good on ya, san francisco

The CSM reports that San Francisco is building bike lanes across the city. This is excellent news. There are some opponents to this plan though, and their main argument is that creating more bike lanes will reduce parking.

“We are about to redesign the streets of San Francisco on behalf of less than 2 percent of the population – based on a fantasy prophesy that people will get out of their cars and start biking….” says Rob Anderson, an activist and blogger, citing 2000 census figures of bike commuters.

[...]

“When people look at what it will mean to their neighborhoods to lose parking and lanes for cars and buses, they will say, ‘Hey this is over the top, I don’t want it,’ ” says Anderson. Some shopkeepers, too, worry that replacing parking spaces in front of stores with bike lanes could hurt business.

Without knowing any other facts other than what was reported in the article, it seems like Anderson is way off base, citing numbers that are 6 years old to make his point, as the article also says:

About 40,000 residents say they commute by bike regularly, which is less than 10 percent of the city’s 450,000 registered car owners [...]

If you use the 2006 numbers, the percentage of the population is actually about 9%, which seems to be a significant proportion of the populace. Proponents of the plan claim the “if you build it, they will come” effect will occur, and induce more people to bike more often.

If more lanes were available, 33 percent said they would commute by bike more often, the study found. When bike lanes were added to Valencia Street – a key corridor for bikers cutting through town- bike riding there went up 144 percent in the first year [...]

Having just read Freakonomics, I’d be the last person to suggest a cause and effect relationship without real data to back it up. However, my intuition is that it’s probably true. If it’s easier to ride your bike safely to various parts of the city, more people will probably do it. Just a guess.

And assuming the “build it and they will ride” effect is true, then the reduced amount of car parking should be offset (somewhat) by the reduced number of drivers who need to park their cars. What’s more, even people who hate the plan for whatever reason (reduced parking, “wasted” tax dollars, etc.) will still benefit from side effects, such as reduced air pollution, less traffic, etc. all due to less driving. Plus, maybe people will drop some weight due to the extra exercise, which is like getting a tax refund in the bedroom.

Just for grins, I tried (for 5 minutes) to figure out the population of bikers in Ft. Collins, which is the most bike-friendly city I’ve ever lived. For Bike to Work Day 2006, about 1800 people were counted as bikers. The population of Ft. Collins is 137,177 (as of August 2005).

So an initial estimate would be a paltry 1.3%. I think it’s a bit on the low side though, because first, the 1800 number only counts the riders on a single day, who happened to bike past an aid station and bothered to sign a piece of paper. Additionally, there are 25,000 students at Colorado State, which is a significant percentage of the overall city population (18%). The aid stations on BTWD close at 9 am, which means there were probably a lot of students who commute by bike who didn’t get counted (I mean, seriously, when was the last time you saw a college kid get up before 9? ;).

If we assume that 1/3 of students are bikers (the other third walk, and the last third drive), that’s about 8250 uncounted bikers, so that’s a total of 10,050 bikers, which is about 7.3% of the city. Not bad, considering I just made up all those numbers. It would be great to push that number up to a confirmed 10%, but considering the number of people I know who drive 3 miles to work, it’s a pretty daunting task.