On my drive to work this morning, an unusual scene caught my eye:
Right in the middle of downtown Seattle, a father was riding in perfect sync on a triple tandem bike with his two daughters. I caught up with them at the Spruce Street School, the only K-5 in downtown Seattle.
He told me that they live in Queen Anne, and try to bike to school at least 3 times a week. As we chatted, his oldest daughter stood a few feet away with a proud look on her face as he told me that they are also training for the Seattle to Portland bike ride coming up this July. I asked "Oh, you're preparing for the race?", to which he responded, "Yeah, the three of us are." (I did mention that these girls are in a K-5 school, right?)
p.s. STP organizers: you should feature this family in your marketing materials -- if they don't
In Europe, the following photos are not uncommon:
(kidding... this last photo was in Portland)
I know, I know, we're all getting tired of hearing about how great biking is in Holland, and Denmark, and even Portland. Although we may not have the ideal situation ( = flat) as some of these areas, there's no reason why we can't start adopting successful elements. Yes! Magazine wrote a great article, looking at what it would take to make biking less of a "recreational activity" and more mainstream:
In Utrecht, Holland, 95 percent of older students—kids in the 10 to 12 age range—bike to school at least some of the time. In the U.S., roughly half that percentage (50 percent of kids) walked or biked to school… back in 1970. Since then, the rate has dropped to 15 percent, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School program.
Some bullet points of their success:
- kids learn about biking and bike safety in school
- in The Hague, the city works hard to separate bike paths from streets used by cars and trucks
- access to safe, convenient bike storage
- using color on the roadways to clearly designate bike lanes
There are campaigns out there that are trying to push us in the right direction -- Seattle has a new Walk, Bike, Ride challenge, and 6 months ago, Michelle Obama came out with the "Let's Move" obesity campaign. And although Forbes.com lists Seattle as the 7th family friendly city, they were really only looking at taxes, incomes, and total expenses to figure a family's ability to live a good lifestyle. But is that really all it takes to be family friendly? It's not saying much for our city that we only have one K-5 school, or that people don't feel safe in our downtown parks.
So -- I put it out to the rest of you -- what will it take for the scene I saw this morning to become a mainstream in Seattle instead of unusual?