Bike Lane on Park Ave, near Deering Oaks Park, Portland. (Photo courtesy of Corey Templeton @ flikr)

I felt like thumping my chest last week after reading an article in the Portland Press Herald about the decline in the number of cars registered here in Portland and the increasing number of people who are getting to and from work by bus, bike or foot. Ours is a small office (4 full time employees and this summer 4 student interns) and it was not unusual to see 5 or 6 bikes in the office, representing commuters from Deering Oaks, the West End, South Portland and Falmouth. Last Spring, one of our interns, a 3rd year law student commuted from Biddeford by bus. As our intern Brian Lessels wrote on this blog, he, like others at CLF, are biking devotees.

photo courtesy of Justin D. Henry @ flickr

As the article points out, the move away from relying on cars has been born both of necessity due to their high costs and of choice. Certainly, no one wants Maine’s or the country’s economic challenges to persist but to the extent those challenges create the opportunity for more people to choose to both save money and reduce their environmental footprint by driving less, CLF will continue to encourage those choices by supporting commuting alternatives and incentives, public transportation opportunities, and livable and compact developments in our existing cities.

Getting out of our cars more and getting to work by bus, bike or sidewalk is a win-win proposition for our health, our communities and our environment. For more on CLF’s transportation work in Maine, see this fact sheet.

Rush Hour in Copenhagen, photo courtesy of Mikael Colville-Andersen @ flickr

On the afternoon of July 6th, I rode my bike home from work through the streets of Portland, Maine, sharing the lane with car traffic. Parts of my commute could benefit from a bike lane or increased signage, but the prospects for those projects do not look good in the near term. Earlier that day, President Obama had signed a new transportation bill that slashed federal funding for biking and pedestrian infrastructure.

The bill reduces funding for bicycling and pedestrian improvements by about thirty percent. Additionally, it allows those reduced funds allocated for bike and pedestrian projects to be used instead for other transportation work at the discretion of the state. This despite the fact that a 2010 census study showed that the number of people who used a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation increased by 43% in the preceding decade. Even greater gains were seen in cities, where commutes tend to be shorter.

My own bike obsession (my third-floor walk-up houses eight bikes, four of which are mine) began when I spent a semester abroad in Denmark. Its capital city, Copenhagen, is full of wide bike lanes bustling with two-wheeled traffic. The bike lanes are bordered by a curb to separate them from the road and are built so that bikers can safely pass one another within the lane. According to the City of Copenhagen, half of its residents bike to work or school every day. To compare, in Portland, Oregon, the large U.S. city with the most bikers, 6% of residents primarily use their bike to get to work.

Bicycling is contagious. Living in Copenhagen I found that having so many bikes on the roads and such good infrastructure makes it more fun, safer, and easier to ride. Drivers expect cyclists and operate accordingly. Bike racks sit on seemingly every corner. People carry heavy loads of groceries in bike baskets, transport their children around the city in specially-made cargo bikes, and use fenders or even an umbrella to get around in the rain. My memory could be deceiving me, but I still swear that I once saw a man in a business suit eating a sandwich and talking on a cell phone while navigating rush hour bike traffic.

I returned to Portland for law school largely because it is such a wonderful place to live. The city is big enough to have great restaurants and good music, but relatively quiet and geographically small. I own a car, but never drive within the city because biking is cheaper, more fun, and often faster. Traffic is light, speeds are slow, and drivers are generally courteous.

The city has made strides in recent years, adding bike lanes, pursuing federal grant money for further improvements, and even hiring a bike-pedestrian coordinator.  However, more remains to be done. Dangerous intersections, narrow streets, and perilous railroad crossings remain unsafe even for experienced cyclists, and intimidate those who might otherwise choose to commute or recreate on a bike. Greater federal funding would enable Portland to more quickly and completely make its streets safer for all users.

Our country’s transportation system needs help, that much is clear. Many roads and bridges need costly repairs to remain safe. But it is short-sighted to spend huge sums on automotive infrastructure in lieu of making cities more livable for bicyclists and pedestrians. Walking and biking keeps people healthier and happier, all while saving gas and reducing emissions. American cities could be cleaner, more bikeable, more walkable, and less car-dominated if we choose to invest wisely in our biking and walking infrastructure.

South Station Hubway location. Image courtesy of dravium1 @ Flickr.

Yesterday, November 30, 2011, was the last day of operation for the Hubway until March of 2012, as recently reported by Eric Moskowitz at The Boston Globe. That sad occasion spurs me to reflect on what a great thing it is that bike sharing, bike lanes and a general shift in our transportation culture has come to Boston.

