I just read Jennifer Anderson’s article in the Portland Tribune today about the ongoing survey work of noted PSU bike researcher Jennifer Dill.
What I found surprising about the article wasn’t the survey results, but the comments by Mel Zucker, director of the non-profit Oregon Transportation Institute.
Anderson quoted him to present the anti-bike viewpoint (which every bike article must include for some reason) and here’s what he said,
“Bike trips are, mainly, recreational…If the city wants to add bike lanes, the funds should come from (Portland) Parks & Recreation, not the state or federal transportation funds derived from auto and truck users.”
Wow. If that’s the voice of people that aren’t supportive of increased funding and encouragement of bikes in Portland we should be jumping for joy.
Mainly recreational? Tell that to the 12,000+ people who cross our four main downtown bridges to get to work every day.
Zucker is also the same guy who questioned funding priorities in the construction of the Eastbank Esplanade in another Portland Tribune article back in 2001. He said the Esplanade,
“is recreational in purpose with no transportation benefit…Think about funding priorities the next time you are stuck in congestion or when the air quality is not to your liking. Is a stroll on the esplanade a few times in your lifetime more important than a less time-consuming commute?”
On the other hand, Zucker may be on to something.
After all, every time I ride my bike I feel like it’s recreational because I’m having fun, I’m getting exercise, and I’ve got a front-row seat to the splendid sights of the city.
Thanks for reading.
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Wow, Mel sounds completely out of touch. I\’d have to agree with your last paragraph Jonathan, I bike commute every day and mostly cause I like the exercise and its fun,(and I\’m cheap) so I guess I am just recreating. Does this guy have actual \”power\” or is he just a consultant?
maybe this is an additional funding source worth exploring, not necessarily a proposal to divide commute trips v. recreational. The \”no transportation benefit\” part worries me a bit though…
I wouldn\’t sweat it too much. This guy\’s just in the pro car/ pro roads lobby. Everybody need\’s a lobby.
I take about 15 trips by bike each week. 10-12 of them are not recreational (assuming that\’s even possible). By contrast, virtually all of the trips I take by car are recreational.
He sounds like that guy (whose name I have already forgotten) who wrote a letter to the Oregonian about how we were all using our \”toys\” on his precious rural highways.
Come to think of it, I\’m sure that every trip taken by auto is not at all recreational. People in cars are obviously more serious road users! Does this mean that commercial vehicles should have special lanes paid for only by the department of commerce? I do like the discussion of public rights of way though.
I see. So based on Mel Zucker\’s reasoning, since my bike commute to work everyday is apparently a \”recreational activity,\” the only clear conclusion is that my career is also recreational; a voluntary vacation so to speak.
One cannot make a \”recreational trip\” to a \”non-recreational\” destination. Logic dictates this is simply not possible.
I want to say that I\’m surprised, but I guess I\’m not that the interviewer allowed him to just say that without asking him for anything resembling facts to back up his assertion.
I wrote a letter to the editor earlier this morning along these lines, Jonathan. Hopefully they print it. Anyone else can feel free to chime in too at tribletters@portlandtribune.com
from a practical of view, why would a person choose to live in and at the same time fight against policies that a city is most recognized for? Mr. Zucker, Mr. Charles, 1960 called and wants you back.
Critical Zucker also states that traffic and congestion will only get worse with more and wider bike lanes and sidewalks. Doesn\’t this dufus think that the more and safer the bike lanes are, the more people will be motivated to come out of their vehicles? Sounds like a trade-off to me. Plus, we who recreate to work daily are paying as much as Zucker and the rest in fixing the mess they make of our roads. Wake up and smell the future Zucker.
Reminds me of a something I heard the mayor of Beaverton say a while back about accomodating bikes as a form of exercise and recreation. No where did he recognize that bikes are used to actually GET places.
As a commuter, I\’ve made thousands of trips on that esplanade. Most of the people I saw on it also seemed to be going to or coming from work.
The man doth speak out of his rear.
Zucker\’s right.. I only use my bike for recreation. I make anywhere from two to five round-trip \”recreational\” trips each day.. Let\’s see.. I go to work, to the store, to school, to friend\’s homes, to the gym, to restaurants, etc..
The last time I actually used my bike to \”recreate\”, I drove (carpooled, of course) there. Go back to Houston Mr. Zucker!… Enjoy the \”independence and freedom\” that their, or any other American city\’s, costly highways provide, but don\’t push them on us.
