Spatial Inefficiency Part I: Bicycles

I was late to the ballpark on Saturday when the Dodgers were in town to face the surging Giants. Knowing that I needed to get down to the park as quickly as possible, I made the obvious decision -- grabbed my bicycle and headed out the door.

It may seems strange to the average automobile driver, but the fastest way to get around the city is often by bicycle. Especially at a time like morning rush hour--or right before a big Saturday baseball game--almost any trip of five miles or less will take less time on a bike. Less time than walking. Less time than riding the bus or train. Less time than driving. Even less time than taking a taxi.

The last two points are the most intriguing to consider. Time wasted parking anywhere in the city where one does not have a dedicated space obviously slows down the driver in his personal car. But how can a bicycle be faster than a taxi cab?

It all comes down to spatial efficiency. Bicycles are not only extremely fuel efficient, but they are incredibly spatially efficient too. Just think about how many people could ride down a two-lane city street if all were on bicycles. I admit to not making any tape measurements, but the spatial ratio must be somewhere from 3 to 6 bicycles per 1 car. And seeing as most streets in San Francisco (and everywhere in this great nation) are dominated by cars, the skilled bicycle rider can use spatial efficiency to his advantage. When a line of cars waits at a red light, the cyclist moves to the front of the line -- both because it is safer at the front where the automobiles can see the cyclist, and because the cyclist can. There is enough space between and beside the automobiles for bicycles to weave through and past. In a dense urban area like San Francisco, with stop-and-go city traffic, the bicyclist's ability to take advantage of spatial efficiency renders his mode of transportation the fastest.

At no time was the spatial efficiency of the bicycle more apparent to me than after the game (a thrilling 2 - 1 Giants victory after an eighth inning two-run dinger by Pat Burrell). While a line of cars close to a half-mile long waited in frustrated traffic along the Embarcadero, I cruised by in the bike lane, riding leisurely to enjoy the summer air and soak in the excitement of the win. Without exerting much energy at all, I left the line of cars in the proverbial rear-view and headed home one pedal at a time.

Which brings us to the name of this post: spatial inefficiency. In contrast to the spatial efficiency of the bicycle is the spatial inefficiency of a typical city road. Take Divisadero for example. Two lanes of traffic and one lane of parking each way creates a road that takes too much space to move too few people. If just one of those lanes were converted to a bike lane, think of how many more people could travel quickly down the road. For an even greater example of spatial inefficiency, imagine the typical suburban strip mall, maybe one with a Super Target, Best Buy, Quiznos, you name it. How much of the space is actually dedicated to the stores and the walkways and how much is dedicated to storing the giant steel monstrosities that everyone is lugging around with them?

So, you might ask, who cares? We've got plenty of space here in America, why not use it? I will attempt to address these questions in a further installment of Spatial Inefficiency. If anyone has ideas before then--or if you love your Suburban and think bicycles are impractical toys for overgrown children--just use the comment section and share your opinion.

Public Health

We often think of the public health in mechanical terms. What is the average life span? Which diseases are most prevalent? How can money be made by selling health to people? How much does it cost to provide "health care"?

I suspect this train of thought is simplistic.

It is driven in part by big insurance and its dollars and cents approach to health (and life); driven also by the legal system, using the adversarial system as a means toward rewarding those made ill by other's negligence, but also succumbing to the ideal that money can heal and punish; driven by the business of medicine and the view that health may be bought and sold.

But of course it may, you might think. Those with money can afford to live in safe areas and purchase healthy food, live in well-built homes, buy the latest drugs and health-fads, and pay for insurance and hospital visits. This consumptive view of medicine and health, however, ultimately has a deleterious effect. It reduces public health to a budget line and obscures our understanding of what the public health is.

At its foundation, better public health is both easier and harder to achieve than universal health care and cheaper prescription drugs. It is easier in the sense that it may be reduced to simple concepts: we should create living environments that promote life and wellness, where ample shelter, fresh food, and clean water is available and people have the opportunity to engage in physical activity and nurture positive relationships. It is harder in that it requires a holistic and multi-modal understanding of health that reaches far beyond the hospital and the insurance companies' balance sheets.

Public health has as much to do with things like walkability, bike lanes, farmers markets, crime reduction and open spaces as it does with access to hospitals and advances in pharmaceutical technology or surgical procedures. We limit our understanding of public health if we conceive of it in purely medical terms. Instead, it will benefit urban areas to think about the public health impacts of every decision, particularly decisions regarding transportation and public space.

