Davis, Calif: Experiencing Platinum Bike-Friendliness

September 13th, 2010: 

The League of American Bicyclists has a bike-friendly community (BFC) ranking and award system based on criteria grouped under 5 "Es": Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, and Evaluation & Planning. The top ranking is platinum and the City of Davis, California is one of three cities in 2010 with that ranking, the others Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon.  Canada has yet to develop a similar system, although the Share the Road Coalition in Ontario recently announced efforts to use LAB's BFC system for Ontario communities.


Rather than read about what constitutes platinum, gold, silver or bronze BFC status, we wanted to see and feel what it was like by visiting and biking in cities in California with different rankings.  Visiting Davis also provided the opportunity for Clare to meet Dr. Susan Handy, who is one of the leading academics on urban cycling and is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Transportation at UC-Davis (FYI there is also a sustainable transportation center at the University of Winnipeg: CST).  Susan met us for coffee in the morning and one of her research assistants, Amy Lee, very generously took us on a guided bike tour of the city.  

The images that follow show but a few of the innovations and common sights that confirmed to us why Davis is considered a place that is safe and encouraging for cycling.  We didn't see many cyclists wearing helmets, but that reflects the high level of safety and respect that drivers in Davis extend to cyclists.  To fit in, we rented comfort bikes and rode helmet-free in sandals and street clothes.   

Mike on a "comfort bike" and not wearing a helmet

Among the bike infrastructure innovations that we were seeing for the first time were bike tunnels, roundabouts, special bike lights at intersections and bike lanes that are outside parking space for cars.  

Special lights for bicycles at intersections

bike zone at intersection

bike tunnel, Davis, Cal

bike lane outside parking area for cars

Press button for bike signal

 

Bike Barn at UC-Davis

Pacific Coast Bike Trip, September 2010

Mike and I flew to California mid-September 2010 to cycle down the coast from San Francisco to Santa Barbara, visiting bike-friendly cities along the way. Our basic route is shown in the map, below, although we deviated somewhat from what you see there:

This atypically touristy (for us) photo on the Golden Gate Bridge marks day one of the bike tour, with cooler temperatures than we had expected, hence our jackets, which we wore most of the day.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, September 14, 2010

Mike's comment: You can cycle or walk across the entire bridge on a dedicated sidewalk but no bike lane. Lots of pedestrians (tourists) walking in both directions makes cycling across more like navigating on an obstacle course. Other big bridges in the Bay area have fences to prevent people from jumping off. You can see in this photo of the Golden Gate that you can just hop over the railing.

It was below 10 degrees Celsius for the first few mornings, which made early morning starts less than appealing. We took a leisurely pace, not out to set any distance records and to explore interesting sites along the way. Our average daily distance was about 80 km, our longest being about 130 km and taking all day. We were on rented bikes with panniers from Bike and Roll and we used an assortment of maps (unfortunately we couldn't obtain the adventure cycling maps, which are reportedly great) and a book called Cycling the Pacific Coast, which was helpful for knowing which roads would be safest for bicycling, but we relied on other sources to find interesting places to see and eat, especially people we met on the road or at restaurants and hostels/inns.

September was a busy month for us and between Clare's research preparations and Mike's house design in Muskoka, any wise person would have considered adding a 10 day bike trip as a clear indication of insanity. However, as it turned out the timing was perfect as it was during a hiatus while waiting for research ethics approval AND it was when Mike's brother Dave and his wife Cathy were staying at her cousin's gorgeous house in Big Sur, where we had the pleasure of staying for three days half way through the trip.

As a whole, the trip was an amazing opportunity to achieve an educational goal - to experience and learn about bike-friendliness first hand while riding through cities that have been ranked highly bike friendly - while seeing a fascinating part of the world on two wheels.