I had the great pleasure of reading Theodore Buehler’s 2007 dissertation, Fifty Years of Bicycle Policy in Davis, CA. In this work, Buehler covers how Davis became the cycling capital that we know it as today, along with identifying what challenges were faced by the city since the 1990s due to the slowing of bicycle advocacy.
How to Change Policy in America?
Davis, CA, created bicycle lanes as we know them in America, but how did that happen? American policy work is notoriously slow, and there are many hurdles activists must overcome. Policy development challenges include:
- Many “actors” with different agendas are involved.
- Development occurs over a long time span.
- Multiple levels of jurisdiction of government are involved.
- Technical disputes occur over the nature of the problem and probably impacts of solutions.
- Disputes involve “deeply held values, large amounts of money and at some point authoritative coercion” (10).
Other considerations for transportation and bicycle policy is that “changes made to land are difficult or impossible to withdraw or undo,” and “access given to motorized modes has a negative effect on use of the corridor space by other modes” (11).
Even with such a hostile policy environment, successful activism is possible when activists are (1) invested in the issue, (2) they are good negotiators and have connections, and (3) when they are persistent (15). According to Buchler, successful activists embody the spirit of an entrepreneur “as windows can come and go fairly quickly, and unless the policy makes it through in short order, it will become waylaid and have a high likelihood of drying on the vine” (15). Skills that accelerate shaping policy include “successful networking among coalition[s]…, possessing the skills to influence policy…, and the learning potential of members” (17).
Because Davis was the first city in America to implement a bicycle lanes and policy, city staff, residents, and city council had to accept that perfection is the enemy of progress. City staff faced many challenges during initial implementation because there was no playbook, but these challenges were overcome with agile thinking and implementing projects as small bets to see which performed the best (17).
Building Great Bike Infrastructure
The city’s proximity to UC Davis is a significant contributing factor to the quick enthusiasm and adoption of bicycle policy. The first Chancellor of UC Davis, Emil Mrak, loved biking as a child, and he shaped the culture by instructing UC planners to “create a bicycle-riding campus, and he encouraged incoming students to bring a bicycle to campus” (23).
His enthusiasm created the infrastructure, and then he created a culture of bicycling through encouragement and bicycling advertisements once the infrastructure was there. Additionally, bicycle usage was considered in each step by creating bicycle thoroughfares, ample and high-quality bike parking located near buildings, and eliminating cars from the campus core (25) which invited bicycles (27).
Of course, there were conflicts between bikes and pedestrians. These issues were typically resolved by separating points of conflict, creating specific pedestrian only and bicycle only spaces (31).
Bicycle Advocacy Begins in Davis
Advocacy for better bicycle infrastructure in the city began in 1964 by a group of only five citizens, starting the “Citizens’ Bicycle Study Group.” Initially, the group was ignored by the city council, but after refocusing their efforts, running a successful petition, and garnering general public support for their message, a pro-bicycle council was elected in 1966 (33-38).
Once the city council included pro-bicycle members, city staff were directed to design bicycle lanes, and they were given enough freedom to experiment with several designs to see what worked best (40-42). In addition to this direction, support from city staff and the public endured long enough for the first bicycle lanes to be opened and well received in 1967 (44).
The city experimented with three types of bicycle lanes:
- Bike lanes between car lanes and the parking lane,
- Bike lanes between the parking lane and the curb, and
- Bike path adjacent to the street, between the curb and the sidewalk (51).
The bicycle lane project was successful because there was “(1) strong grassroots support, (2) willingness of city staff to experiment with new concepts, (3) willingness of state transportation officials to act quickly and approve an entirely untested concept, and (4) the inherent functionality of the standard bikeway design” (47). The swift action by all stakeholders to take the next smallest step made this effort possible because “had the city tried to do extensive research without construction, it might have settled on an inferior design. And not having tried all three designs, it might not have recognized it as inferior, and the entire experiment could have been declared a failure” (51).
Maintenance and Longevity
Several steps were taken to integrate bicycling culture into day-to-day life and solidify it as an important aspect of being a citizen of Davis.
Once identified, the city standardized bicycle facilities which provided a predictable experience for users (55). But the integrations of bicycle culture weren’t just the engineering feats. In 1972, Mr. Smartspokes, “a talking bicycle who…would teach children to ride on the right side of the road, use paths whenever necessary, not double friends on your handlebars, and to lock your bikes,” normalized bicycles for children so that they could capitalize on the available facilities (57).
Another key piece of standardization was the use of “off street greenways, on-street bike lanes, greenway connections to shopping and schools, and grade separation under arterials and some collector streets” (60). These connections allowed residents to get to the places they needed to by bicycle quickly and safely, and as the city conducted bicycle counts, bicycling was encouraged as primary mode of transportation (66, 68).
Modern Challenges
Cities are a constant work in progress, and even with the major strides that Davis has taken to become the Bicycle Capital of America, it still has several challenges that need to be addressed.
The most notable issue with modern Davis bikeways is that there are very few connections outside of the city to other places of interest such as Woodland, Dixon, or Sacramento. Bicycle trips to these cities requires riders to use rural highways that do not have an adequate shoulder to accommodate bicycling (74, 94).
The other challenges are more community based. In some instances, communities have lobbied the city council to close off greenway connections to other neighborhoods. Unfortunately, if there is not loud support of cycling from the public, or defined bicycle goals and objectives from the city council, greenway closures between developments happen (80-81, 89-90). These closures prevent ease of access and erode the strong bicycle culture that has been a staple of Davis since the late 1960s.
Davis faces many challenges, but through a resurgence of advocacy, pro-bicycle platforms for elected officials, and bicycle education to for children, these challenges can be overcome. And what better way to ignite love of bicycles than through creating healthy competition between its sister cities? Let’s make excellence a contest (150).