DK (post 11). From Zuckers point of view (and others like him), a fundamental assumption is that few folks ride their bikes to commute. Therefore, adding bike lanes and other infrastructure to support bike commuters is just a waste of money and space. Now, if they were to admit that bike commuting is significant, then they would not be able to take that stand.
When confronted with the statistic that there are 12000 daily commuters, they\’d probably dismiss that as being insignificant compared to drivers.
So, they make a basic assumption that can support their positions, then stick to it. Otherwise, they have no position. You can see similar behavior in all three branches of the federal government.
FWIW, I\’ve only driven to work 9 times this year – and I live 21 miles from where I work. Most of my car use is for recreation.
I think part of Zucker\’s assumptions about riders stem from his absence from Planet Earth over the past decade. If you go to his website, almost all of his statistics are 7-10 years old. Why did the Tribune interview him?
I guess the Feds, State DOTs, and Counties do the same on the rural highways – like the Gorge…deduct the number of recreational drivers (tourists) driving out to the Gorge and the beach? 😉
Perhaps he is onto something?
I think it is probably true that most bike trips are recreational, but some of those \”recreational rides\” are 50 to 100 mile training rides on public roads. If people did all thier recreational riding in a Park then the would have a point, but most of this recreational riding is happening in the street, so it should come from State and Federal Transportation Funds.
What percentage of car and truck trips are recreational? I went out to the beach and the whole ride out there was dodging SUVs and trucks pulling trailers with quads and dirt bikes. You know, recreational vehicles.
What difference does it make whether the trip is \”recreational\” or not? A trip is a trip. Do cars on the road not take up any space if they are on a \”recreational\” trip? Should there be separate roads for cars on \”recreational\” trips?
What really bugs me about this is the journalistic bastardization of the term balance. To give equal time to an opinion that is clearly not based in reality does not seem balanced to me.
There were also lots of BIG campers towing SUVs…
Well, I guess I will play devils advocate here.
But I would imagine, that statistically – most bicycle usage in the region *is* recreational.
Remember that bicyclists are a minority, and the bicyclists who read this blog are a small piece of that minority. Of of those who read this blog, some probably only ride recreationally.
So in all seriousness, as far as the raw numbers go, he is probably correct.
However, as we all know, he is clearly missing the point(s).
1. If recreational bike use facilities should be paid out of parks and rec, then recreational car facilities should as well. That means any roads which connect to parks, movie theatres, restaurants, or any other recreational destination. Transportation funds should only be used specifically for vehicles and routes that only take people to work and the grocery store. (In other words, bike lanes and paths can be used by recreational users as well as transportation users – much like all the other roads).
2. Having better bike lanes / corridors / paths improves the situation for everyone. It makes it better for bikes. It makes it easier for cars when they don\’t have to have bikes in their lane. It makes biking more attractive which takes cars off the road. It makes things safer for all involved. Win-win.
3.As the facilities improve, so does the usage. Build it and they will come – so to speak.
However, Zucker also has a valid point in some ways. Excluding most bike lanes on roads – should transportation dollars go to bike paths?
This one is a little trickier, as the majority of tax payers probably don\’t understand how something like the Lake O -> Portland trail might help transportation. They would probably see it as a \”boondoggle\” for the rich people along the river to be able to ride with their kids on the weekends. They would never think that people might actually use it to get somewhere. I know this for a fact, as I bike commute a couple days a week from SE PDX to Lake O, and when I tell people that they usually look at me like I am speaking in Esperanto. I get \”why would you want to do that?\” or \”You are clearly crazy\” or \”Wow, what a waste of time\”. And I know for a fact that that trail would not only allow more people to do so – as they would be safer than on 43 – but also if they can keep it from having as large a hill to summit (opposed to 43 or Boones Ferry) many more people will be likely to use it regularly.
So there might be a little overlap between \”reality\” and \”Zucker\”.
BUT – not much. 🙂
Nearly 10% of people in Southeast Portland use bikes as their primary commuting vehicle, and 23% commute by bike at least occasionally. These are all non-recreation trips.
Keeping in mind that only 1 trip in 8 is a commute trip, and that other trips are shorter (and thus easier to shift to bike), I would say that at least a third of all trips in southeast Portland are being made by bike….possibly more.
Bike usage went up 18% in Portland last year, and something like 15% the year before that, and the trend continues to be up, up, up.
I would argue that this level of biking is no longer an insignificant minority.
