Bicycling: 7 cities that will make Florida riders jealous

Editor's note: Come back Monday for a story detailing the solutions to Southwest Florida's bicycle safety issues, you can also find it in print Sunday.

Why should Southwest Florida put up with a dozen deaths of bicyclists in roughly a year when places with similar populations, or even larger cities, such as Portland, Oregon, often count none?

Where's the outcry? What sets these places apart from us?

"It's all about political will," said Bill Nesper, a vice president with the League of American Bicyclists. "This isn't really about the bike. This is about the bike as a means to that quality-of-life end.

"Portland decided we're going to be this kind of place."

"This isn't really about the bike. This is about the bike as a means to that quality-of-life end."

In-depth coverage:Visit sharetheroad.news-press.com for more stories about bicycle safety

Portland has long been one of the nation's havens for folks on two wheels. It started with a push from a city councilman in the 1990s. The city now counts more than 300 miles of bikeway among its laundry list of bike-related accomplishments. It would be tough to beat places like Portland or Minneapolis for bike-friendliness. No one is expecting us to.

"Lee County needs to be Lee County, plus bikes," Nesper recommended. "You have to look where your low-hanging fruit is and start there. It's not something that is going to happen overnight."

In recent years, numbers of bike crashes and deaths have spiked to alarming peaks. Florida is the most lethal state in the nation for bicyclists. Last year, Lee had eight bicyclists die, tying with Orlando and Tampa for the third-highest number of bicyclist fatalities in the state.

Related:7 Florida bicycle facts that may shock you

A Cape Coral freshman on his way to high school died after being hit by a deputy; a driver accused of going more than 100 mph struck and killed an avid cyclist in the Cape; and a pizza cook riding home from work one night on Pine Island Road was killed in a hit-and-run. His body wasn't found until 11 hours later. In Naples, there were three fatal bike crashes last year, including two commuters hit in intersections while riding along sidewalks.

But there are glimmers of promise.

Enthusiasts, law enforcement, officials and some elected leaders are taking steps to make biking safer in Bonita Springs, Naples, Sanibel Island, Cape Coral and Fort Myers. You can learn more about some efforts in our story on local solutions. In Lee County, projects to add bike paths, bus shelters and sidewalks with a $10.4 million federal grant are slated to start in July.

"We're so spread out. It's hard to see the sum of it all," said Darla Letourneau of advocacy coalition BikeWalkLee. "To me, the most important thing is that it's starting take hold in the fabric of the community.

"Baby steps."

GoPro View:SWFL bicyclist share their rides

But, as a whole, we're largely still talking about filling the gaps while other regions, in Florida and across the nation, are looking to innovate, overhaul roadways and seriously invest. Where are the protected bike lanes where parents and their kids can feel safe riding to grab some ice cream? Where's the intensive education for young drivers? Where's the proof that shows we're committed, as a region, to bringing down our abysmal pedestrian and bicyclist fatality statistics?

We asked the League of American Bicyclists about places that were doing it right. (A league specialist visited Southwest Florida earlier this year and scored Lee a 3 out of 10. Some of his recommendations included adding buffered or protected bike lanes on busy roads.) Here are some of the cities the league suggested and some whose examples we admired. Frankly, we're jealous.

We need to step up our game.

Arlington, Virginia, put in its first automated bike and pedestrian counters in 2009. There are now at least 18 permanent counters throughout the county, including the first real-time bicycle counter on the east coast, according to BikeArlington, a program of the county's commuter services. It's dubbed the Bikeometer and it's on an off-road bike trail that connects to Washington, D.C. So far this year, it's clocked more than 127,000 bicyclists.

"There's an old adage, what counts, gets counted," said Henry Dunbar, program manager for BikeArlington and WalkArlington. "Arlington values our bike and pedestrian infrastructure and this public real-time count is a way to raise visibility of all our counting."

The data is invaluable in planning and allocating money, he said.

