The Bicycle-Friendly Workplace

There is a range of opinions among cyclists about what constitutes a bicycle-friendly workplace. Some consider indoor bike parking a must. Others are concerned with shower facilities. Others still feel that bike to work schemes are crucial. More than anything, our ideas of a bike-friendly workplace seem to depend on how we construe transportation cycling. 

For me personally, the most important thing about commuting is having a safe and comfortable route. As long as that is in place, I am pretty easy. At my last 9-5 job, the 4 mile riverside commute kept me happy. On arrival, I locked my bike to a pole. I brushed myself off in front of a mirror before facing co-workers. It did not occur to me to lament the lack of indoor bike parking, let alone to wish for showers at work. Once I transitioned to freelance and began to spend the day going from place to place, it made even less sense. "Hello, I'm here to meet about the XYZ project ...But first, do you have a shower I can use? I arrived by bicycle you see." 

Others have different priorities, which is understandable. Long, strenuous commutes involve challenges that I do not usually face. Likewise with finding all-day bike parking in unsafe locations.

From an employer's perspective, the question is which priorities it makes the most sense to cater to. Is it the employer's responsibility to offer indoor parking? Many bicycle commuters say yes. Others feel it is the cyclist's responsibility to choose a bike that can be stored outdoors. What about shower facilities? There are those who lobby for them. And there are those who feel that the idea of showers at work conflates transport with sport. 

Others believe that focusing on parking or showers is too narrow of an approach. What about calling for employers to open up shop in bike-friendly locations? What about travel compensation, tax incentives, bike share memberships, and the like? Or maybe a different paradigm altogether: What if neighbourhood employers join forces to sponsor bike lanes (and street plowing in winter) within an X mile radius? 

Budgets are finite, and often employers get mixed messages as far as what cyclists are looking for. The bike-friendly workplace is a concept worth exploring more thoroughly. 

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Failure to Yield and Crosswalk Design

In Somerville, MA we have this community path for bicyclists and pedestrians that stretches all the way to the neighbouring town of Arlington, grazing Cambridge along the way. The path is great, except that it is frequently interrupted by busy roads and the crossings can be challenging. We had this one particular interruption, where cyclists had to make a complicated series of turns and negotiate a major intersection in order to get from one stretch of the path to another. Then sometime last year, construction began at that intersection. Rumor had it they were making a crosswalk that would cut through the series of islands - a straight line connecting the disjointed stretches of community path. That is exactly what they did, and the new intersection was unveiled a couple of months ago. 

It's hard to capture the whole thing in photographs; it is vast and consists of 4 separate crosswalk segments. But the pictures above each show a chunk that should give you an idea of how it's designed. In 3 of the 4 segments there are traffic lights with clear red and green signals. And there is another small segment not visible here where there is just a crosswalk without a traffic light. In theory the design is great, because it creates a direct line of travel connecting the community path, without forcing cyclists to make an elaborate detour. In practice however, there is one big problem: Drivers don't yield. Some drivers make right turns on a red light at full speed without even checking whether anyone is in the crosswalk, others make U-turns on a red light, and others still simply run the red light altogether. In some instances the drivers obviously see me, but proceed anyway, forcing me to stop abruptly in the middle of the intersection or to speed up if I am already in their line of travel. 

Roughly half the time I go through this intersection, something like this happens - to the point where I absolutely do not trust it anymore. It's a shame that all this work was done, and drivers' failure to yield ruins it. It is also frightening that the crosswalks look so nice and friendly, while in reality it is quite dangerous. I cannot really think of a solution, but it's clear that something needs to change in the local drivers' mentalities in order for attempts to create decent, convenient infrastructure to be truly successful. The infrastructure itself is not always enough. 

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