The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Cupertino and Sunnyvale city councils have taken proactive steps in getting citizens out of cars and onto bikes through their 'bicycle transportation plans.' Cupertino Councilman Don Burnett sets a good example here, as he commutes to City Hall via bike.

Freewheeling

Cities work to rid streets of cars in favor of a kinder, gentler form of transportation

By Justin Berton

They are backed up for as far as the eye can see, their frustrated little heads ready to explode because they can't get home quick enough to eat dinner, say "Hi" to the kids and spend more leisure time with friends, and there they are, stuck in a never-ending parade of cars that crawls at a painfully slow pace, when some guy on a bicycle rides right past them, happy as sunshine on a stick, and they think he must be some sort of Bohemian guru on his way to his commune to plant vegetables and eat sprouts for sure, but if they would only sit and think about it for a second they would understand that this isn't the case at all and this isn't the person who commutes to work on a bike, and if they really thought about it, maybe they would look at what the bureaucrats in Cupertino and Sunnyvale are reluctantly moving toward--and it ain't more freeways--it is more bike lanes and bike racks and public transportation, so they sit in their cars and they come to the solid conclusion that one way or the other, sooner or later, their society is just going to have to own up to the simple fact that cars are too big and too slow and too inefficient to get them where they need to go these days, and with that, it all makes sense that the truth is not far: getting around on two wheels is inevitable.

National Bike to Work Week is this week, and as with Earth Day, critics believe it will go largely unnoticed except by enthusiastic organizers of the event and a few savvy politicians who know a good photo-op when they ride into one.

The city governments of Cupertino and Sunnyvale have both done their part to encourage bicycling by adopting some form of a "bicycle transportation plan" within the last few years.

But the wheels of government are not cranking fast enough for some politicians, bike enthusiasts and environmentalists who think Silicon Valley is a gem of a place to live, but realize the valley is restricted by the boundaries of available space. Bikes will have to replace large automobiles here one day, bike advocates like to point out, just as they already have in many other densely populated countries.

It could be the next decade, some say. It could be the next century, others believe. It could be two centuries from now, some like to think. But make no mistake, everybody will take notice when it does happen.

"With six billion people in the world, if we can't provide rapid, efficient transportation," Cupertino Councilmember Don Burnett said, "we're going to have a problem."

Burnett, 66, commutes 1.5 miles to City Hall six times a week and rode 12 miles to work for 17 years when he worked at Lockheed Martin.

"What does concern me about the future is street designers," Burnett said. "Highways don't even account for the fact bikes might be there--and they have to be."

Burnett said the overpass at Highway 85 and Stevens Creek is a good example of a place where not only bicycles but pedestrians have difficulty getting across.

Currently, Cupertino's Bicycle Advisory Committee, which began in 1991 when Burnett was its first chairman, is reviewing a detailed bike transportation plan put together by outside consultants. One safety priority the plan should include, Burnett said, is the widening of Stevens Canyon Road, where a bicyclist was killed last year after being struck by a gravel truck.

The city of Cupertino, though still far from implementing major changes for bicycle commuters, still has the inside track on the city of Sunnyvale.

In 1993, Sunnyvale adopted a general bike plan to map out the city but has been slow to act to implement changes, Bicycle Advisory Committee chairperson Linda Eaton said.

"With government, everything takes a long time," she said. After much grass-roots determination, the BAC got what they wanted--the city to make an effort to scout out sections for new bike lanes.

In July, the city of Sunnyvale is set to unveil its street inventory survey, a $50,000 effort that will sketch out new bike lanes. But how many people will be using the bike lanes could surprise city planners when the lines are drawn. Planners are using figures from the 1990 census, which put the number of Sunnyvale residents who commuted to work by bike at 623.

"The numbers are out of date," said Jack Witthaus, a transportation planner with the city of Sunnyvale.

Witthaus said the city was not projecting how many bicycle commuters there might be in Sunnyvale today.

According to Bicycle Magazine, there were 3.3 million people in the country who commuted to work by bicycle in 1990.

Eight years later, that number has more than doubled to 7.9 million.

Witthaus said the federal Department of Transportation issued a multivolume study titled "The National Biking and Walking Study," compiled from 1992 through 1995. The essence of the study, Witthaus said, was that if local governments create the bike lanes, the people will ride in them. Since then, "it has been the goal to increase the number of riders--per city policy," Witthaus said.

Eaton believes the Sunnyvale City Councilmembers might turn that slow-moving "policy" into priority if only they would change their own perspective on the issue. Eaton suggested councilmembers needed to get out of their chairs in City Hall chambers and ride a bike down the street to experience the fear most bicyclists feel when riding down, say, Mary Avenue, which is not striped with a bike lane.

"They wouldn't like it either," Eaton said of the nerve-racking cars that zoom dangerously close at unsafe speeds.

Tim Kirby, a manager of solid waste in Sunnyvale's public works department, rides his bike to work at least three times a week. He says when he goes to work (the city does not provide showers at City Hall), he takes the bus part of the way. When he comes home, though, he can ride all the way and shower at home.

But every city planner from here to the tip of Maine has complained that if there's one ugly truth about suburbanites, it's that they love their cars and there's no use to try and get them out.

But that may be no longer true according to a new study called "Bike-busters" under way at Aalborg University in Holland.

Researcher Anker Lohmann has asked 162 residents to give up their cars in exchange for a free bicycle and free rain gear.

Each of the subjects lives within 10 miles of their workplace.

Though Anker is only halfway through her project, she has published a mid-study report which states that not only have most of the participants been capable of giving up their cars, they are also enjoying better health.

Before the study began, subjects made 79 percent of all trips from their home by car. Now, they make 34 percent by car. When the study began, 37 percent of the subjects were rated in the lowest health classification, "very poor." Now, just 19 percent remain in this bracket, while all of the remaining subjects have moved up one level.

Kirby, who rides for environmental and health reasons, said he can sometimes see the frustrated little heads behind the windshields when he passes them. "Especially in the morning when people are still groggy," he said.

And they still wait in traffic, wondering when they are going to finally join that gym and get in shape before it's too late and they're too old, and they see that guy ride a bike right past them and they take notice this time, because one day, sooner or later, they too will have to ride bikes.

Get out and ride

Cycle Commute Cupertino, held in celebration of Bike to Work Week, offers immediate discounts at bike shops to bike commuters this week. Each day, commuters can drop off an entry form to win bicycle-related prizes that will be announced Saturday, May 30, at 1 p.m. in Memorial Park.

For more information about the event, call California Bike Commute Week at 800-679-BIKE.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 20, 1998.
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