Stop calling bike lanes “bike lanes”

Republished from The Metropolitician

Spend enough time on urbanist Twitter and you will gradually assume the shape of a creature best described as the “bike lobbyist”. It feels strange writing that because most people I know who fall into this camp don’t parade around the streets wearing a suit and tie. Nor do they carry around meticulously constructed talking points.

The bike lobby is not particularly organized. There is no shadow political action committee funding Facebook ads, TV spots, or ballot initiatives. Those national organizations which do exist to champion cycling interests are usually more “grassroots” than professionalized policy shops. The League of American Bicyclists, for example, feels more Sierra Club than it does Chamber of Commerce. This is not to knock the good work those people do in their advocacy efforts. People for Bikes deserves an honorable mention.

Urbanist Twitter is, dare I say, fascinated by one question: why are American cities so terrible at building bike lanes? If there is one urban phenomenon that remains an unsolved mystery in the U.S., it has to be the pitiful state of mobility outside of the personal automobile.

If we want to understand the political economy of bike lane infrastructure, we have to first identify the players. Going one step further, in order to properly wage urban combat we must learn to change the *language* of the streets.

The bike lane battles: Key players

In most cities, the key political players in the bike lane battles are as follows:

• The political apparatus: This includes every elected officeholder that has a role to play in shepherding meaningful infrastructure improvements through the bureaucracy. Love it or hate it, politicians are the true arbiters of what gets built or what gets canned;
• The city technocrats: These are the competent men and women who staff cities’ transportation and planning departments. Although they take their marching orders from City Hall, they don’t necessarily shape the agenda. Importantly, they need to be empowered by the political apparatus;
• The bike lobby: As described earlier, these are the bleeding heart “activists” for building more bike lane infrastructure. They are relatively few in number but loud on social media;
• Micro-mobility operators: In theory, these should be the bike lobby’s trusted allies. However, in practice, the micro-mobility operators often operate in a silo, interfacing primarily with the political apparatus in the hopes of winning the city’s good graces;
• Auto-centric interests: These are not just the companies that stand to benefit from maintaining the car-centric status quo (e.g., auto manufacturers) but more importantly include the most reliable users of cars. This includes people who cannot seriously contemplate getting around in anything but a car;
• The misinformed meddlers: This includes business owners who fear a loss of customers should the city remove parking spaces to build bike lanes. It also includes those people who believe that repurposing city streets for anything other than cars will cause traffic armageddon. This group can serve as a formidable obstacle to reform;
• The movable middle: There is perhaps no more important player than the movable middle. The movable middle is persuadable but not necessarily interested. Any successful lobbying effort hinges on tapping into this reserve of energy. These folks don’t hate cars, nor do they revile bikes… they just want to live in a liveable city.

This is obviously an incomplete list, but should at least serve as a guidepost when thinking through the strategic interactions of the various constituencies. Some people may fall into more than one group. Others may start off in the movable middle and later acquire new allegiances. The important thing to take away from the above is that bike lane infrastructure affects more than just cyclists.

Jay-walking: A historical lesson

If you want to really understand the political evolution of car-culture I suggest you start by reading Peter D. Norton’s paper on “jay-walking”. In 2021, we almost take for granted how we instinctively flinch at the prospect of crossing a street mid-block. We tell ourselves it’s not only dangerous but “illegal”! Shame on us for even mulling such a juvenile act. Yet, this wasn’t always the case.

As Norton writes, jay-walking was the byproduct of a carefully planned political campaign initiated by the car lobby (better known then as “motordom”). In the early 20th century, when cars were just beginning to proliferate on city streets there was a brewing conflict between the old guard — people who were used to streets that were messy, complicated and full of competing users — and an emerging constituency composed primarily of automobile interests that believed the streets needed to be reengineered for vehicular flow.

It wasn’t long before people were being publicly shamed for crossing the street wherever they desired. The level of sophistication of the car lobby’s “public safety” campaign is perhaps best demonstrated by their reliance on indoctrinating children. Hundreds of Boy Scouts troops were deployed in cities across America to distribute flyers on the perils of jay-walking. In 1925, 1,300 Detroit school children gathered to watch the public trial of a 12-year old accused of “jay-walking”; the student jury sentenced him to wash blackboards for a week.