Several years ago, I spent a few months undertaking research for a paper on the importance of walkability towards creating and fostering urban relationships. My thesis was not revolutionary. I merely argued that walking brings people in closer contact with their cities, that it is more democratic than driving, and that a pedestrian friendly city will ultimately be a better place to live than an auto-centric city.

An idea that I tossed around in my head but never committed to paper was the life:death ratio. When making public decisions, I thought, we should think simply about whether our plans nurture life or risk harm, disease, and death. It seems obvious that walking environments promote life and don't increase death or disease, but that auto-centric environments lead to more carbon dioxide, more obesity, more unnecessary fatalities. Of course it is also true that automobile technology and open roads allow emergency personnel to react quickly to fires and heart attacks, but that is why we have the ratio. The ability to give and sustain life must be balanced with the susceptibility for disease and death.

Walking up Scott street the other day, from Lower Haight towards Alamo Square, I noticed a freshly planted tree and for a second envisioned the potential of the road before me and before us all. I saw trees in strange places, scattered down the middle of the road, and imagined the flow of bikers multiplying as the parked cars vanished to their place in history books. I saw a space that was public and open, one that promoted life and activity, a street where children could pick fruit from trees and people could walk to their neighbor's house without the threat of anything more imposing than a stream of bicycles and pedestrians.

Biking Around

This is Rocinante: an old steel road bike, made in France somewhere in the 70s or early 80s. I picked it up at a bike repair shop down in South Beach for a modest sum and have been trekking around the city these last few weeks. Even rode into work for the first time on Friday, sharing the road with the buses and taxis, delivery trucks and private cars, watching the people walk down the broad sidewalks of Market Street and feeling the cool morning air, a natural air conditioner to balance the effort of the ride. There are not many better ways to spend the morning commute (not to mention the fact that my ride was at least ten minutes faster than the typical bus commute on the 21-Hayes).

Along with walking, bicycling is a great activity for both transportation and community development. I know that may seem like a bold statement for something as simple as pedaling a piece of metal down city streets, but bikers do more than travel from point a to b. They survey their surroundings and bring a human element to the streets. They also empower themselves with the ability to transverse the city with their own two legs and an exhaust-free machine. Maybe most importantly, they bring themselves (or the bicycle brings them) into direct contact with the physical space of the city.

Bikes also allow people to travel with a minimal use of energy (maximum efficiency). The bike is much more efficient than an auto, even more efficient than walking. So why aren't more Americans riding bikes? Why aren't more San Franciscans riding?

The average suburban American lives somewhere that is only accessible by highways and neighborhood roads. Highways have no dedicated bike lanes, neighborhood roads lead nowhere (but to neighborhood houses). Mega cities are built on the scope of the automobile, rely on its oversized frame to bear the citizens from one to the next. People ride bikes in these areas, but often only for joy or exercise, not as a practical method of transport.

But even if the above is a satisfactory explanation for the lack of bike-riding in America as a whole, what explains the relative lack of riding in a place like San Francisco. Although there are many cyclists in the city, the city and citizens would benefit and could handle an exponential increase in ridership. I suspect the biggest obstacle to most would-be riders is the perceived dangerousness of urban riding. Cars are big and careless and bikers are relatively unprotected (although many wear helmets). Ultimately, a city that is sincerely dedicated to accessible transportation, public health, and the improvement of the streetscape must do its best to promote cycling and walking. Cyclists must also do a good job of sharing their excitement with their friends and neighbors. The more bikes on the street, the safer it will become for riders.*

My proposal: San Francisco should pick a weekend day and shut down 10 to 20% of the streets to all through-traffic except buses, a mega-Sunday Streets of sorts. Preferably the carless streets would be commercial corridors: Divisadero, Union, Mission, Fillmore, Polk, Chestnut, Valencia, Columbus, 16th Street, 24th Street. The possibilities are endless. I guess we'd have to allow cars some way to cross the streets at defined intersections, but we could probably employ intersections with traffic lights, or even get a few policeman out there to interact with the folk and direct traffic. Perhaps I'm overlooking the logistical complexities of such an event, but there ain't nothing wrong with dreaming big. Improving the transportation corridors of the cities of the future will take vision and tenacity. The city is an experiment that is never complete.



* The pack offers protection. Or maybe it just seems to. All I know is that it feels safer to be riding with other bikers on the road. I would be interested if anyone has statistics to share.