Was I the only one surprised earlier this month when Indian River County earned its first-ever designation as a “Bicycle-Friendly Community” from the Washington, DC-based League of American Bicyclists?
True, there are wonderful and well used bike lanes along State Road A1A, which offer the opportunity for cyclists of all levels of expertise to cruise up and down the island without being forced to contend with motor vehicle traffic at a string of busy intersections.
And there are several other local roadways – or at least sections of roadways – with marked bike lanes or clearly defined shoulders legally wide enough to accommodate the growing number of cyclists in our area.
So, yeah, there are places here where we can bike without putting our lives at great risk.
But a bike-friendly community?
Be honest: Are you going to ride your bike on U.S. 1 or along State Road 60, the county’s two busiest thoroughfares?
What about the more-residential north-south corridors of 20th, 27th and 43rd avenues and east-west routes of 4th, 8th, 12th and 16th streets?
When I think of “bicycle friendly,” I think of “safe for bicycling” – and that’s not how I see most of this county’s roadways, particularly on the mainland and especially with so much of our driving population potentially unfriendly to cyclists.
We have thousands of older drivers who, in many cases, take to the road despite diminished vision and slower reflexes than they enjoyed in their younger years.
We also have hundreds of teen drivers who, in too many cases, feel compelled to read and respond immediately to text messages, rather than wait until they’re parked.
And, of course, we have our annual swarm of seasonal visitors and tourists who fill our roadways in increasing numbers, often unsure of exactly how to get to where they’re going and sometimes making sudden stops or turns when they realize they’ve passed it.
“We track accidents involving automobiles and bicycles,” said Andy Sobczak, the county’s senior planner whose duties include bicycle and pedestrian safety and infrastructure. “What we’ve found is that more than 75 percent of them are because the cyclists or drivers did something wrong.”
No surprise there.
What was surprising, however, were the statistics showing the county becoming a safer place to ride a bike.
According to charts provided by Sobczak, there were 26 motorist-versus-cyclist accidents in 2003, 24 in 2006, 20 in 2009 and 16 in 2012.
And get this: The most recent Florida Department of Transportation rankings for “Total Fatality and Injury” crashes involving motorist and cyclists/pedestrians had Indian River at No. 3 among Florida’s mid-sized counties (population 50,000 to 199,999).
Those 2013 numbers put us behind only Nassau and Highlands counties and immediately ahead of Citrus and Martin.
In the FDOT’s municipal rankings, Sebastian was No. 2 and Vero Beach was No. 29 among mid-sized cities (15,000 to 74,999), while Indian River Shores was No. 2 and Fellsmere was No. 5 among small cities (3,000 to 14,999).
“Florida, in general, is not considered a particularly safe state for cyclists,” Sobczak said, adding that, although the FDOT statistics don’t differentiate between cyclists and pedestrians, the rankings for motorists-versus-cyclists tend to be similar.
“One reason the numbers are worse in Florida is that, because of our climate, you can be out on your bike all year round, so there are more opportunities for something to go wrong,” he continued. “We also have a lot of older drivers and tourists.
“But the conditions for cyclists in this county have definitely improved.”
In fact, Sobczak said the bicycle-accident rates involving children have been cut in half over past five years.
Those improvements, he said, is why our county became the 16th Florida community recognized by the League of American Bicyclists, founded in 1880 with the mission of creating a “bicycle-friendly America.”
The county joined Key Biscayne as Florida’s only newcomers to the “Bicycle-Friendly Community” list, which includes 350 U.S. communities divided into four tiers – platinum (4), gold (21), silver (73) and bronze (252) – based on their level of bike friendliness.
Florida has no platinum or gold communities. Gainesville, Sanibel, Venice and The Villages have silver designations. We’re in the bronze category, along with cities such as Boca Raton, Fernandina Beach, Miami, Orlando, St. Petersburg and Tallahassee.
But both Sobczak and Vero Cycling Club membership director Sharon LaPoint said the community’s efforts to become more bike-friendly shouldn’t end with the LAB’s June 10 recognition.
“This is just the beginning, the entry level,” LaPoint said. “It’s great that we’re on the list, but we want to be better and we’ve still got work to do. Our goal now should be to get to silver. And we can.”
The LAB judges communities’ bike friendliness using what it calls the “Five E’s”:
- Engineering: Creating safe and convenient places to ride and park.
- Education: Giving people of all ages and abilities the skills and confidence to ride.
- Encouragement: Creating a strong bicycle culture that welcomes and celebrates bicycling.
- Enforcement: Ensuring safe roads for all users.
- Evaluation and Planning: Planning for bicycling as a safe and viable transportation option.
It was the local education, encouragement and enforcement categories – more than the engineering and evaluation aspects – that put the county on the LAB list.
In addition to the efforts of LaPoint’s 200-member club to grow local interest in cycling through in-season, new-rider outings and partnering with Main Street Vero Beach, the county provides bike-safety instruction to all school children.
“I go to all of the elementary schools and teach kids from the third to fifth grades about bike safety,” Sobczak said. “We got credit for that when we submitted our application to the league.”
The county also got credit for the work done by Sheriff’s Office liaisons who work with the local cycling community by participating in bike-safety programs for both children and adults, sponsoring bike rodeos, making public-service announcements and, in extreme cases, issuing citations for violations of traffic laws that cyclists are required to obey.
Also contributing to bike-safety education here are local bicycle shops, particularly Orchid Island Bikes & Kayaks – the county’s only LAB-designated, gold-level “Bicycle-Friendly Business” – which offers bike-maintenance classes that, among other things, teach riders how to change flat tires.
Other factors in getting LAB recognition included the county’s off-road bike trails, the addition of bike racks to local GoLine buses and Sebastian’s bike-lane maps.
“We need to get similar maps for the entire county,” LaPoint said, “so that cyclists who visit Vero Beach can go online and see where the bike lanes are.”
Nothing matters more, however, than the community’s network of legally installed, properly paved, well-marked bike lanes.
And, apparently, we need more of them: In assessing a community’s bicycle friendliness, the LAB gives credit for only those roadways with marked bike lanes.
“Having wide-enough shoulders helps, but we need to get them labeled as bike lanes,” LaPoint said. “The signage not only identifies bike routes for cyclists; it also alerts drivers that bicycles are on the road in that area.”
Sobczak said the county is planning to install bike-lane signs along 66th Avenue, south of State Road 60.
He didn’t rule out doing the same along Indian River Boulevard, but he warned that the volume and speed of the traffic along that roadway are a drawback.
“When you’ve got cars passing you at 55 to 60 mph,” he said, “it can be an unsafe feeling.”
Still, all things considered, Sobczak should tell the county to go ahead and install those bike lanes.
Being designated a “bicycle-friendly community” is nice, but I’d rather be a community where it’s really safe to ride a bicycle.