Why fewer women than men cycle in the US

[nuliajuk]

It's not just roads. One thing that is in short supply where I live - good bike racks outside of businesses. Where I get my hair cut, there are several shops that I wouldn't mind going into. Since this strip mall is just a few kilometers from home, it would be easy to ride to. But there is nothing, not even street signs, to lock a bike to when you get there. I mentioned this several times at the hair salon and once at a deli in that complex. I pointed out that many people rid past on their way home from work or school as they come off a major pathway. Nothing ever gets put in. I wonder how much money these shops are losing out on because they haven't got the most basic facilities to safely lock up a bike.

[Susan Otcenas]

A couple random thoughts, in no particular order... :-)

My office/warehouse is 1/3 mile from my house. I bought the house after we built the warehouse because I specifically wanted to be live someplace close enough to the office that NOT using the car would be a no-brainer. To travel that 1/3 mile, I have to either a) access a left turn lane across two high speed lanes of through traffic, something many cyclists won't attempt, or b) cross the high speed road completely and use the opposite side side walk instead, something I do when on my Dutch bike which I can't pedal fast enough to safely "merge" across the high speed lanes or c) cut through a business park and across a grassy field lifting my bike up and over the parking lot curbs twice and pushing through the field. NONE of these options feels "safe" or "convenient" or easily "accessible". Each one feels like a compromise. And this is just 1/3rd of a mile.

To get to the nearest grocery store, which is 1 mile away, I have to cross no fewer than THREE unsignalized freeway on or off ramps. In each direction. One of those crossings requires me to merge and cross over a lane of traffic that is exiting the freeway at 45 miles an hour or so. It's dangerous enough that a camera crew from a local news station came out and filmed me doing it for the evening news. Skip ahead to minute 4 of the video at this link to see me on the news talking about this crossing. https://btaoregon.org/2013/09/brookw...should-fix-it/ Riding a bike one flat mile to the grocery store should be a piece of cake. But with "facilities" like these, it's no wonder that the use of bicycles for transportation or daily utility trips is a vanishingly small percentage of trips. Hell, even *I* nearly always take the car.

Mind you, I live in a suburb of Portland, OR, the much acclaimed bicycling mecca of the US. Sure, downtown and close in neighborhoods have lots of bike commuters and car free residents, but a mere 13 miles from downtown, I might as well be living in Outer Mongolia.

[PamNY]

A couple random thoughts, in no particular order... :-)
To get to the nearest grocery store, which is 1 mile away, I have to cross no fewer than THREE unsignalized freeway on or off ramps. In each direction. One of those crossings requires me to merge and cross over a lane of traffic that is exiting the freeway at 45 miles an hour or so. It's dangerous enough that a camera crew from a local news station came out and filmed me doing it for the evening news. Skip ahead to minute 4 of the video at this link to see me on the news talking about this crossing. https://btaoregon.org/2013/09/brookw...should-fix-it/ Riding a bike one flat mile to the grocery store should be a piece of cake. But with "facilities" like these, it's no wonder that the use of bicycles for transportation or daily utility trips is a vanishingly small percentage of trips. Hell, even *I* nearly always take the car.

That video shows some scary cycling conditions. I hope you can get something done about it.

[OakLeaf]

It is pretty doggone scary, but a lot of what I meant about "not one United States" is that those kinds of crossings are completely normal in probably most towns that have limited access roads going through them - ALL of them that I'm aware of. And they're often the only way to get from point A to point B, even for those of us who have the time and energy to go two or five miles out of the way, doing that would just put us at another crossing just like it.