"It no longer becomes a subjective thing that nobody uses this. We can say, 'Actually they do.'"

Data has shown people are using Arlington's bike trails for commuting, not just recreation, he said, which helped to get money set aside for the first time last winter to plow them of snow.

Another focus of BikeArlington is increasing civility on the roads. They're started a campaign aimed at walkers, bicyclists and drivers. It's called PAL and its message is for all three of those road users to be predictable, alert and lawful. They're trying to engage residents with the message through bike billboards, block parties and pizza nights.

"This is all about waving and smiling while handing out candy bars," Dunbar said. "If we were all just friendlier, it would help alleviate all of the tension we all feel when we commute."

Boulder, Colorado, is on a road diet; it's looking to "rightsize" four corridors in the city, which would entail converting overbuilt four-lane roads into three-lane roads with wider, protected bike lanes.

The end goal is to improve safety for all road users, said Dave "DK" Kemp, a senior transportation planner for the city of Boulder. The car has been king in transportation planning since after World War II and it can be like grappling with a giant, he said.

"It's sort of an ailment of our society that we've been so dependent on motor vehicles that we really haven't chosen to look at other options," said Kemp. "We've been planning for vehicles forever and we now need to bring walking, biking and transit up."

Clearly, having Kemp on your payroll helps. Kemp has been a bike coordinator in three of four cities that have received the platinum bicycle-friendly designation, one notch below the unachieved diamond, given out by the League of American Bicyclists.

"Planning for bikes and pedestrians, you're also planning for less congestion, because you're getting more people out of the cars."

In 2013, Boulder started a "Living Lab" program to test innovative design options, such as protected bike lanes and bike boxes, which put bikes in front of cars at intersections to prevent crashes, to increase bicycling, walking and riding the bus. The program is high on community engagement.

Teens and young adults who take the subsidized, professionally taught driving course in Chattanooga, Tennessee, get bicycle safety instruction as well.

Following a presentation on how motorists should behave around bicyclists, walkers, and mass transit users, students ride a bus, walk across downtown, and take a short bicycle ride using the Chattanooga's bike-share system.

The goal: Encourage students to be more empathetic and aware drivers and to have a better understanding of ways to get around the city, says Philip Pugliese with the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency.

In driver's ed, Pugliese noted, "we have a captive audience."

To promote observance of the law requiring motorists to pass bicyclists with a minimum of 3-feet clearance, Chattanooga recently debuted a new tech tool the bike patrol officer is using.

It bounces ultrasonic waves off vehicles passing bicycles, measuring the distance between the two.

Officer Rob Simmons told a reporter for the Chattanooga Times Free Press that when he stops unwitting violators, he usually doesn't write them up, but instead, hands them a pamphlet about the 3-foot rule.

Said Simmons: "The goal is not to write tickets. The goal is to educate motorists."

People have a lot of ways to get around in the city of Evanston, Illinois.

Its public transit system includes buses and trains; it's working on a bike-share system with neighboring Chicago that will roll out in spring 2016.

And, although less than 8-square miles in area, this 'burb north of the Windy City has 2 miles of striped, physically protected bicycle lanes in its commercial district, with another stretch of about 1 mile planned.

The bicycling lanes are to the right of the parking zones, and separated from the parked cars with reflector-studded, vertical plastic poles about 36 inches tall.

The city's bikeevanston.org website offers free, online bike registration, a route map, safety quizzes and events and bicycle shop listings.

"You can function here without having a (motor) vehicle," said Alex Anon, owner of the Bucephalus Bikes shop.

Anon should know. He, his wife and their four sons have gotten around without a car for about 18 years.

He's impressed with the pole-protected bicycle lanes: "They tell a driver there's something here to be respected."

Portland, Oregon, is a nirvana for people who bike. It's almost as if the sound of chirping birds has been replaced by jingle of bike bells in the city's landscape. Coming from Southwest Florida, it feels like you need to pinch yourself when you see the prevalence of infrastructure made for people on two wheels, not just the Spandex speedsters, and ask, Am I dreaming? Is this Europe?

