You are going to see more people biking…in Toledo?
It was really hard not to laugh when I read this quote in the latest article from the Blade related to their Urban Option series, Experts believe bicycling, walking, and public transit use will rise:
“You’re going to see more and more biking in places like Toledo,” Mr. Kelbaugh said. “I think you’ll see people biking more within a 10-mile radius.”
The mean average of days in Toledo with precipitation is 103, snow and rain, without even getting into the topic of winter months when all but a hardy few would be out there trying to bicycle through the snow and the unplowed streets, has anyone ever tried to bike in the snow? I have, you don’t get very far very fast. Has anyone tried to ride their bikes on Toledo’s streets? I have, avoiding pot holes and dead animals as well as drivers who don’t watch out for cyclers can be quite an adventure. But wait…there are Bike Paths, but you have to actually get to a bike path and then have it go where you want to end up…
Then let’s factor in the number of those who are overweight or obese in this area. Granted it would make them healthier and they would probably shed some pounds if they started biking more but let’s be real here, how many of you would ride your bike up to ten miles to work each day in the rain, the snow, for all four seasons of the weather that we have here in Toledo?
I realize that Douglas S. Kelbaugh is an avid bicyclist, I just don’t see that catching on here, then again, neither did the family helicopters predicted in the 1950’s…
Let’s not forget the man that was viciously killed the first day he rode his bike to work. Thanks but no thanks, I would rather spend money on gas and be warm, cool and safe in my car.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:43 pmoh heck yeah. i’m gonna strap those two kid car seats to my bike and haul butt over to Westfield Franklin Park — from Sylvania.
Whatever.
And then, I’m gonna ride my bike all the way to Bowling Green for work.
Geesh.
Nope. I’ll drive my minivan thank you very much.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pmOn warm days I’ll need a shower at work after I ride my bike there. Anyone have $9,996 lying around so I can have one installed?
August 12th, 2008 at 2:42 pmIn tough economic times, I can see how riding a bicycle would be a way to save money, but there are other costs involved that would offset any savings:
1. safety–riding could cost people their lives.
2. a bike is about 5 times slower than a motor vehicle. People’s time is better spent earning money, not pedalling.
3. showing up to your destination hot and sweaty does not leave a very good impression on people regardless of whether or not someone puts on a tie and jacket
4. The problem of how to transport packages and passengers. Rickshaws are too big to ride on sidewalks and too slow to ride on the streets.
5. Since the ’50’s, the car has been the symbol of independence, self-reliance, and individualism. The motor vehicle is now a part of American culture and will be very difficult if not impossible to change. It might even be viewed as being “unamerican.”
August 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pmBiking to work in the winter???? I keeping thinking of the scene in Dumb and Dumber where Harry and Lloyd are riding the little motorbike and show up in Aspen frozen to each other. Toledo winters are sort of like that.
Biking to work in the summer???? One smell I can not stand is sweat mixed with old lady perfume. Not a good combination.
August 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pm“You had an extra pair of GLOVES!?”
TAHL
August 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pmwe need more bikers
however, we also need both bikers and drivers to understand the rules of the road
again, funny thing is… check out my blog for the punchline
August 12th, 2008 at 4:54 pmSure, very few of us would consider doing our commute by bicycle here – but the Blade also provided a nice linked story about public transit as an alternative – the Cleveland Rapid Transit Authority’s effort to develop the kind of rapid transit more people might actually consider using.
Other cities I’ve visited have well-developed rapid transit that allow commuters to combine light rail and their bicycles to manage a carless commute most of the year. Granted, some of these are in the Pacific Northwest (home of the “new urbanism” the Blade is enthralled with), and don’t have the winters we do in Northwest Ohio. It’s still a nice aspiration.
If it were more convenient, I would prefer to use TARTA for my commute several days a week, but TARTA currently doesn’t offer the evening hours or the flexibility my work schedule requires. Toledo is the first city I’ve worked in where I was forced to use a car for my commute.
I should get off my soapbox, since TARTA no doubt is lacking any resources to spare on new concepts right now. Still, GCRTA can’t be overflowing with surplus cash either, but at least seems to be trying to get into the 21st century. Like other RTAs in the Rust Belt, TARTA is going to have a very hard time attracting new, well-heeled riders (new urban or suburban) until it can apply some imagination and expand its service beyond the “same old same old”. I am idealistic enough to wish TARTA luck with this, but for now the real expectations have to be very low.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:09 pmLast year Ohio revoked my right to drive. After many runarounds, I learned Massachusetts had revoked it in 2001 & later requested Ohio to follow suit. After many more run arounds, I learned it started from 1984 , before computerization, and they couldn’t find it in the hardbound, handwritten volumes. Catch 22.
