By Mark Baker
The Register-Guard Published: Oct 4, 2008
We are a bunch of biking fools. Even in the rain.
At least Boulder, Colo., has the excuse that the sun shines there about 300 days a year.
In a survey of 442 U.S. cities with a population of 57,000 or more, 8.5 percent of Eugene residents ride a bicycle to work — second only to Boulder, with 8.9 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s recently released 2007 American Community Survey.
The percentage of Eugene commuters using bicycles had fallen in 2006 to 5.2 percent, before bouncing up again last year.
High gas prices? Too many potholes to maneuver on four wheels?
“We don’t know what accounts (for the increase),” said David Roth, an associate transportation planner with the city of Eugene who provided the numbers. “Obviously, we’ve got a lot of things going on.”
All but one of the cities in the top 10 are full-fledged college towns, so some biking professors and graduate teaching assistants probably figured into the numbers. And part of Tufts University is in Somerville, Mass., which was No. 8 on the list.
Six Oregon cities — Eugene, Portland, Bend, Medford, Salem and Hillsboro — made the top 100. Portland ranked 14th on the list, and No. 1 among the 50 American cities with the most workers, according to the survey.
The new numbers for Eugene — an estimated 6,243 residents out of 73,576 commuters — are close to the city’s 2005 numbers, when 8.4 percent of commuters rode bikes to work, Roth said.
Eugene ranked 44th in percentage of residents walking to work with 6.5 percent. Portland ranked 95th with 4.4 percent. Cambridge, Mass., home of Harvard University, ranked first with a whopping 20.1 percent, or one in five residents, walking to work. Cambridge also ranked fifth on the bike-to-work list.
The American Community Survey is produced annually from information gleaned from surveys mailed to about 3 million addresses in the United States and Puerto Rico. The 47-question survey asks about race, martial status, education, income levels and work history. Question No. 30 is: “How did you usually get to work last week?”
The answer for Eugene’s Paul Adkins is the Bicycle.
The president of the Greater Eugene Area Riders, or GEARs, a local bicycle promotion group, works at Bike Friday in Eugene. He and his wife, Monica, and their four children, moved to Eugene from Ithaca, N.Y., 16 months ago because of Eugene’s bicycle culture, Adkins said. And just a few months ago, the family sold its last car, he said. Paul Adkins rides with his children, 7-year-old Rainy Day and 5-year-old Torrent, to Cesar Chavez Elementary School every morning, then hits the bike path out to Bike Friday in west Eugene. His wife rides over to the school in the afternoon, then rides home with the children. Twins Dare and Sanguine, 3, are already riding, too.
“The gas thing really pushed us over the edge,” Adkins said of $4-a-gallon gas prices. “I couldn’t be happier that we are among the highest-ranking (cities),” Adkins said. “A lot of people are doing it out of necessity” though, he said. GEARs is working to break in the next segment of the population who are close to making the switch from driving to biking to work, “Because I really do believe that once they make the change, they will become more capable and realize it’s not that dangerous.”
Safety issues are often cited as a top concern among those considering riding bicycles to work. GEARs just encourages common sense, he said. Wear proper clothing and use a light at night. And here in the rainy Willamette Valley, have the proper gear. Not wanting to bike in inclement weather is another excuse, Adkins said. “There’s no bad weather, just bad gear,” he said.
GEARs also has partnered with the city of Eugene to hold recent events called “Breakfast at the Bridges,” Roth said. Held on Aug. 22 and Sept. 26, with another planned for some time later this fall, bike riders on their way to work are served coffee and bagels at three locations at bridges along Eugene’s Ruth Bascom Riverbank Path System.
Wednesday brings another bike-riding promotion — the national Walk and Bike to School Day.
Shane Rhodes, the Eugene School District’s new Safe Routes to School Coordinator, got his new job thanks to a bike-safety grant application written by Roosevelt Middle School students. In fact, his office is at Roosevelt. Rhodes, who formerly worked at both the Berkeley, Calif., and Eugene chapters of the Center for Appropriate Transport, has motivated 24 schools in Eugene and Springfield to participate in Wednesday’s event, along with the University of Oregon and Lane Community College. Last year, just eight schools participated, he said.
Rhodes, too, has been car-free for a year now. He bikes to work about 2½ miles from his home in west Eugene.
“I can’t imagine not riding now,” he said. A major reason parents give for not letting their children ride bikes to school is concern about traffic, he said. But if fewer adults drove their kids to school, there would be less traffic, he said. “Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy.”