People like Mr. Zucker must be so mad all the time to see how our numbers are growing. Stick it to the man and keep converting your friends!
zucker\’s a putz, I never understand why the dozen or car-nuts get quoted in every article about bikes.
fyi, folks should be careful with the 12,000 commuters number…I think you\’re referring to the 12,000 trips across the bridges each day, which is roughly 6,000 commuters coming and going…that said, the census numbers suggest 12-15,000 is not un-reasonable.
Bicycle Dave at 18, it matters whether a trip is dubbed recreational or utility because characterizing cycling as purely a recreational endeavor allows cycling\’s role as a viable transportation mode to be trivialized.
It\’s the equivalent of refering to a bicycle as toy, instead of an acknowledged method of transport.
Trivializing cycling\’s role in our region\’s transportation matrix increases the difficulty of carving out cycling\’s place at the table, so to speak.
His POV may have some validity depending on the methodology of the survey and which half-truths / stats he uses. If 12,000 folks commute on bikes but loads more respondents cited recreational riding (training for races, touring, triathlons, etc.) or just tooling around with the kids on Sunday afternoon then the numbers would get skewed towards recreational purposes.
Think about Bridge Pedal. That is a freakin\’ traffic jam of cyclists on a summer Sunday morning. Where are all of those people on the Monday commute? 90% are in cars. I suspect about half of those at BP make that ride the only time they saddle up all year.
The guy is a lobbyist for a conservative organization. He gets paid to find the \”bad\” of bikes just like bike advocates find the \”bad\” of cars. What do we expect him to say?
SH, good point. Making bicycling recreational only means that providing infrastructure is optional. Easy to cut dollars there first, rather than the road infrastructure, which supports commerce and industry.
#20 VR wrote: \”Excluding most bike lanes on roads – should transportation dollars go to bike paths?\”
Yes, \”bike paths\” are public right-of-ways that facilitate the transportation of goods, services, and citizens, just like a \”car road\” or a \”railroad\”.
Trying to differentiate between recreational use and commercial use of public right-of-ways is nonsensical. Recreation is a part of commerce and a boost to comerce. Huge swaths of Oregon would be economic wastelands without the commerce generated by recreation.
A quick Google search turned up this little gem from our friend Mel Zucker at http://www.radioproject.org/transcript/2000/0010.html
Melvin Zucker: You couldn\’t get me out of a heavy four wheel drive. Room for your cellular phone, for the coffee mug, your dictating machine. When you\’re in a car, particularly making any kind of long trips, you want to use all of your time.
Sounds like the guy who forced me off the rode because I had the audacity to be \”recreating\” on my way home from work.
This guy is a lobbyist for the powerful road construction and transportation industry. As has been pointed out he is also a contributor to that rag we call the Portland Tribune.
When the media and big business start cooperating to marginalize us in the halls of government and the opinions of the public it is appropriate to demand accountability.
And if you are reading this YOU are the one to make that happen.
Keep the pressure on!
Change the world one bike ride at a time!
Remember that bicyclists are a minority, and the bicyclists who read this blog are a small piece of that minority. Of of those who read this blog, some probably only ride recreationally.
Except he\’s talking about the number of trips taken, not the number of people who use bicycles. It seems very likely to me that the commuters are making more bike trips per given span of time than purely recreational cyclists. Just think: bike to work five days a week and you\’ve got at least ten trips there alone for one person.
Though his conclusions are ultimately moot, I still want to see how Zucker got his numbers (and who\’s funding the NPO he works for). This all seems very suspect to me.
I wonder what percentage of drivers are \”recreational\” drivers? Maybe they should be excluded from federal funds as well…
Hey, since I began cycling years ago the commute to work has been much more recreational, less time consuming and thanks to the EBE and other paths like it, I\’m not stuck in traffic. The air could be better though, perhaps if we tore out I-5 or maybe encased it somehow so those who pollute can breathe their own fumes.
\”Think about funding priorities the next time…air quality is not to your liking.\”
Why yes, Mr. Zucker, I do think about funding priorities when the air is brown with vehicle exhaust.
While he may be referring to worsened auto emmissions while idleing versus when traveling at 55 MPH, most research reveals that expanded road capacity leads to expanded vehicle usage on that corridor, due to increased decisions to travel, live or work along the newly \”opened up\” road.
Also, Downs\’ Triple Convergence Theory explains that when new road capacity opens up, people who previously avoided the road by taking another route, using another mode (bike, bus, train), or commuting at a diferent time, will go back to old habits and use that road again.
