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Is Education The Real Key To Getting More People on Bikes?

News   October 5, 2010 at 5:33 pm Josh Cohen


Image from joannagoddard.blogspot.com

Yesterday, the Bicycle Alliance of Washington’s Mary Anderson wrote a post on the Alliance blog arguing that education can have a profound impact on the number of people who commute by bike. Anderson’s Exhibit A: Whatcom Smart Trips’ 2008 “individualized marketing” campaign in Bellingham.

The campaign targeted one-third of Bellingham households (roughly 22,500 people) by mail and phone, asking them if they wanted information about walking, bicycling or transit. Forty-five percent of the households the group contacted said they wanted to get more information. Those households received an order form for free informational brochures and booklets about bike, pedestrian, and transit safety, along with tips and techniques for biking; about 90 percent eventually ordered information.

Additionally, participants could request a visit from a “bike buddy”—a “one-on-one meeting with an experienced cyclist who reviews bike safety, rules of the road, bike and helmet fit, and even helps plan out bike routes near the person’s home,” Anderson writes.

The outcome of the campaign was pretty remarkable.

Anderson writes:

In Bellingham, we saw a 15% reduction in VMT (vehicle miles traveled), as well as an 11% increase in bus trips, a 22% increase in walking trips and a 35% increase in bicycle trips! This results in city-wide mode share of 12% walking, 6% bicycle, 1% motorcycle, 55% car as driver, 21% car as passenger, 4% bus, and 1% other public transportation. In the targeted area, the active transportation mode share is an amazing 20% walking and 11% bicycling!

Contemporary bike advocates generally agree that building quality infrastructure is key to increasing the number of people who ride bicycles. As I wrote last week, this is corroborated by hard academic research.

But if Anderson’s numbers are any indication, Seattle would do well to put as much effort into education and outreach as it does into infrastructure. Given that Bellingham has almost double the percentage of people who ride bikes, with roughly the same number of miles of bike paths and striped bike lanes, it’s worth considering a well-funded and well-executed outreach campaign in addition to the city’s ongoing efforts to build more and better infrastructure.




  • Jakers

    Yes. Also, more education will lead to more support when it comes time to put in infrastructure. More education leads to those trying biking to be better supported by non-bikers when it comes to other aspect of their lives that biking interrupts (e.g., employers providing a secure place to store bikes, locker rooms and showers; friends being understanding when meeting up with a biker; spouses allowing the other to spend the money on the bike; etc.).

  • Grover

    Actually, education is the key to getting people to STOP riding bicycles in the city. Anybody with any intelligence is not going to ride a bicycle on a city street — that is just flat-out dangerous and stupid.

  • JohnH

    Education should enlighten us and expand our possibilities. What you suggest is more akin to brainwashing, to convince people of the inferiority of bicycles as transportation. It is not true; the evidence of experience and results of research show that cyclists can safely coexist with other vehicle, given appropriate roadways.

    Education is about giving people the mental tools with which to think through problems and devise clever solutions. Crawling into a shell of fear and conformity is another matter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Dying4Eternity Eternity D-Juggalo

    This year is my first year on a bicycle — I rode 1100 miles and lost 50lbs, and had some amazing insight into what I was capable of doing. In addition I’ve had some of the most outstanding realizations on my bike, and seen some incredible things in nature — including being able to pet a deer that was curious about my bike off Horton.

    I feel amazing and alive again — I can’t keep eating fast food b/c I can absolutely tell the difference between that and real food on a bike in how my body performs. I have more energy, and any depression I had vanished because I regained a massive sense of control on my life. I didn’t feel like I was blindly watching the world pass me by.

    People need to be educated to consistently PREPLAN their decisions — riding on the road isn’t dangerous if you’re predictable, and if you pay attention and drive the cars around you to (mentally). I plan my routes to mainly avoid troubling sections of road. . . its really not hard.

  • seandr

    A campaign like this could change increase biking by conveying two types of information:
    a) practical info about biking (routes, safety, etc)
    b) social info – i.e., giving the impression that lots of other people are biking

    Social information tends to be pretty persuasive, and I’m guessing that is what is driving this effect. We are social animals. We respond to what our peers do and say.

  • MJH

    Education must be double-pronged though-drivers need as much education about the rights of cyclists than cyclists need about their owns rights and RESPONSIBILITIES. I could see a pamphlet about this enclosed with everyone’s vehicle registration renewal as one way to disseminate such info. A billboard campaign more effective than the “three feet” campaign could be another approach. Having all road users be aware of each others’ rights and responsibilities hopefully will damper much of the tension between motorists and cyclists that we see exhibited in many of the comments on Publicola.

    Also, as a cyclists I feel the City installs bicycle infrastructure, but doesn’t do anything to inform cyclists about how to use it. Case in point would the “T”‘s at stop lights where cyclist are supposed to align their bottom brackets in order to change the light to green.

