The following biking tale has a happy beginning, a nail-biting middle and an uncertain ending.
Over the summer, I received a copy-editing internship at the Arizona Republic, which has its main office downtown on the corner of Van Buren and Second streets. This was the perfect opportunity to commute from my downtown apartment on a bike — the distance was just right. I stayed outside in the heat for minimal amounts of time, hooked up my bike with lights and reflectors for the evening commute back and took a pathway I deemed safe and relatively traffic-free.
Riding over the summer was a blast. There were few cars heading downtown, longer sunlight hours and plenty of time to safely get where I needed to be. While more people would be downtown as school started, I didn’t think it would drastically change my commute.
Yet lately, I’ve felt significantly more uneasy biking to work and school. This is especially true when I reach the intersection of Fillmore and Second streets, where many drivers are unaware of the lack of four-way stop signs and cyclists become stuck in an uncomfortable game of “Should I stay or should I go?”
I also prefer riding on the road to riding on the sidewalk, but finding which invisible path to take becomes more complicated with each passing car. Every day, there is a different abrupt stop I need to make, a different pothole or bump I need to avoid, a different odd exchange I need to make with passing drivers or people who don’t hear me on the sidewalk. (“On the right” means I’m on the right, not that you should move to the right. Please don’t move to the right.)
It seems as if with every ride, the chance of me getting in an accident becomes greater. A few fellow biking friends have taken nasty spills on the road in the last couple years, and they didn’t end up looking too good.
According to data collected by Vox, Phoenix led the country in the number of bicyclist deaths from 2009 to 2011. Another Valley city, Mesa, was the close second. While the total amount of bikers dying does remain relatively low compared to pedestrian deaths, it’s not like those numbers are dropping much either, as the Vox article shows.
Now, it’s not that I’m worried I’ll be involved in a fatal accident. But with more people who live near downtown choosing to ride bikes, and with the city pushing its new Grid Bike Share program, we need action to make sure cyclists feel secure.
Various factors can affect the outcome of a cyclist’s commute. I’m a young bike commuter, and my bicycling wasn’t always efficient. I’m learning different cycling techniques and safety measures the more I bike. I’ve learned that biking commutes, like traditional driving commutes, need to be taken seriously. It is another form of transportation, not a toy or leisurely ride. Bikes are also vehicles and should follow the same rules of the road.
The driver is also a factor. Keeping the vehicle a certain distance from a cyclist on the road comes down to the often-mentioned phrase of “sharing the road,” something many drivers or cyclists don’t know how to do. Bicycling-advocacy group Phoenix Spokes People has collected materials with that particular safety information for cyclists and drivers to read.
A big factor is the city infrastructure. Take street lighting, for instance. As fall sets in and the days get shorter, those who work or study until late afternoon will have a greater chance of traveling at night. Others who work early mornings may be riding before the sun rises. On top of that, some cyclists don’t use lights and sometimes road lighting malfunctions.
Over the summer, the city repaired 32 of the street lights around the Downtown campus and nearby parking lots and reported nine that didn’t have power to Arizona Public Service, according to an email sent to ASU’s Undergraduate Student Government Downtown. It’s true that some street lights are on private lots and can’t be fixed by the city. But a total of 41 inadequate street lights — and that’s just around the ASU campus — can seem staggering.
The construction of bicycle lanes is also a big issue with the community, something the Downtown Devil has written about on several different occasions. Not knowing whether to bike on the road or the sidewalk already creates uncertainty during a commute.
There are obviously pages to be written about this topic, and it will warrant future articles on this site.
I purchased a bike at the beginning of this year, and I’m happy to ride it around downtown. It’s the best transportation to get where I need to go, promotes a bit of exercise and lets me look around the city a bit more.
There is no routine commute; each one is different. And while that may feel special, sometimes I wish there were more reassurance that I will not get involved in an accident one day. As I bike more, I’ll understand how to properly find my place on the road, and hopefully my commute will get a bit safer. For that to happen for all cyclists will take a concerted effort from everyone.
Contact the author at motarola@asu.edu