Roger Geller, the city's bicycle coordinator, said he started with Portland in the 1990s around when then-city councilman, now-U.S. congressman Earl Blumenauer, suggested developing a plan for bicycling and carrying it out, Geller said.

Bike-friendly infrastructure boomed. Bicycle use penetrated deeper into the populace.

Some quick facts from the city's website: At about 6 percent, Portland has had the highest percentage of bike commuters of any large American city. There are at least 319 miles of bikeway, and bicycle infrastructure was estimated at a $60 million value in 2008, or roughly the cost of one mile of urban freeway.

The city's aim, Geller said, is "building a very low-stress bicycle infrastructure that's well-connected."

He estimated about 60 percent of the city's population is interested in biking but concerned about the dangers. The city is retrofitting streets by such measures as reducing speeds and creating physical barriers between cars and bikes. Those moves increase safety and encourage more folks to bike.

In the absence of good design, only the people who identify as cyclists will ride, he said. He subscribes to the idea also promoted by PeopleForBikes: "Can we design it so it's comfortable and safe for a 12-year-old?"

PeopleForBikes, a bicycling industry coalition and a charitable foundation, has personified this vision. Her name is Isabella.

This fall, Salt Lake City, Utah, may become the first U.S. city with a protected intersection for bicyclists as part of a 1.5-mile, $800,000 project to add protected bike lanes, public art and more comfortable crossings for pedestrians, according to the city.

"People want safer facilities, more comfortable facilities," said the city's transportation director, Robin Hutcheson. "This was quite simply the best way to handle it."

A protected intersection was the best way to link protected bike lanes, she said. The layout offers safety benefits: it slows traffic and is meant to keep bicyclists apart from traffic as they move across the intersection. This option has garnered interest in the United States in the past five years, but is based upon European designs, said Salt Lake transportation planner Colin Quinn-Hurst.

"The protected intersection is based on northern European designs that developed over decades of experience managing interactions between people walking, biking and driving on streets with protected bike lanes," he wrote in an email.

City residents are mostly on board. An April UtahPolicy.com survey found about two-thirds of Salt Lake City residents favored more bike lanes on streets, even though some businesses owners have voiced concerns about lanes reducing parking spots, according to the website.

There's also an environmental imperative to get cars off the roads, Hutcheson said. Salt Lake City has a smog problem, which runs counter to its image as fantastic place to recreate outside.

Mayor Ralph Becker has been instrumental in carrying out a vision for planning for all modes of transit, not just cars. Becker has a background in environmental planning and is a cyclist.

"Our overall goal is to eliminate the need for people to get into a car to live their lives," said Art Raymond, the mayor's spokesman.

It's not easy for bicyclists to use traffic signals when the devices don't recognize their presence as they do heavier motor vehicles.

Adding video cameras to detect cyclists at intersections so they get a turn at traffic signals is the next big bicycling safety enhancement here, said Susan Conklu, city transportation planner.

"We're focusing first on roads that have bike lanes, and the higher-traveled roads," Conklu said.

Fifteen intersections get the cameras to start, with more planned each year as finances permit.

The city also has installed some pedestrian hybrid beacons. They assist pedestrians and cyclists crossing in marked, but unsignaled crosswalks, operating much like a traffic signal, but costing less.

Scottsdale, Arizona, has a lot of bicycle bragging rights, with its 89 miles of paved, shared-use paths, 133 miles of striped bike lanes, 123 miles of marked, on-street bike routes and 143 miles of unpaved, shared-use trails.

And, it's far from finished.

"Scottsdale is about halfway built-out on our paved paths network," Conklu said, She added that anytime a road is updated, bike-lane striping is added.

About this project

The News-Press cycling safety experts Janine Zeitlin and Laura Ruane provide details on steps that are being planned or have been executed in seven cities across America with the goal of finding a happy medium between motorists and cyclists.