Does Columbus Do Bike Lanes Right?

What is it about a growing city that breeds a contemptuous relationship for bikers? Now, I’m not saying all drivers have rough opinions on our valuable bikers, but the general vibe is that they should “follow the rules or get off the road.”

I can’t speak for every biker, or every driver for that matter — but what I can speak to is my own lived experience. I was a 365 biker for nearly two years, so I was in “the shit” for the whole year for commuting  purposes and what I learned was not to trust the “safety” of the bike lane.

So what does that mean? Driver’s see a biker not in the bike lane and immediately hate their guts, right? A few honks and then a speedy drive around, everyone feels bad — that’s the experience of a biker in Columbus, the question is then, what’s the point of the bike lanes? I’m talking specifically about the ones on Summit & 4th, the ones that removed an entire lane of traffic to integrate and feature, in my opinion, some poorly designed intersectionals.

What is Bike-Curious?

I had a lovely opportunity to talk to Yay! Bikes Executive Director, Catherine Girves, who is exceptionally passionate about bikes. They’ve been doing professional development bike rides across Central Ohio, taking anyone from city developers and engineers to reports on bike routes that could use some needed attention either from a socioeconomic standpoint or just commuting.

“Anyone that has the ability to change the condition and culture in regards to how we interact with bikers. We’re not engineers but we need to understand how they work and are changing the situations. We’re looking to answer so many questions like what are some good intentions that went wrong. We’re riding to show economic development, from say…Linden to an employment office to see how someone moves through the city.” Catherine said. I compared them to a biking version of Willy Wonka, showing all everyone the parts of the city that are overlooked. She laughed and agreed, “Yeah! Sure, we’re Willy Wonka.”

Catherine then dropped a very interesting word, ‘Bike-Curious’ and told me that 50% – 60% of people are Bike-Curious, meaning they are looking to replace a single trip they take with their car with a trip on a bike — but they’re not. They need a push, and generally that push is a bike lane, that little bit of safety or confidence a novice biker needs. Catherina added that they often need context to bike, and it’s difficult to just start. A bike lane gives people a reason to use it.

So the planned Indianola bike lane is just a jumping off point for more people to start biking. It’s important to get people biking too since so many are bike-curious — imagine a 50% drop in car traffic in the downtown area? What would that even look like? Well, the first step is putting people on a bike.

“There’s something about biker on roads that changes drivers and the roads they bike on for the better. Cities with big bike populations doing better than cities with less,” said Catherine.

She said that this project and the initiative of Yay! Bikes isn’t just about biking awareness and bike lanes, it’s about integration and letting the city know that bikers are a permanent part of their community. “Roads are about moving people, not vehicles, ” Catherine said.

So to bikers, bike lanes means another step forward in teaching drivers and bikers alike to share the road. Sharing is caring, as they say. What do bike lanes mean for you? Sound off in the comments below!

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