Chronicle Editorial Board

Bicycle commuting

Houston Chronicle, Jan 27, 12.

Tagged with transportation, houston, bicycling

You may not think it, given our sprawling freeways, but a growing number of Houston’s commuters get to work on bicycles. A 2010 survey by the League of American Bicyclists reported that 0.5 percent of all Houston commuters get to work via bicycle. That may not seem like a large number, but it puts us far ahead of Dallas or Fort Worth. And in a driving city like Houston, even getting about 4,300 drivers out of cars and onto bikes can make the difference between a slow drive and a traffic jam. The expansion of bike lanes into downtown, such as the Heritage West Bikeway connecting Stude Park to UH-Downtown, will only further encourage this healthy, albeit sweaty on many days, mode of transportation.

Of course, not everyone lives close enough to their work - downtown or elsewhere - to make biking practical, so bike paths are less than a panacea for many commuters.

But bicycling can be part of a multi-modal commute. Metro has seen a consistent growth of riders bringing their bicycles onto buses, with bike boardings nearly doubling from the 2010 to the 2012 fiscal year. But if bicycle commuting is going to expand beyond current levels, Houston will need infrastructure that can handle it.

Full Story: Bicycle commuting: It’s already rolling
Source: Houston Chronicle, January 26, 2012

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