9 Case Study VII: Non-Motorized Transportation in Europe and the United States

Chapter overview

This chapter is divided into three sections. The first part explores the characteristics of non-motorized transport in the U.S., including commuters and infrastructure. The second part compares how the multimodal infrastructure of the cities of Copenhagen and Vienna allows most commuters to bike. The third part examines the environmental benefits and equity challenges of New York City’s bike-sharing program.

The Challenges of Non-Motorized Transport in the U.S.

Biking and other non-motorized transportation are the most equitable and efficient means of achieving sustainable mobility goals. Many cities worldwide support non-motorized transportation, such as walking or biking, to foster sustainable, low-carbon commutes while improving public health and environmental quality (Banister, 2008). Cities worldwide have succeeded in increasing the share of cyclist commuters by implementing comprehensive policies supporting bike infrastructure (Pucher et al., 2010). A comprehensive biking policy may include diverse types of strategies and programs, such as infrastructure provision, pro-bicycle programs, supportive land-use planning, restrictions on car use, and better integration with public transit. Examples of infrastructure provisions include wayfinding signage, off-street paths, colored lanes, shared lanes, car-free zones, bicycle stations, and parking.

Further strategies to integrate biking with public transit include implementing parking at rail stations and bus stops, bike racks on buses, and rail cars. Despite the recent progress of biking infrastructure, the lack of such car-restrictive policies in the U.S. explains why bike usage is lower than in other countries. The safety of cyclists plays a key role in strengthening a bike ridership. Consequently, areas having higher bike ridership decrease the risk of injuries and fatalities. Because cyclists commonly use roads, they become visible to motorists. Thus, drivers gradually become more vigilant and sensitive to the safety of cyclists.

Factors That Influence Biking

Previous studies found that active travel (biking and walking) is influenced by the quality and safety of non-motorized transportation, the socio-demographic characteristics of the population, and the built environment. Kamel, Sayed, and Bigazzi (2020) developed bike-ability measures to examine and compare different cities. Their assessment indicates that the attractiveness of cycling determines bike-ability. This is influenced by land-use planning, cycling infrastructure quality, topographic and weather conditions, and the spatial distribution of bike lanes. Another factor determining bike-ability is access to other modes of travel, such as buses and subway systems. Safety is another relevant determinant that impacts bike ridership. Safety refers to the likelihood of collisions of various transportation modes, including drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists.

Several studies have focused on distinguishing built environment factors affecting biking attractiveness. Network connectivity, which refers to the extent of intersection density and a block’s characteristics (size, length, quality), influences active commuting. Bike lane interruptions undermine biking as cyclists are displaced to mixed traffic or must take longer alternative routes (Schoner and Levinson 2014). Land-use mix is another explanatory variable for an environment’s bike-ability. Since most land use in U.S. cities is residential, its layout receives a low value from the lens of diversity and attractiveness for bikeability. Other built environment factors include biking facilities in the transportation network, such as separated bike lanes, separated paths, bike boulevards, and traffic-calming design. Studies have shown that household and population densities positively correlate with bike ridership (Schneider and Stefanich 2015).

Considering most of these factors and safety measures, Kamel et al. (2020) developed a statistically calibrated Bike Composite Index (BCI) index to measure urban bike-ability. This index uses various variables, including cyclist-vehicle crashes, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and Bike Kilometers Traveled (BKT), bike network density and coverage, topography, bus stop density, land-use diversity, and residential density. The BCI highlights the need for investments in promoting biking infrastructure in high-demand areas and adopting policies prioritizing biking over other means of transportation, especially private cars. With a general understanding of the biking explanatory factors in cities, we further the discussion in this chapter by presenting North American and European case studies.

Biking in the U.S.

Because most U.S. cities have car-oriented transportation systems and low-density land-use patterns, bike usage is low in the United States. On average, only 0.6% of the workers reported biking, according to the US Census Bureau (2010). In contrast, this number for Austria is 27%, of which only 37% is for leisure (Harms & Kansen, 2018). Despite the recent efforts of U.S. cities to support biking, the share of biking trips is still far less than in several European countries. Most adults in U.S. cities bike solely for recreational purposes. In contrast, for their European counterparts, biking is one of the main modes of transportation, especially for daily job commutes (Pucher & Dijkstra, 2003).

Despite the recent progress of biking infrastructure in some U.S. cities, the lack of comprehensive transportation policies to reduce car driving undermines biking and non-motorized transportation. In the U.S., biking is perceived as unsafe because the transportation network is mostly occupied by cars. Individual policy interventions are not sufficient for promoting biking. Thus, a mix of coordinated policies, carefully considering the city’s urban form, the biking culture, and the transportation needs of commuters, are needed to support non-motorized transportation (Pucher, Dill, and Handy 2010).

