Why not get a bike?: 'He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever'

There is an article, "He walked 17 miles a day to work until a stranger gave him a ride and changed his life forever," another one of those "person walks many miles daily to and from work, a person sees him, sets up a funding account and the person gets a car, etc. in reward for his perseverance" stories that comes up every so often (cf. "Heart and sole: Detroiter walks 21 miles in work commute" and "'Walking man' settles into new life, friends, waist size," Detroit Free Press).  From the first article:

Michael Lynn was running some errands on June 15 on a hot Oklahoma day when he noticed a shirtless young man walking down the side of a service road. Sensing that the man needed some assistance he pulled up beside him and asked if he needed a ride. 

The young man, Donte Franklin, 20, replied, "Yes, sir!" Donte was doing his daily, eight-mile walk to the Buffalo Wild Wings on the other side of town where he works as a chef. After his shift, he does the same long, eight-mile walk back home. 

To make it to work on time, Donte has to leave the house three hours before his shift starts. He walks an average of five and a half hours a day to and from work. And yet, "I haven't missed a shift at all," Donte told Fox News, adding that he's never been late.

While I think this is great, when I read these stories my first reaction is "why didn't this person get a bicycle?"  

I'm not the only one who has figured this out ("Spring Hill church, helping-hand organization delivering free bikes to homeless, low-income," Suncoast News, "Volunteering Enables Low-Income Ohioans to Get Their Own Two Wheels," Nation Swell, Bikes for All program, Seattle Bike Works, "Henrico church provides bikes to hundreds of low-income families," NBC12, Richmond).

Graphics from the Streetsblog post, "Low-Income Americans Walk and Bike to Work the Most"

His 2.5 hour walk would be a 40 minute bike trip.

I first wrote about this kind of stuff maybe in 2005 or 2006, after reading one or more articles about people reliant on bus transit getting to work hours before their shift, to be sure they'd be on time, given the vagaries of the bus system.

I started biking for transportation in 1990 for exactly this reason, to get to work faster and more reliably than if I were taking transit or walking (I did often walk to work when I first moved to DC, it was 2.3 miles each way).  Biking gave me more and better control of my time.

(And when I worked in Baltimore County, I didn't buy a car because it wasn't a permanent job.  I cycled to Union Station -- 5 miles -- took the train to Baltimore, 35 miles -- first took a bus, and then got another bike to ride from Penn Station to Towson, 8 miles -- and the return each day, although when I was tired, sometimes at night I'd take the Metro home from Union Station to Takoma.)

In "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 18 programs" I list model programs to assist people in making the transition to biking as transportation.  

#8 is Bikes as tools for improving access to jobs.  The Community Cycling Center of Portland has a program that outfits low income residents with bikes and all the requisite support equipment and training, so that they can cycle safely to work.  They've done this for 20 years! ("Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 1" and "Ten years of Create a Commuter, Part 2," "This Bike is My New Best Friend").

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("Notable Gifts: Capital One donates 20 bikes, gear"), Capital One has supported a similar program there. From the article: 

Twenty bicycles donated by Capital One will provide greater access to jobs for participants in the Workforce Pipeline Program at Richmond’s Center for Workforce Innovation. Capital One volunteers assembled the bicycles with assistance from RideRichmond. Capital One donations also provided safety gear such as helmets for the riders and lights and locks for the bikes. 

... A regional study found that nearly 1,000 additional businesses and 18,000 additional jobs are located within 1.5 miles of the end of the bus line, Manion said. “We have had several participants that have lost jobs or been unable to get jobs because of this short distance."

The Sibley Bike Depot in Minneapolis-St. Paul is shifting from a youth-focused program to broadening its programming to include low income household access to biking for transportation ("Sibley Bike Depot introduces low-income adults to bicycling’s joys," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).

And in Canada where the Squeaky Wheels Bicycle Cooperative has a similar program ("How London, Ont., low-income essential workers are getting free bikes for their commutes," CBC-TV).

#2 is Cycle Borrowing Programs, where communities in London have programs that will lend people bicycles, locks, and helmets for a month or more, so that they can experiment with bicycling for transportation without having to first commit to buying.

#5 is Integrating Community Cycling Programs into community recreation centers.  There are bike co-ops and youth programs nonprofits.  Why not give such programs space in community recreation centers instead of them having to pay rent, and include training, community rides, and other programs as part of it.

-- "Low-income NYC high school students should get free bicycles, Citi Bike memberships: Comptroller Stringer," New York Daily News

#10 is Discounted memberships in bike sharing programs on a means tested basis.  In places with bike sharing programs, it would seem that low income people would be avid users of the system ("Study says look at price and incentives to get low-income residents on bike share," "New Study Finds Low-Income Workers Rely More on Bike Share," Better Bike Share Partnership).

Boston, Minnesota, and Chicago bicycle sharing programs offer discounted memberships for $5/year, a significant discount.  

Montgomery County, Maryland offers free membership to those who qualify, which was rolled into a broader "Capital Bikeshare for All" program similar to Boston and Chicago at $5, but still free for Montgomery County residents who qualify.  It includes free access to e-bikes for up to a 60 minute ride.  (Still, it shouldn't have taken 10 years to create such a program...)  Cincinnati has a free membership program too.