No matter, I started biking heavily in 1990 in Boston to save money and kept it up here in Toledo. There are a lot of us biking commuters who think you drivers are acting like ostriches with your stereotyping and refusing to figure out how to do it safely and comfortably. [Yes, I dress for it every day of the winter, & take it slow in the summer.]
If you spent the same # hours you work to earn money for your car in walking 5 miles per hour, you could cover the distances you travel about your community, stop easily, talk to interesting people, and live a very satisfying life.
August 12th, 2008 at 7:31 pmIt isn’t all that far fetched. My husband parked his truck and rides his bike about 10 miles to work and just leaves about 20 minutes earlier. Where I work is also where my children attend school and we walk regardless of the weather. If it rains, we use umbrellas. Snowboots walk us there with dry feet in the winter. Obesity is used as a reason that people won’t use alternative methods, but maybe they wouldn’t be so obese if they explored these ideas a little further. We are a very lazy nation that is used to too much. In other major metropolitan areas, public transportation is not something that is only “poor” people use and it doesn’t have that weird stigma that it has in Toledo. I realize this isn’t practical for a lot of people due to distance, but there are a whole lot of people in Toledo that this could be a viable option, if they made some changes.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm“Other cities I’ve visited have well-developed rapid transit that allow commuters to combine light rail and their bicycles to manage a carless commute most of the year.”
doesn’t tarta have bike racks on the front of their buses?
August 12th, 2008 at 10:16 pmDon’t ya love it when we get compared to places like Amsterdam, Denmark, etc., like it is apples to apples. Nothing wrong with biking but The Blade articles are so simplistic! When I see John Robinson Block riding his bike to work from his new home in the city center………………..
August 12th, 2008 at 10:35 pmThe laziness of the majority of people in this city astounds me. I’ve ridden my bike to and from work everyday from almost 2 years. Yes, sometimes with the weather showing just how bad it can get, getting a ride makes sense, but for the most part it’s not all that difficult as some of these commenters have made it seem.
And everyone should just get TARTA out of their heads. They’ve cut a lot of their routes down, and if you live in certain parts of the city you will soon have no service at all… Pretty much all thanks to the general stigma associated with riding the bus. YAY for ignorance!
August 13th, 2008 at 9:33 amChoosing not to bike to work is not laziness. As stated, who wants to show up wet, sweaty, freezing, dirty and smelly and work in those conditions. I work with the public. It’s no picnic having someone that smells in my face. Plus, like I stated, it’s dangerous. A man was recently shot to death on the first day he chose to ride his bike to work.
Good one A-hole
August 13th, 2008 at 11:09 amSpycom – sound like you think there is no hope TARTA can recover from its current position? This sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy – when (if?) most of us decide that public transportation is a lost cause in Toledo, this public opinion by itself will prevent TARTA from obtaining the resources and motivation it would need to provide better services to a wider range of riders.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:20 pmIf I lived closer to my work place, I would consider riding my bike. Even though, I don’t think it would be all that safe to be out riding a bike after 11PM, to get home.
I used to know a guy who would ride his bike everywhere, in all kinds of weather.
August 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pmWow Pam, you sure got me. I guess A-holes like me that make people like you look bad should just stay off the net.
August 13th, 2008 at 4:19 pmTARTA is a lost cause unless private investors are willing to take over. The stigma that exists is that the bus is for homeless criminals, that’s what the kids say anyway and kids (teens and college-aged mostly) are the driving force of any economy in this country.
I work 3rd shift and ride through the North end and have never had a problem, it’s really sad that one incident by one lunatic would scare people away from riding… Of course if they’d quit cutting the law enforcement budget we might not have to worry as much… but that’s a different post altogether.
Toledo is not set up like the European cities we get compared to where people ride bikes everywhere all the time. It is very unsafe to ride bikes around the roads of Toledo because people do not give bikes the road respect they need. Bikes are not part of our culture. I would love to ride a bike or take a bus. Ya know, when Carty wanted to put in some bike trails the idea was poo pooed.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:33 pmrunner: You are totally right, this city wasn’t designed to accommodate anything other than automobiles and even that’s a stretch. This city’s dependence on the automotive industry will be it’s ultimate undoing if the urban sprawl doesn’t kill us first. Hard choices need to be made and unfortunately these choices need to be educated. It’s really hard for a city to grow when it’s governing body says, “Well it’s worked in the past, it should be fine now.”
August 14th, 2008 at 2:22 amI used to ride a bike everywhere in Toledo years ago and found out exactly why Toledo is called the “glass city”.
