There are many things that America can learn from Asia about bicycle planning and infrastructure – both the do’s and the don’t’s (and when I say Asia, I’m speaking from my experiences in China and Indonesia). However, I think what America could really learn from Asia is how to move past bicycle transportation planning and move towards (bi)cycle urbanism. (Bi)Cycle Urbanism is a term coined by the Beijing based research group Smarter than Cars. They define Bicycle Urbanism as:
(Bi)cycle urbanism relates to the merger of two great human inventions: The city and the ball bearing. Those two put together, namely the city as a means for condensed humanity (and culture), and the ball bearing as a means for sustainable individual mobility, allow people to live in a very distinct way. (Bi)cycle urbanism relates to the creation of an urbanity which does not depend on excessive amounts of speed.
I went to a talk by Smarter than Cars about (Bi)Cycle Urbanism at the Danish Embassy in Beijing, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot ever since. Part of the reason why I was so intrigued by the idea of bicycle urbanism is that I think it has the potential to be a much more inclusive form of urban planning than bicycle transportation planning, especially across gender and class (I’ll get into this more later).
One thing that has consistently called my attention in my travels (in Beijing, Chengdu, Jakarta, and Yogya) is how many different urban functions are being performed by bicycle and tricycle technology. To list just a few that I’ve seen:
- Collecting trash and recycling (with a varying degree of selling and buying involved)
- Anything and everything related to prepared food and drinks
- Ice cream carts/trikes (I realize this is a repeat of the above, but I frequent these so often I feel they deserve their own category)
- Trike Taxis
- Adaptions to wheelchairs to move around elderly and disabled individuals by pushing wheelchairs on a bike (I’ve also seen this done by sidecar)
- Selling produce/other goods
- Services such as sharpening knives and razors, and cutting keys
In total, I’ve seen hundreds of jobs and functions done efficiently by means of bicycle technology.
It’s not just about bicycles or tricycles, it’s also using ball bearing bicycle technology adapted to other uses. For example, the picture below features a small food cart in Jogja. Carts like these line the streets and sell a huge variety of treats (my current favorite being carts that sell spicy ice cream with fruits and vegetables called Rujak Ice Cream – who knew caramel chili ice cream with a mixture of everything from cucumber to pineapple could be so good!!).
There are obviously two major reasons why bicycle urbanism can thrive in Asia in ways that would make it difficult to really take root in America. First, bicycle urbanism thrives in an informal economy. It epitomizes flexible, informal labor – it’s small (normally) one-person businesses that operate outside formal regulation. Second, these forms of transporting and selling goods adapts best to areas where cars or trucks are not the most practical form of transportation. For example, in Beijing the alley-ways are so narrow that trying to navigate them by car is not the fastest or most practical option, so bicycle urbanism takes over functions normally performed by motors. These situations are also due to a lack of past urban planning, which creates an urban environment where (bi)cycle urbanism can prosper (Jakarta is a great example of a city that has grown and sprawled with no urban planning until recent years).
Despite the fact that these two conditions don’t necessarily fit in with the existing infrastructure and culture of American cities, I think bicycle urbanism is still a worthwhile viewpoint to broaden our sense of urban transportation planning. I believe it’s especially important because it can help to bridge some of the ways in which bicycle transportation planning sometimes furthers racist, classist, and sexist policies and practices. The US has a long and intertwined history of classism/racism/sexism and transportation planning, and as a cycling community we should be critical and aware of how bicycle transportation planning can follow in these footsteps. For example, I Cycle Hamilton writes about the experience of Hamilton, Canada where bike lanes are disproportionately built in privileged neighborhoods, while many working class cyclists in neighborhoods with fewer resources for advocacy continue to bike in dangerous traffic situations:
So the City focuses on building infrastructure and testing enhanced services for privileged demographics and neighborhoods while allowing […]conditions that result in unsafe [riding in other areas]… And yes, I am saying there is institutionalized classism involved.
Most cyclists can probably look around their own city and see similar patterns. I’m not saying that we need to stop building bike lanes in middle-class neighborhoods, but we should be building bike infrastructure everywhere in a city. Instead of just focusing on how to convert motorized transportation users to bike commuters, which often results in rendering working class cyclists invisible, let’s have a broader take on bicycle transportation planning.
What if instead of planning for just bike commuting, we thought about how to we plan blocks, neighborhoods, and cities to be centered around bicycle technology? What if it was easier to get a permit for a bicycle food cart than a food truck? (I know all the food truck lovers are groaning at that thought) What if we designed bike lanes to be wide enough that regular bikes could pass cargo bikes easily? I think about places like the Twin Cities and Chicago, where almost every block has an alley-way behind the buildings, and I can’t help but think that alleys are already meant for bicycle urbanism. Alleys are not meant for cars, they’re better by bike. We just need to now think how we can use that existing infrastructure to adapt to bicycle urbanism.
I think bicycle urbanism can help us to refocus from how to build bike infrastructure that will encourage vehicle users to use bikes, to thinking about the myriad of people in a city that use bike technology. Often the people who are using bike technology in uncommon ways are working class people and/or people of color. One of the largest barriers for women to bike is that they are often doing domestic labor while using transportation (transporting children, buying household items and groceries). If we consider this in terms of bike urbanism, we can think of more creative ways to encourage moving objects and people by bike.
I understand that a lot of this is hypothetical, and that there are many other systemic changes that are necessary for bicycle urbanism to be feasible in the States, but I also think that changing the mindset from bike transportation to bicycle urbanism is a serious step forward. It is a step forward both in re-examining the ways in which bike transportation planning can perpetuate systems of inequality, and a gesture towards thinking creatively about how the city and ball bearing can co-evolve.
I’ll leave this with two photo series by my good friend Luis Herrera photographing workers in Quito who use different sorts of (bi)cycles.
What are your thoughts on bicycle urbanism?
Woman On a Wheel 