  • Jessie Alan

    I consider myself more educated than most about all of the benefits to be reaped from biking. I am young and fit and I exercise a lot. But still, I never bike in this city. Here is what it would take to get ME on a bike:

    1. Better infrastructure, indeed. I need to feel safer on major routes.

    2. Education of DRIVERS, not so much cyclists. It ruins my day when drivers roll down their window to scream at me and give me the finger, even though I’m riding politely and cautiously in a bike lane or on the shoulder. There is such unwarranted animosity sometimes. And drivers often don’t know how to maneuver around bike lanes, keep from cutting cyclists off in intersections, or develop the presence of mind to look in their rear view mirror before opening their door in to a bike lane.

    3. An inexpensive, stylish and comfortable bike that is easy to ride. I lack the motivation to find one in my price range, even though I know I have friends who could help. I need lots of peer support here.

    4. Foul weather gear that isn’t expensive, uncomfortable, or a huge pain in the ass in terms of wearing and care. Dream on.

    5. An easy place to store my bike at work. We have an awesome bathroom with shower, but we lack a dry&secure bike corral. Some classmates of mine at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute proposed an amazing business idea that addresses this need…maybe someday they’ll get a grant from the city to see it through to fruition.

    In sum, I think it’s going to take more than education. I think it will take a full-spectrum, multi-faceted movement.

  • JohnH

    Could not agree more. So far as I know, the driver’s guide car drivers does not address how to share the road with cyclists. Since cyclists are not licensed (nor do I think they should be), they too may not be aware of how to safely and effectively use the new bicycle infrastructure.

    I like the approach the B.ham took. You get a lot of information from the response rates (how many, what info. was requested, etc.). What’s missing is a similar channel of communications to the motor vehicle public, including the main-stream media.

  • Rick at SDOT

    The Bicycle Master Plan highlights education and encouragement as important in convincing more people to ride bikes in Seattle. That’s why SDOT created Bike Smart Seattle in 2008, which it runs with the Cascade Bicycle Club.

    Bike Smart Seattle sponsors group rides, repair clinics, and special bike-oriented events to help residents overcome hesitations about cycling and promote it as a transportation option. And it also works to educate people about new roadway elements like bike Ts and bike boxes. You can learn more about it here: http://www.bikesmartseattle.org/

  • Johns

    and what’s going on there is great. but it appears clear that we could learn from Bellingham’s example and reach out to folks a little more actively; the evidence seems pretty clear that people are willing to do more if only they get a little more encouragement.

  • Johns

    and what’s going on there is great. but it appears clear that we could learn from Bellingham’s example and reach out to folks a little more actively; the evidence seems pretty clear that people are willing to do more if only they get a little more encouragement.

  • Anonymous

    (My previous post appears to have simply disappeared)

    Grover, since the fatality rate for those driving cars is significantly higher than for cars, would anyone with any intelligence choose to drive over riding the bus?

    http://2bts.rita.dot.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_21.html

    http://2bts.rita.dot.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_02_24.html

  • Anonymous

    I ride nearly every day, worked for years yards from Cascade’s offices, read actively on several bike blogs and have never heard of bikesmart.

    This could be my failure to search it out, or perhaps my subconscious aversion to anything that sounds overly pedantic or condescending.

    Or it could be that SDOT needs to try harder to target a more broad audience and not rely on a glorified lobbying group to do their jobs for them.

  • Anonymous

    Portland’s PBOT estimates from surveys that the majority of residents (about 60%) are that “interested but concerned” group who fondly remember riding when younger but have fears:
    http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?a=158497&c=44671
    They’re trying to educate the whole population, with the nice bonus that you get “drivers” along with that.

    I’ll also echo your wish for dry bike parking. I was completely spoiled on UW campus. It’s not just at work, either, our apt building’s bike room is packed.

  • JohnH

    Working with CSB is kind of like preaching to the converted. I’m guessing that motorists and cyclists that do not currently ride in the city (for a variety of reasons), the very people we need to educate, are not members of CSB. CSB is a valuable resource of committed cyclists, but numerically they represent a fraction of the motorists and potential urban cyclists.

    My other comment would be the nature of the education we are talking about. The sort of activities sponsored by Bike Smart Seattle sound like good community building, but how much education is going on? MJH pointed out the need to educate motorists and cyclists about the new traffic patterns, lane markings, sensors, signs, signals, etc. that are being deployed by SDOT. This audience is probably not interested in joining a club; they just want to be about their travels in safety and a shared understanding of the rules of the road.

  • Anonymous

    I’ve ridden regularly in Seattle for over 15 years, and have had only minor urges to join Cascade. I think they do good work, but I’m just not a club kinda guy. I find clubs more exclusionary than inclusionary. I am guessing I’m not alone with that sentiment. I would hope our local governments would be more willing to take on the hard but essential task of educating both byciclists and drivers on the rules of the road, particularly as they continue to add road-gadgets that most folks, particularly drivers, scratch their heads about.Bikers have the motivation to google the latest dohicky. Drivers don’t.

  • LouiseMc

    The Bicycle Alliance of Washington (I work for them) has employed a variety of strategies that are steadily increasing motorist awareness of sharing the road with bicyclists. We have share the road information included in the Driver’s License manual AND share the road questions are in the written test. All driver’s education programs in the State now teach a Share the Road module that we developed, and we’re now working to have that curriculum incorporated into Traffic School courses as well. We have also printed a Share the Road: Tips for Motorists & Bicyclists flyer that is available online. That said, there is still much more public awareness that needs to take place.