Anyone seriously interested in capturing the hearts and minds of their fellow city dwellers needs to pay special attention to how we frame bike lanes. For too many people in the movable middle, bike lanes sound more like a nice-to-have rather than a really compelling infrastructure project.

Why is that? For starters, most people have limited experiences to draw on. Accessing memories of non-casual bike trips requires effort. When was the last time you went to buy milk from the store on your bike? Because cycling is so often experienced as recreational and not as utilitarian, bike lanes feel kind of unimportant.

Change the name → change the conversation

I would challenge urbanist Twitter to think beyond the classic playbook for building more bike lanes. That is, it’s not enough to simply point out other places that have embraced cycling as a serious way of getting around and say “but what about Copenhagen…” or “but what about Amsterdam…”. In a separate domain, that playbook has been tried repeatedly with universal healthcare (but what about Scandinavia…), and we’re still left with something that’s not quite public, not quite private, but some sub-optimal Cephalopod. Instead, we need to think beyond “bike” lanes and start talking about “people-protected lanes” (or “PPLs”).

People-protected lanes would ideally achieve two things: (1) provide a buffered travel lane for all micro-mobility modes and (2) expand the available sidewalk space for pedestrians and street-level commerce. This is important because it ensures that even if not everyone chooses (or is capable) to ride a bike or e-scooter, everyone will still benefit from more public spaces to access their local businesses, enjoy outdoor dining, or just relax on sidewalk furniture. Something we all came to learn (and appreciate) during the last year. This is how you build a big tent.

Reclaiming streets from cars is an absolutely challenging task. At times it can feel Sisyphean. But so was introducing automobiles to the walking / horse-riding / trolley-riding public in the 1920s. It’s hard to believe now, but at one point in time cities were seriously contemplating enacting ordinances which would have placed mechanical speed governors on cars (something we already do for e-scooters, by the way)! In 1923, more than 40,000 people (or 10% of the population) in Cincinnati signed a petition that would have “shut off” automobile engines at 25 mph or above. Instead automotive interests rallied to persuade the public to “vote no” on the ordinance.

So, where is the micro-mobility equivalent of motordom? It seems strange that no such coalition has emerged especially considering the key players. An obvious triumvirate for building PPLs would be micro-mobility operators, the bike lobby, and a critical mass of the movable middle. That coalition then needs to effectively capture the political apparatus so that policymaking can sustain certain policy preferences. With some exceptions in New York (under JSK) or Portland, OR, “bike” lanes have always felt too reactionary, with cities playing whack-a-mole in response to moments of heightened outrage. It’s why we pat ourselves on the back after building 3 miles of a PBL that drops you off on a highway with no shoulder.

Just like early 20th century motordom with cars, micro-mobility operators have an incentive to lobby for streets that ensure the safe and smooth passage of their riding customers. It doesn’t matter how many cities you’re in if people only feel comfortable using your tech in select areas of a city. What truly matters is the riding experience at scale. In any city, micro-mobility ridership is directly correlated with the spatial distribution of accessible amenities. Why do you think operators love college campuses? Think about all of those connected walking paths! And in a closed loop environment! And with minimal points of conflict with cars traveling at high speeds! (My campus in College Park, MD was so large that it came with a map.)

With their sizable financial firepower, micro-mobility companies should be funding (if not directly organizing) grassroots advocacy efforts for building more PPLs in cities across the country. They can serve as the *impetus* for change. The bike lobby cannot succeed on its own; it’s simply too disorganized and disparate. At the same time, the language of “bike” lanes feels alienating to the folks who don’t ride bikes (but might ride an e-bike or e-scooter). Most importantly, the movable middle remains largely unaware of the benefits which would accrue to them in a PPL-centric world.

Lest we forget, most people were largely unaware of “jay-walking” until the car lobby kicked into high gear.