Portland, Oregon, is an exceptional case among U.S. cities with higher levels of bikeability. Dill (2009) attributed the high bike-ability rates of this city (4.2% for daily job commutes) to its robust bike infrastructure. Bicycle boulevards contribute to a decrease in car traffic in these areas. Bicycle boulevards run parallel to major roads and intersect with them using traffic-calming features that prioritize bicycles over motor vehicles. In Portland, these boulevards are primarily located in older neighborhoods where the dominant street pattern follows a grid system of small blocks. About half of the total Bicycle Miles Travel (BMT) occurs on roads with bicycle lanes, paths, or boulevards. However, these facilities only comprise about 8% of the available network (Dill, 2009). This comparison illustrates the critical role of bike infrastructure on ridership.

Dill (2009) found that cyclists consider numerous factors when planning a route, including bike lane availability, road quality and signs, and the possibility of riding on an off-street bike path or trail and avoiding hills. In addition, this study suggests that cyclists tend to combine their biking trips to several destinations. This tendency, in turn, means that mixed-land uses, residential and commercial, can encourage biking. Overall, Dill (2009) illuminates the role of biking infrastructure, mixed land uses, and well-connected street networks to enhance bike ridership in U.S. cities effectively.

Sustainable Mobility and Biking in European Cities: Lessons from Copenhagen and Vienna

This section examines cities that have successfully improved sustainable transportation through biking. Many European cities practice car- restrictive policies combined with compact, mixed-use development, which encourages the use and attractiveness of transit use and non-motorized transportation. Examples of restriction policies include increasing the cost of vehicle ownership, limiting the parking supply, and reducing car speeds, which reduces overall driving rates.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen has continually succeeded in increasing bike ridership throughout the years. Copenhagen is one of the world’s best biking cities because of commuters’ sustainable travel behavior. The city has used three mechanisms to foster biking: market-based instruments, command-and-control approaches, and soft policy measures. Copenhagen uses multifaceted and coordinated transportation policies and market-based instruments like taxation or subsidies to influence travel behavior. Congestion pricing is an example of a market-based instrument. Command-and-control instruments or hard policies regulate different standards on goods and services. These standards are applied to urban design and land-use planning for travel behavior. Soft policies support socially desirable decisions and promote information in support of these decisions (Gössling, 2013). Examples of soft policies include campaigns to promote biking as a healthy and environmentally friendly transportation choice. Although studies concur that biking share has dropped globally while car use is still increasing, in some European cities, the trend is the opposite, and a renaissance has taken place in the last two decades (Gilbert and Pearl, 2007).

Historically, Copenhagen’s commuters have preferred biking as their primary mode of transportation, even during the 1960s and 1970s when the car boom was sweeping cities worldwide. This historical and cultural preference remained significant through the 1980s and 1990s when the city implemented the first free bike-sharing program (Jeppesen, 2011). This rich history of biking in Copenhagen enabled a consolidated infrastructure for biking that allows 84% of all Copenhageners access to a bike. As a result, 68% of the commuters biked at least once a week, accounting for 1.2 million kilometers (about 745645.43 miles) traveled by bike in a working day (Gössling, 2013). Figure 9.1 shows the share of all intracity trips by different modes in Copenhagen, where biking has the second highest share.

Copenhagen uses key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor biking. These indicators include the share of commuting cyclists, the percentage of cyclists that feel safe, total cycled kilometers, average cycling speed, the number of cycling tracks, green routes, and bike parking spaces on roads and pavements. The adoption of these performance indicators and the historical willingness of citizens to bike have led to the development of several command-and-control measures categorized as “physical infrastructure,” “comfort and service,” “technology development,” and “regulation” (Gössling, 2013).

Copenhagen’s robust biking infrastructure includes green cycle routes, biking superhighways, curbed ramps connecting elevated cycle tracks with roads, skewed rubbish bins along tracks, and footrests for cyclists. Bike services include green wave for cyclists, bike butlers at five metro stations that lubricate chains, and pump-up tires. Technological capabilities include planting LED (Light Emitting Diode) road sensors that warn drivers of approaching cyclists at intersections. Further command-and-control measures in Copenhagen include regulating and enforcing one-way streets with imitated parking spaces for cars while requiring bike parking spaces for different land uses such as commercial (0.5 bike parking spaces per employee) and residential (2.5 bike spaces per 100 m2) (Gössling, 2013).

Soft measures also support biking in Copenhagen. These measures carefully understand cyclists’ needs, educate citizens about the societal benefits of biking, and communicate how programs and policies support biking. Soft measures disseminate three initiatives: a desirable and sustainable urban future, individual and societal benefits, and opportunities for participation and engagement in transportation policy making.