Everywhere you ride, there is broken glass in one spot or, another just waiting to pop a tire.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:15 amThe reactions in here are really sad, and further cement the inevitable fact that my wife and I reached: we simply cannot move back to Toledo. If you would open your eyes, you would see that there ARE more cyclists in Toledo. I first noticed it jump in 2006 when I came home to visit, and I was looking around West Toledo, Sylvania, Ottawa Hills, and Downtown, and looking at my family asking “When did THIS start?”. It was obvious. Even more last summer. I will be in Toledo in two weeks, and I imagine I’ll see even more.
Many other cities the size of Toledo have rampant bike commuting, its clean and healthy. It saves on road maintenance, gas, and adds years to your life.
Even if you can’t or don’t cycle, at least have the civility to recognize it as a viable mode of transportation, if not for you. Give cyclists repsect on the road: a run-in for you means a dent, for them its their life.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:14 amWith gas prices as high as they are, I have given thought to a motor scooter.
Prices are a bit too pricey for me, for now, till save some cash.
The gas mileage is great and the newer models are much improved over what they once were.
Get some rain gear and good to go for most of the year.
Winter, back to driving a car.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:28 am[...] poll is nation wide but given our discussion on biking and walking here in Toledo on an earlier post that’s still generating discussion, this media release I received this morning from the AARP [...]
August 14th, 2008 at 9:45 amOne thing bike riders have to remember is the rules of the road. Just yesterday, I was at a four-way stop. A bike rider comes up beside me and just pedals right through even though the person to his left had the right of way. Bike riders need to stop and wait their turn just as cars do. Oh and don’t just turn in front of me. I don’t know what your intentions are. Do not expect cars to watch out for you if you are not obeying simple traffic laws.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:55 amWhat we need are dedicated bike paths that are just off the road, not on the road. Lets look at motorcycle fatalities, motorcycles are less than one percent of the traffic on the road, but represent 20% of the traffic deaths. Riding a bike on the road is risky. Size matters indeed. The safest car on the road today is not your BMW or Volvo, its a 1973 Chrysler Imperial. It weighed tons and had a hood 3 miles out in front of you made of monstrous framing and a goliath of an engine and transmission. You could land a plane on the hood!!
Mass, pure weight is the most important thing you can bring to a collision situation to improve survival. But we are talking bikes, so look at the city owned right of way that exists on both sides of every road. Bikes should be allowed to transit sidewalks and road right of ways , period. They of course would be required to yeild right of way to pedestrians and slower vehicles, and especially electric carts used by the elderly and physically challenged.
The answer is right there. Give the bikes a sidewalk option wherever possible. With so many distractions involved in driving today, cell phones, gps, laptops, radios,, etc.,, and a pace of life that is manic, give the bikes a break and let them drive the sidewalk. When crossing the walk at an intersection,,, pass a law that they have the same rights as a pedestrian over cars.
Just a thought, is it illegal to ride a bike on the walk in Toledo right now?
August 24th, 2008 at 2:44 pmI think you are absolutely wrong…. if you study history, you know in the US roads were paved for bicycles, not cars, and they absolutely have a place there. For bicycling to be an effective means of transportation it has to be integral in the fabric and places of the city. It needs to move along storefronts, gas stations, houses, offices, businesses, restaurants. It needs to have openings and closings, entrances and exits, it needs to be a meshwork over the city as any other transportation network, NOT a linear connector of two points along a disused railway right of way.
We just want equal access to the public infrastructure of roads. Our country subsidizes automobile travel more than any other right now, why not giving a little towards bicycles? Many other cities do it, it can be done safely.
August 24th, 2008 at 3:14 pmSure let em use the roads when sidewalks aren’t available. its not good to have an altercation on the road with a ton or two , or three or more,, of fast moving steel. Sure sidewalks when available , roads when they aren’t.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:40 pmI ride my bike to work on occasion and find that the roads are not the best suited for my ride. I have noticed an increase in riders, with me being a part of the new buzz, and consider them very brave or stupid (stupid, because it seems risky). The roads are rough, with potholes and rocks that jerk my tire in several directions. I notice that motorists don’t move over respectfully, even if we are on a four lane road. Don’t get me wrong, not every road and every motorist is a problem, but there are enough out there that something should be done. If drivers would just limit their distractions and keep their eyes peeled. As a motorist too, I realize how sometimes we are too busy to see everything on the road. However, we all should educate ourselves and be on the look out. I agree that people on their bikes should increase their awareness and respect motorist as well. “Share the Road”-right? I don’t know too much about the city’s capability of putting in more bike lanes, but I would love to see it happen. Along with education for the public about safety. Sadly, I don’t even know if this is possible.
August 28th, 2008 at 4:13 pm-discouraged