Toledo is car country, but the culture of the automobile, ingrained in Toledo's history, may be changing.
May is National Bike Month and The Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments and Toledo Bikes!, in association with TARTA, are hosting a series of events to raise bicycle awareness—now is the time for Toledo to reconsider the bicycle.
For 200 years the bicycle has been a popular form of transportation. The health benefits are obvious. The economic benefits are also sizeable. According to a 2013 AAA report, the average automobile costs around $9 thousand per year including fuel, insurance, repairs and general depreciation—that’s enough to buy a new bicycle every week.
Eco-friendly
The environmental benefits of bicycling might be even greater. On April 13, 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating that all nations must increase efforts to cut greenhouse emissions in order to avoid profound climate change. Bicycles produce no carbon; they're as clean as transportation can get.
But why don't more people use bicycles? According to The League of American Bicyclists, more than half of Americans live within five miles of their workplace. Toledoan Keith Webb, founder of wearetraffic.com and member of TMACOG's Pedestrian and Bikeways Comittee, says most trips we make are shorter than that five mile commute. “Half of all trips are three miles or less nationwide; 28% are one mile or less, yet 65% of trips under one mile are made by automobile,” he says.
A real bike veteran
Toledoan Pat Squire has been using her bicycle as a primary mode of transportation since 1977. The 78-year-old woman rides more than 2 thousand miles per year. “My son once said to me 'mom, biking for some people is transportation, or recreation, but for you it's a way of life—look how it's affected your wardrobe,'” she said, wearing layers of thermal gear. She insists that Toledo. “I took driver's ed in high school, but had one heck of a time with a stick shift and I was going deaf in my left ear, which made me less aware of passing traffic,” Squire explains. She insists that using a combination of bicycling and public transportation is the key to surviving without a car in Toledo. “The closer you live to the center of the city, the easier it is, because public transit routes are closer together,” she says.
Squire insists that forethought is the key to good cycling. “Route selection is everything, and if you're going to commute by bike you need a map,” she says insisting that the County Engineers Map (free at the Lucas County Engineers Office 1049 S. McCord Rd., Holland), is ideal.
Squire even bicycles in Toledo's harsh winters, although she admits that the subzero temperatures and ice storms of early 2014 kept her off the road more than any other winter, but insists that with fat, knobby tires, biking through snow is doable. “The only time I insist on public transport is when it's below zero at night, because black ice is invisible,” she says. Squire also recommends chemical warmers for the hands and feet, as well as additional insulation under the helmet.
Cycling toward the future
Before Toledo can be as bike friendly as Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington (the most bike-friendly cities in the US according to The League of American Bicyclists), there need to be more participants. “The more bikes you have, the more motor vehicle traffic is accustomed to dealing with bicycles,” Webb agrees. Bike Month events, including safety classes and social gatherings, are opportunities for Toledoans to get onto the road on two wheels.
Testing the two-wheel theory
The greater Toledo area has a small but vibrant community of bicycle enthusiasts, including several local bicycle shops and organized pub rides, as well as bicycle for sport. A smaller number of enthusiasts use a bicycle as their primary mode of transportation— only 0.3% of the population in 2012, according to The League of American Bicyclists.
Lucas County has made preparations for those who want to commit to their twelve-speeds. Several bicycle paths criss-cross Toledo's neighborhoods, and the county is currently planning the Chessie Circle Trail, which would connect with trails in Wood County. Metroparks Toledo issues special permits for after hours commuting on the University Parks Trail and the Wabash Cannonball Trail, for cyclists who work past sunset.
I decided to find out for myself exactly how practical it is to use a bicycle as a primary vehicle. I bicycled from my home in Ottawa Hills, near Wildwood Metropark, to The City Paper's offices on Adams St. in Uptown, a distance of seven miles. My route began easily enough, down the University Parks Trail, perhaps the most-trafficked piece of bicycle infrastructure in Lucas County. The second leg of the trip presented more of a challenge—rather than face morning rush traffic on Dorr St., I traveled down Bancroft St., which has less traffic and a lower speed limit, but is a less direct route.
The trip, which took about an hour, proved easier than anticipated, although Toledo's drivers displayed little knowledge about dealing with bicycling commuters—a couple door-mounted mirrors came uncomfortably close to my shoulder. As it turns out, that's my fault; according to Webb, if a traffic lane is less than 14 feet wide, a bicycle should ride in the very center of the lane, the way motorcycles do. Few roads in Toledo sport lanes wide enough for bicyclists to 'edge ride,' and those that do—the western portion of Central Avenue, for example—sport paved shoulders where cyclists can ride. All bicyclists should use a rearview mirror. “Once you've had one, you won't ride without it,” says Webb. “You wouldn't drive in a car without a mirror, so why would you bike without one?”