We learn from Copenhagen that a suitable combination of measures, policies, and programs enhances sustainable and equitable commutes. Also, the success of biking is explained by the historical roots of environmental movements that called for biking and pedestrian infrastructure rather than roads and highways. It is, therefore, uncertain that the renaissance of biking will overcome the growth of driving in other cities. However, momentum for biking trips can occur (despite rising car numbers) when residents and governments collectively support biking infrastructure. As exemplified by Copenhagen and other European cities, as the number of cyclists increases to reach a critical mass, cyclists become visible, thus improving perceptions of safety and, consequently, the number of cyclists (Jacobsen, 2015).

Vienna, Austria

Vienna is another illuminating city that has successfully enabled sustainable transportation modes. The city has decreased the share of car trips from 40% to 27% from 1993 to 2014 (Buehler, Pucher, & Altshuler, 2017). The critical point in Vienna’s success is a coordinated package of coherent and reinforcing land-use and transportation policies that increase driving costs while improving the attractiveness of walking and biking conditions (Buehler, Pucher, and Altshuler, 2017). The city of Vienna, like Copenhagen, has a long history of resistance to cars. The city’s urban form remains compact and monocentric with mixed-use development, allowing short trips, which enable commuters to walk to public transport (Csendes and Opll, 2006). Moreover, the widespread public opposition to the construction of motorways (autobahns) during the 1970s and 1980s crippled car-dependent transport plans and paved the way for sustainable mobility.

Parking management strategies and car-restrictive measures have enabled the city to realize a substantial modal shift toward sustainable transportation. As a result, 52% of total commuters use transit for daily trips, 76% at least once a week, and 88% at least once a month (Buehler, Pucher, & Altshuler, 2017). Since 1993, parking management has limited parking supply through price increases and minimized curb parking time. Despite initial opposition to the plan, traffic congestion on roadways quickly started to drop after its introduction. However, the government builds off-street self-financing parking garages to maintain the parking supply balance. Additionally, restrictive car travel programs such as high taxes and fees on car purchases and ownership have allowed the city’s multimodal and comprehensive transport policy to succeed.

Importantly for sustainable mobility, the government supports a multimodal transportation system that connects the U-Bahn (metro) with car-free zones, bike paths, lanes, and parking throughout the city (Buehler, Pucher, and Altshuler, 2017). The city implemented policies that helped improve and expand high-capacity transit (the U-Bahn subway). The previous existence of a tramway since 1910 enabled the construction of the subway. The coordination of these policies is essential for the city’s success. For example, the tram’s ridership increased during the expansion of the U-Bahn, from 242 million in 1990 to 294 million in 2013 (Buehler, Pucher, & Altshuler, 2017). The public transit investment funding structure has been devised to support regional coordination of the whole project. “Whereas the city of Vienna owns and operates the U-Bahn, the federal government owns and operates the regional S-Bahn rail system. The federal government also finances 80% of S-Bahn capital costs, excluding station upgrades, and 100% of S-Bahn operating subsidies for a basic level of service, defined by the 1999 Federal Public Transport Act as the level existing in 2000” (Buehler, Pucher, and Altshuler, 2017, p.15). Local resources for public transit projects come from passenger fare revenues, taxation of large employers, and revenues from on-street parking and city-owned parking garages. These resources are mainly allocated to public transit improvement, park-and-ride facilities, and bike infrastructure (Vassilakou, 2015).

Improving walking and cycling conditions is a complementary part of Vienna’s integrated and coordinated package of sustainable transport policies. In Vienna, 95% of the access/exit trips to and from public transit are done by walking. Walking accounts for 28% of all trips (Buehler, Pucher, & Altshuler, 2017). The city supports walking by expanding pedestrian and car-free zones, designing shared streets prioritizing walking and biking, and traffic-calming design techniques. Despite the initial opposition of different businesses and motorists towards cycling lanes on the city’s streets, a six-fold expansion of biking facilities was observed in the city in the past two decades. Additionally, installing traffic-calming infrastructure on 75% of the streets further reinforced cycling, allowing for the introduction of the bike-sharing system called CityBike in 2003 (Buehler, Pucher, & Altshuler, 2017). Several factors, including funding mechanisms, transportation infrastructure, and policies, contribute to the success of sustainable transportation modes. The cooperation of federal and local governments, stakeholders, and coalitions supports the realization of Vienna’s multimodal transportation system (Buehler, Pucher, and Altshuler, 2017). These multi-faced practices of sustainable transport policies generate valuable lessons for other cities.

Bike Sharing in New York City: An Equity Perspective

This section examines the experience of New York City’s bike-sharing programs and their environmental and social equity implications. Bike-sharing systems (BSS) have existed for decades in European countries. In the U.S., these systems are relatively new but rapidly growing (Parkes et al., 2013). The effectiveness of BSS in reducing car driving and congestion depends on social participation and the subsequent modal shift from private cars to biking (Wang and Zhou, 2017).

