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Why People Don’t Ride Bikes In Boston
Written by Boston Biker on Apr 21
The U.S. Census Bureau specified some of the reasons in its recent American Housing Survey. Health reasons (9.9 percent) rank as the No. 1 reason Bostonians who don’t bike say they steer clear. No bike (4.38 percent) and traffic issues (3.23 percent) round out the top three.
Interestingly, a “lack of adequate sidewalks” is also a major reason, despite public perception on the practice remaining largely negative amid a somewhat nebulous city stance. (The author has some opinions on the subject, too.) It’s possible, or perhaps likely, these are complaints pertaining to walking to work rather than riding, but it still seemed worth mentioning.
I assume “health reasons” means that people feel they are not fit enough to ride bikes, and at 10% that does represent a huge amount of folks who feel they are not healthy enough to ride a bike. However even if you add up all the “folks who can’t ride” you still end up with a whole lot more people who COULD be riding, but don’t.
My gut is telling me that there are a whole lot of folks ready to get out there and ride, but are waiting for a couple of things. More access to bike lanes, and bike infrastructure. And a feeling that its a “movement.”
Every day I go to work and I see more and more people riding their bike, and I think that draws more people out onto the streets with a bike under them. Their are a lot of people who don’t want to be first adopters, they want to join an established group.
Boston plans to install more and better bike infrastructure, more and more people will ride, and eventually the tidal wave of change will smash against the rocks of car culture and break it. Northern European cities like Copenhagen didn’t get to be the way they are overnight, it took decades of directed improvement. Boston is on the same path, they are far behind but catching up fast. Lets hope we see continued improvement in the bike infrastructure, with more and more adoption of bikes as peoples main form of transportation.
Is there some reason keeping you from riding your bike? Share it with us in the comments.
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