For well over a decade, I rode the rails of the MBTA – Boston’s erratic but generally effective public transit system – with the occasional long walk and requisite car commute sprinkled in. There is a long tradition of staff bicycling to work here at the Conservation Law Foundation‘s office in Boston. Not shocking, I know: through their work, my colleagues are acutely aware of the need to reduce fossil fuel use.. I must confess, however, that until this summer I was never one of our bicyclists. Well over 90% of the time my commutes have been on the MBTA.

And then came Hubway. Since July 31, 2011 I have used that system 54 times, mostly to make a commute in during the morning. During a business trip, I also bought and used a one-day guest pass on the slightly older sister program in Washington DC, the Capital Bikeway. In the last four months, I have ridden my bike to work more than I have in my decade of work at CLF. I know I’m not alone, either: Boston magazine’s Bill Janovitz wrote about his bike commuting habits today, while the new Boston edition of the real estate blog Curbed wrote about the effect of Hubway on property values.

That’s not to say Hubway is not without problems. Anyone who follows me on twitter knows that I have on occasion griped about aspects of the program, but the occasional full rack or difficult to return bicycle does not undermine my appreciation of the. Those complaints aside, the Hubway marks a fundamentally important step towards a city that celebrates diverse and non-motorized ways of getting from one place to another.

The deep and growing challenge of global warming, a problem inextricably linked to our fossil fuel dependence (and all the pollution and harm that comes with it), means that we need to deploy a very wide range of tools and efforts to change the way in which we use energy. Our frenzied use of energy to move ourselves around in our cars is a major part of the challenge we face.

Urban bicycling is a really pleasant way to begin that shift in a way that provides a little exercise and a chance to really experience and enjoy the city while reducing fossil fuel use and pollution. It can also be very convenient – for some trips across downtown Boston I am absolutely certain that a bike is the fastest way to get from point A to B as even the safest of riders who obeys all the lights can pass many cars stuck in traffic.

Change can be slow in coming. For example, my own town of Brookline may or may not be ready with its own Hubway stations when the system reopens in March. But the runaway success of the Hubway system, and the successful efforts by the City of Boston and so many others to launch the system shows that rapid change for the better is very possible.

Creating a better city, state, region, nation and world where our electricity comes from clean renewable sources and is used efficiently and we travel in a cleaner and saner way relying on our muscles as much as possible using trains, buses, cars and planes only when truly needed is very possible. It starts with giving people options – and having affordable (and subsidized for low-income residents) and high quality bicycles available for use across cities like Boston is definitely a step (and a pedal) in that direction.

Bike share programs are already fixtures in cities like Washington, D.C., above. (Photo credit: S. Diddy, flickr)

“Hubway,” Boston’s long-anticipated bike share program, is set to open this month. With 600 bikes at 61 stations around Boston (one a block away from CLF’s Boston office at the corner of Summer and Arch Streets!) and surrounding areas, Hubway will facilitate transportation around Boston by reducing crowds on the T and providing access to places that the T does not currently reach. Moreover, Hubway will contribute to fewer greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector– the largest single source of GHG emissions in the state– and create a more livable city with better transportation options to get people out of their cars and into their communities.

Already very successful in Europe, bike share programs are increasing in popularity in the U.S., and already exist in cities such as Minneapolis, Denver, and Washington, D.C. Many people in the Boston area are excited about the prospect of being able to grab a bike, go where they need to go, and return it at any station convenient to their destination. Operating three seasons a year (the system closes in the winter), Hubway offers 24-hour, 3-day, or annual memberships, allowing members access to all of the bikes and free rides under 30 minutes.

In anticipation of this program, Boston has been working hard to make the city more bicycle-friendly. In the past few years, 38 miles of bike lanes and 1,600 public parking spaces for bicycles have been built. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to prepare for this big change in how we use our roads. Currently, the Boston Police are getting ready for the influx of bicyclists. Focusing mostly at intersections known to have frequent crashes, Boston police officers are prepared to hand out tickets to drivers and bicyclists alike for disobeying traffic laws. The residents of Boston will have to learn to share the road regardless of whether they are biking or driving.

However, we at CLF believe that that’s a small price to pay for the myriad of benefits that Hubway will bring. The program will increase transportation choice and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while saving consumers money on gas and helping them get a little exercise while they’re at it, which will lead to public health benefits as well.

Learn more about CLF’s work to modernize transportation and build livable cities.

Editor’s note: Hannah Cabot is the summer 2011 communications intern at CLF Massachusetts. She is a rising senior at Milton Academy in Milton, MA.