t available.”
Data from Houston shows bike ridership is heaviest at the lower end of the wage scale. (Image courtesy of Governing.com)
The conflicting ideas of who rides a bike matter because they inform policy discussions.
“I’d like to think that policy is created through reasoned debate finding the best choices among many,” Longhurst said. “But in fact, cultural associations shape a great deal of what decision-making bodies do, to both the good and the bad.”
I think we can see some of that playing out in the debate within town over the Community Path. There have been bouts of semantic squabbling over whether it is a “community path,” a “bike path” or a “commuter path” – even though the path is just a path, regardless of who uses it. And, if the current Alewife extension that ends at Brighton Street or the Minuteman Trail are any indication (and they are), the truth is that the Belmont Path will be all three at once.