Get the word back to Sam:
http://www.commissionersam.com/node/2637
Here are some numbers from the survey referred to in the article, addressing the issue of recreation vs. other travel:
Of the 566 adults within the region that we surveyed (randomly selected, via phone), 156 (28%) rode a bike to or from their home in the previous 3 months (late summer/early fall). Those people made 244 one-way bike trips on the most recent day that they cycled (or at least that\’s what they told us). Of those trips on that day, 33% were for recreation only, e.g. just going for a ride. The remainder were errands, commuting, visiting people, getting to a recreational activity (e.g. riding to a basketball game or the gym), or other \”utilitarian\” purposes.
Note that we only asked about bike travel to/from home. For this research, we were not interested in people who took their bike in a car, drove somewhere else, and rode. The main objective of the research is to relate bicycling to neighborhood characteristics. So, the numbers above don\’t reflect all bike travel, but reflect bike travel by our sample on Portland area roads/trails. Also, we have not yet weighted the sample to account for biases in phone surveys, including non-response from certain groups.
I can\’t say for sure, with this data, what exact share of cycling in the region is pure recreation vs. everything else. There\’s also the issue of how you measure travel — number of trips or miles? Recreational trips may be longer than commuting and other trips. But, I do feel comfortable concluding that a majority of bike travel on Portland area roads is not for pure recreation, it\’s to get places that most people get to via motorized vehicles.
Mr. Zucker, I agree with your assessment. My daily commute to work can be considered recreational because I only work for the fun of paying bills and rent. And when I bike to the store, it is merely for the enjoyment of feeding my family.
If I were serious about any of these pursuits I would definitely go out and buy an SUV.
What nonsense.
\”there are 12000 daily commuters\”
I want to see how YOU got his number.
And where did all of you get these ideas about who Mel works for or that he is a lobbyist?
Do you just make it up as you go?
\”He gets paid to find the \”bad\” of bikes\”?
Does he?
\”This guy is a lobbyist for the powerful road construction and transportation industry.\”
Is he?
And now the Oregonian clone Tribune is rag becasue it occasionally has a few other viewpoints?
Perhaps he should be silenced and the Tribune controlled?
Your worst nonsense is this
\”research reveals that expanded road capacity leads to expanded vehicle usage on that corridor\”
That \”induced demand\” theory is bunk.
The only valid aspect is when freeway and thoroughfares open up people quit zipping through neighborhoods on side streets to get around copngestion.
Enjoy your bikes for work or play. I enjoy mine for play.
But bikes don\’t and never will take more than a miniscule and meaningless number of cars off the road.
Despite all of your group delusion that they do more.
Jennifer,
We have a number of sources for numbers about bicycle riding in Portland. The American Community Survey (an annual survey conducted by the US Census Bureau, which is part of the US Dept. of Commerce) recently said that in 2005 approximately 3.7% of Portlanders identified the bicycle as their primary means of transportation to work in the week during which they conducted the survey. This is up from the 1.6% and 2.8% reported by the full Census in 1990 and 2000, respectively.
The City Auditor\’s Office reports that in 2006 5.4% of Portlanders identified the biycycle as their primary commute vehicle and that another 9.1% of Portlanders identified the bicycle as a vehicle they sometimes use for commuting.
We conduct annual counts of cyclists at locations throughout the city. The 12,000 number refers to the number of daily bicycle trips (note: \”trips\” not \”riders\”) taken in the summer of 2006 across the four bicycle-friendly Willamette River bridges (Broadway, Steel, Burnside & Hawthorne).You can see some of that count data and other information at our website here: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=44597
Bikes on those bridges now represent 10% of all vehicles, up from 2% in 1991.
Roger Geller
Bicycle Coordinator,
City of Portland
\”This guy is a lobbyist for the powerful road construction and transportation industry.\”
Is he?
Certainly not. See http://www.hevanet.com/oti/ He\’s even more anti-public-transit than he is anti-bike. Calling him a \”lobbyist\” is certainly going a bit too far, but I would say it\’s safe to say that the OTI *is* a small organization with a motorist-centric agenda which selectively republishes lots of data from other sources as well as conducts a few small, selective studies of its own designed specifically to support their position. \”Lobbyist\” implies direct industry funding; this is just a small advocacy group calling itself a research instituion.
Transportation expert? I see in Zucker an anti-bike zealot who\’s out of touch with reality and pretty much clueless about Portland\’s (and all other cities\’) future transportation needs. When I say \”future\” I reefer not to a future, as envisioned by most political and corporate leaders, four or five years hence, but to the future that\’s still 25 or 30 years out.
