“One Mile Solution” Problems

Andy Cline, in his excellent blog, “Carbon Trace,” espouses what he calls “The One Mile Solution.” Put briefly, it advocates simply switching over from motorized to non-motorized transportation for those short, daily trips of a mile or less. Personally, I like the concept. It works well for open-minded people in reasonable health that live in urban areas. And that is also the rub.

Health
More often than not, I stop for coffee on my way home from work. Conveniently, there’s a handicap sign that provides a convenient place to park my bike. While the coffee is a large brand based in Seattle, the store itself is part of a major grocery chain. This particular store has nearly a dozen handicap spots and they are often all occupied. I have no way to know what all the various handicaps consist of, but one wonders how many of these drivers would be amenable to a “one mile solution.” Indeed, my own parents are not inclined to ride to many places that I walk or ride to when I visit them. Ditto for my wife. I’m not sure how we, as a society, deal with this, since reduced exercise due to reduced mobility can become a downward spiral. Ironically, this spiral starts with the young. As often as not, the worst traffic conflicts I encounter on my way to work are at an elementary school on my route, due to all the “drop offs” that occur, even though a “safe routes to school” program was completed in 2011. Perhaps our high health care costs are not solely due to government meddling – well at least not in the obvious meddling. After all, government pushed to build the freeway system and that plays a role in our long-term health as people drive more.

Walkability and Bikeability
Modern suburbs have become traps for the residents. Fifty plus years of residential developments and the proliferation of “big box” stores, and even Internet retailers, have resulted in ever-less “walking friendly” neighborhoods. My own current neighborhood is very poor in this regard, though cycling to local shopping areas is not particularly difficult. Even our projected future residence is in an area that is not designed to encourage walking rather than driving. Few local businesses consider anything other than automobile parking. Fortunately, we took all this in consideration and did not seriously consider housing that was poorly sited. As a result, our house is less than ten minutes by bike from the major businesses in the community and the transit pickup that has an express route to the major cities in the county. Though my wife might not be able to take advantage of our house’s “non-motorized friendliness,” the rest of us in the family will rarely need to drive on a daily basis. It remains to be seen how things actually turn out.

Our Future Home

Infrastructure
My loyal reader knows that I have rarely run across cycling infrastructure that has caused me to ride somewhere I wouldn’t have otherwise ridden, nor that demonstrably increased my safety. Even so, I use infrastructure such as paths despite the knowledge that, while pleasant, they are more dangerous than the nearby road system. What’s more, we live in an aging society, with a roadway system focused on facilitating high-speed travel without regards to making things easier for those with limited mobility, much less creating an atmosphere where non-motorized users feel like more than unwanted adjuncts to the motorized majority.

Solution
Clearly, Andy’s “One Mile Solution” is part of the “answer” rather than part of the “problem,” but it needs to be coupled with added actions. I’m sure Andy agrees with this. Some of these actions require government, such as laws that treat motoring misdeeds against other road users seriously, and police investigations that treat crashes as fundamental failures requiring corrective action, rather than nuisances. Others may be better encouraged through private efforts such as the Bike League’s “Bicycle Friendly Business” program. Bike lanes and separated paths may help establish an encouraging environment, but we should never support bike infrastructure that is KNOWN to be dangerous simply for the sake of tempting people. In most cases, safer is not hard to do. Door zone bike lanes do not exist where parking is restricted to private property. It isn’t hard for police to understand that wrong-way riding is easy to spot and dangerous to all at the same time. Intersection conflicts are far fewer when attention is paid to reducing them. In truth, most of the time, dangerous facilities are a result of traffic engineering that departs from things like the AASHTO rules rather than considering them as “minimal” standards.