The bike sharing program in Salt Lake City is offering $1 memberships this year to "essential employees" as a post-pandemic inducement ("GREENbike offers $1 annual pass to essential workers in 2021," Utah Business).

#14 is Credit Union loans to Buy Bikes.  Community cycling programs could work with local credit unions to create programs to assist people in purchasing bikes, establishing credit, getting back accounts, etc.  

Virginia Credit Union, Unitus of Oregon, Providence Federal Credit Union in Oregon, the Clean Energy Credit Union for e-bikes, Affinity Plus in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Community Powered Federal Credit Union in Delaware, the UMass Five College Credit Union in Massachusetts, and the Seattle Credit Union are some of the credit unions offering this option.

#16 is Creating Bike Bundling Programs in Public Housing.  This is an idea I've had for 10 years or so, building a bike, lock and helmet into apartment leases, with the inclusion of high quality, secure bike parking on site.  But I've never managed to convince a public housing authority to try it.

#17 is Donating abandoned and unclaimed bikes to programs serving low income populations.  A number of places, including Boston, do this.  LA MTA started doing this too, with abandoned bicycles on its properties.

Although Montgomery County, Maryland does a variant, actively seeking donated bikes for this purpose.

NEW #19.  Adding bike access to transit trips to get to your final destination.  The Medellin transit system links to the city bike share system, so that a transit user can use a bike to finish their trip.  

The Comet bus system in Columbia, South Carolina is the only system I know that does this in the US ("Transit as a mobility integrator," Mass Transit Magazine).

Conclusion.  These kinds of initiatives should be much more widespread and combined into a "program."

And it would give bicycling, often seen as a "white thing" ("What riding my bike has taught me about white privilege," Quartz) a way to deliver equity and access in concrete and effective ways.

Although I have always been troubled by the white-black thing and biking  I started biking in part because of my own limited income--biking's cheaper than transit, at least in the DC area--and like my original point in this piece, wondering why people wouldn't get a bike to save themselves hours of time each day, saw biking as practical and utilitarian, not in racial terms.  People's self interest, regardless of race, ought to be propelling them to biking as a solution to transportation needs.

But maybe a lot of outreach is needed to make this connection ("SF’s low-income residents remain unsure about regional bike-sharing program," Mission Local, "Nice Ride loans out 140 bikes in low-income neighborhoods," St. Paul Pioneer-Press).  Although as argued here ad infinitum, such promotion and outreach is necessary for sustainable mobility in general, at least in the US.

Buying a car changes life positively versus the Sustainable Mobility Platform and mode layering.  There is an article in Gizmodo ("Buying a Car Improved My Life. It Shouldn't Have") about a guy in Baltimore writing about how a car made his life easier in Baltimore, despite Baltimore's acceptable Walk Score (65%) where he lived.  

Baltimore is pretty spread out, the blocks can be big, and transit infrequent.  While he bought a car, depending on the nature of his travel, he could have just as easily and for a lot less money, bought a bike, and had an equivalent improvement in his quality of life.

DC (and SF, Manhattan, Brooklyn and Inner Queens, parts of Boston and Chicago, etc.) shows the value of what I call the "Sustainable Mobility Platform" (also see "DC is a market leader in Mobility as a Service (MaaS)"). 

But to be fair, Baltimore is not one of those cities.

DC starts off with an urban design of the grid of blocks and streets, designed during the era of the Walking City, when mostly people walked.  

This urban design is equally supportive of transit and biking ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Peter Muller).

This urban design is the framework for the Sustainable Mobility Platform (which extends from what I originally laid out years ago as the transit shed/transitshed and mobility shed/mobilityshed, built on the term  "commutershed" by Robert Cervero).

(For more detailed discussion about how urban form can or may not support compact development and sustainable mobility see "GROWING SMART BY LINKING TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT," Robert Cervero, Virginia Environmental Law Journal, 19:3 (2000).)

By layering walking, biking, transit--different modes and services (bus, streetcar, light rail, subway, railroad)--for trips of varying lengths ("Intra-neighborhood (tertiary) transit revisited"), one way and two way car share, delivery, taxi and ride hailing, and the occasional car rental, you can construct a life where car ownership is not required, and you can use the money you save by avoiding owning a car for other things, like paying a mortgage.

But, most cities don't have this kind of framework in place. And few people have experience in living this way.  And the predominate land use and mobility paradigm doesn't support it. 

Have you noticed that most performance car ads are set in cities, with no traffic?

So when you mention biking or transit as a viable mode, they are totally flummoxed and resistant, because it is not part of their experience.  And they sure are unfamiliar with car sharing.

And a sustainable mobility framework is actively opposed by the interests focused on the maintenance of oil consumption and sprawl.

And surprisingly by residents, who believe that non-automobile centric mobility somehow calls into question their life and lifestyle choices, so they oppose sustainable mobility vociferously ("DC as a suburban agenda dominated city" "Car culture and automobilty: 5 stories of inside the box thinking,").