When petroleum oil reserves dry up due to global demand, when gasoline prices top $12 per gallon, when motorists realize that biofuels cannot possibly be produced in quantities sufficient to replace fossil fuels at current rates of consumption, people will abandon their cars in droves. Transportation alternatives such as buses, light rail, streetcars, and bicycles will become the norm, while cars become more of an aberration enjoyed by the wealthy.
Of course, major breakthroughs in solar, battery, and hydrogen technologies will instantly render my predictions obsolete, but until then, we do ourselves a grave disservice by failing to provide for a viable bicycle infrastructure. Whatever means we choose to fund it is largely irrelevant as long as it gets built.
Crap! And there\’s no way to edit out the spelling error. Chalk it up to reefer madness.
Incidentally, where are you guys on talking about this article in a non-bike-centric forum?
http://www.commissionersam.com/node/2637
No transportation benefit? …I get on my bike, I ride for a bit. When I get off my bike I\’m somewhere else; generally a place I was intending to go when I got on said bike. What bizarre definition of the word transportation is this guy using?
Also to Jennifer, as I feel I just can\’t post anything without responding to you in some way:
I think your theory that the number of cars taken off the road by a personal choice to use a bicycle instead is a will always be \”minuscule and meaningless\” is ridiculous. I would suggest that even one less car on the road is significant and meaningful. 100? Even more so. 1000? 10,000? You see where I\’m going with this. As far as I\’m concerned a car is a lethal weapon; a loaded gun often not taken seriously. One less car means the road is safer for everyone on it, cleaner, less crowded.
Isn\’t that what people said about cars 100 years ago?
Last week, I twice picked up my child from camp on my bicycle. This simple action took a motor vehicle off of 6 miles of SE PDX roads, each way. So a total of 24 miles of travel were not done in a car – in just my couple days of biking last week. And for that travel it was almost exclusively done in bike lanes / paths – and I blocked no car traffic.
I am just one guy who isn\’t nearly as \”hard core\” as some here about commuting. But I usually commute at least once a week to Lake Oswego from SE PDX, taking 13 miles of car travel off the roads each way, or 26 miles a week. Some weeks I will do two or more days.
To see the premier of \”Transformers\” downtown, I rode my bicycle. That took 8 total car miles off the roads and required no parking space downtown. And two weeks ago I made two trips to the hardware on my bicycle and one to the grocery store, and my wife and I made one trip to lunch by bicycle. Total another 20 miles not traveled by car.
I don\’t consider my passive approach to cycling that within the last month or so has taken 100 miles of car travel off of the roads to be \”miniscule\” or \”meaningless\”. And I am using bikes more and more – so that number will grow. I moved to a bike with racks and lights and whatnot so I have more capability to use it in a \”utility\” fashion.
Oh, and I also ride in the Bridge Pedal.
🙂
But I think that the amount of bicycle use displacing car use is growing fast, and will be a big factor in the livability of Portland in the near future!
In response to post #15: \”Why did the Tribune interview [Mr. Zucker]?
Most likely because the writer felt that as a responsible journalist, he should make an effort toquote someone with an opposing viewpoint. Even though his article was largely pro-bike, he felt the need to create the perception that his article was \”balanced\” and showed \”both sides\” of the issue.
(The [non]issue in question: Is spending more money on bicycle-friendly infrastructure the best use of our public transportation dollars?\”)
So the writer (most likely) felt compelled to go out and find someone–anyone!–who was willing go on record and make comments disparaging bicyling.
It\’s helpful to imagine this scenario: Suppose this same writer is assigned the task of writing an article about how 99.99% of the world believes that the world is round. As a consciensious journalist, he wold feel compelled to quote and \”expert\” with the opposing viewpoint. Unfortunately, this means that the write inadvertently gives the spokesperson for the Flat-Earth Society the golden opportunity to say things in print like, \”We don\’t agree with the popular faddist notion that the Earth is round. This is still an open question, and we believe that the preponderance of evidence clearly shows that the Earth is flat!\”
So, by quoting a nut-job wacko, the journalist\’s goal of writing a \”fair and balanced\” article is achieved!
I haven\’t driven a car to work in seven years. I would not take a job that would require me to drive to work every day, or even many days, period. I have a car, but my neighbors wonder if it even runs because I use it so infrequently. I think about funding priorities every time I ride my bike and wonder why our transportation system is designed for cars at the expense of everything else.