Amsterdam housed the first bike-sharing system in 1965. In the first implementation phase, it failed quickly due to theft issues and a lack of security. ICT systems and fixed-docking stations enabled a new generation of BSS, which increased from 13 to 855 from 2004 to 2014 (Fishman, 2016). The anticipated benefits of BSSs can be classified into four categories: 1) congestion and air pollution mitigation, 2) flexible mobility and transportation connection improvements, 3) health promotion, and 4) consumer financial savings. To assess the benefits of BSS, Wang and Zhou (2017) conducted an empirical study to understand the relationship between BSS and congestion using data from 96 U.S. urban areas from 2005 to 2014. This study indicates that bike-sharing programs have mixed effects on cities across the U.S. For example, larger cities benefit more from bike-sharing programs on congestion reduction than smaller cities. Because big cities have better public transit systems, BSS stations near public transit hubs increase multimodality and encourage people to use these facilities. While controlling for population growth, the study also acknowledges that cities with BSS tend to have congestion growth at a slower rate than cities without BSS.

The impact of BSS on other sustainable modes, such as public transit ridership, has been scrutinized by previous studies. A recent study by Campbell and Brakewood (2017) showed that every thousand bike-sharing docking stations along a bus route is associated with a 1.69% fall in daily unlinked bus trips on roads in Manhattan and Brooklyn after controlling for the expansion of bike lanes. These findings show how BSS can reduce congestion by facilitating public transit and promoting multimodal and sustainable transportation (Wang and Zhou, 2017). However, BSSs may have serious social and spatial equity implications that need careful consideration and performance evaluation before and after implementation.

This section examines the equity implications of Citi Bike, the largest bike-sharing program in New York City. With a high percentage of the population living in high poverty, New York City is a good case study to examine the implications of spatial equity and health benefits associated with bike-sharing programs. Citi Bike in NYC was launched in 2013 with 335 bike share stations and around 5,400 bikes. This program was concentrated around the CBD of lower Manhattan and adjacent parts of Brooklyn. 2015 this program underwent its first expansion phase by adding contiguous neighborhoods in 114 new stations. The initial mapping of the Citi Bike stations showed that 40% of the stations were in high-income tracts. In contrast, very high-poverty census tracts have access to less than 10% of the stations even after expansion in 2015 (Babagoli et al. 2019).

This situation reveals equity issues in expanding biking infrastructure in New York City. The stations are located disproportionately in wealthier neighborhoods. However, after system expansion, the average duration of daily Citi Bike utilization increased by 41%. The number of premature deaths prevented yearly increased from two to three, emphasizing the mortality benefit of such active and sustainable transportation infrastructure (Babagoli et al., 2019).

This study indicates that bike-sharing programs can support cycling and improve health outcomes, even in racially and economically segregated cities. Due to the association between bike station proximity and shared bike usage, we can conclude that with an equitable bike-sharing program that provides easy access to everyone, especially disadvantaged groups, planners can reduce inequality and enhance multimodal transportation usage while supporting public health (Babagoli et al., 2019). Expanding the Citi Bike program into poorer neighborhoods may even bring higher benefits for transportation equity. Fewer residents from higher-poverty neighborhoods were bike-share members; however, after adjusting for spatial accessibility, residents from higher-poverty neighborhoods utilized the bike-share system more than residents from lower-poverty neighborhoods (Ogilvie and Goodman, 2012).

Moreover, several benefits are associated with BSS programs, such as improved cognitive function and productivity, increased sustainable access to jobs and education for all groups, and normalizing bike usage, especially in a highly car-oriented context. The NYC Better Bike Share Partnership, consisting of multi-sectoral stakeholders, was launched in 2015 to increase Citi Bike membership. This partnership has taken considerable steps toward equity and inclusion of this program by including representatives from community-based organizations, hospitals, and public housing to diversify bike-share riders through more inclusive programs and policies (Babagoli et al., 2019). Partnerships promoting biking may serve to promote biking as an efficient, healthy, affordable transportation mode. More importantly, biking infrastructure may support the commutes of the poorest commuters who often bike because they lack access to reliable cars.

Summary

This chapter discusses the challenges and benefits of bike infrastructure and usage based on experiences in American and European cities. First, the chapter examines the built environment and sociodemographic factors influencing bike usage, including street connectivity, safety, block size, and land use mix. Next, this chapter provides some insights into the factors that undermine bike usage in US cities as a primary mode of transportation. Also, it highlights the city of Portland as an illuminating American city that has successfully supported bike infrastructure and use. Next, the chapter delves into the case studies of Copenhagen and Vienna as two of the most bikeable cities in Europe and worldwide. Finally, this chapter describes some equity challenges associated with bike-sharing programs drawing from the case of New York.

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