A Novice's Take on Commuting to Work by Bicycle

I started riding my bike to work this summer and quickly realized that the reason that more people aren’t riding their bikes to work is that it isn’t safe. I had three main reasons to do it. The first one was that riding a bike is more fun than driving, the second one was that I could exercise while commuting to work, and the third one was that as a transportation professional, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to fully immerse myself in this form of transportation and understand it better. However, after my first ride, I quickly realized that I would be spending lots of my energy paying attention and being careful to avoid getting hit by a car.

On day one, I was both excited and nervous at the same time. In my case, as someone who as a child growing up in Costa Rica and did a lot of risky things and survived, including riding a bike on busy roads where the drivers were not paying attention to bike riders, and would drive past extremely close to them, I wasn’t going to let a little anxiety prevent me from commuting to work on my bike. There’s no question that the risks are real, and from day one, I started to notice and consider some of the challenges, the things that worked for me, and some of the things that are necessary to make the ride more enjoyable and safer.

As a transportation practitioner, over the years, I’ve heard many different points of view about bicycle infrastructure. A couple of these that stand out include that biking infrastructure couldn’t solve transportation problems in our cold weather region. Eventually, when winter comes, people stop riding their bikes. Also, bicycle infrastructure takes up room on the roads, so the people who ride bikes should pay for it.

There’s no denying that biking is healthier than driving. I imagine most people would agree on that, and the way I look at the bicycle infrastructure is the opposite of taking up room. Every time I ride my bike to work, I am one less car on the road. The more people riding bikes to work, the less cars there are on the road. This reduces traffic volumes and vehicle emissions and brings huge health benefits to the riders due to the added exercise, even if it’s only during part of the year.

Of all the challenges that I have encountered while riding my bike to work, the main one would be the lack of bicycle infrastructure. I planned my route carefully so I’m on local roads as much as possible due to the lack of bicycle lanes on most major roads in the Boston Metro West area. A simple shoulder that is adequately wide with a bike lane striped on it feels safe for someone like me, but I know that bicycle infrastructure advocates would prefer separated bike lanes whenever possible because they are safer for users of different ages and abilities.

When roads don’t have bike lanes, I’ve found I feel the most danger with roads that have center islands that narrow the vehicle lane widths and also while taking left turns while riding on major roads. The more experience I gain, the more comfortable I feel in these situations, but there is real risk involved. Typically, center islands that narrow vehicle travel lanes are implemented as a traffic calming technique with the intent to slow down cars due to the perception that they create a narrower road. Unfortunately that does not apply when a car is competing with a bicycle to get through it. In this situation, I have seen numerous times cars speed up to pass the bicycle at the approach to the center island, so they don’t have to be behind and slow down for a few seconds. This creates a very dangerous situation not only for the bike rider, but for cars and pedestrians if they are present. The other dangerous situation is when drivers decide to pass the bicycle through these areas because the narrow travel lanes make it unsafe for moving cars and bicycles to fit through it at the same time. 

Now that I have a little bit more experience after a summer of commuting to work by bike under my belt, I have learned that the best way to deal with this situation is by slowly and carefully moving towards the center of the lane starting a couple hundred feet before the center islands. I get a little bit anxious to do this because I know that the drivers behind can get impatient, and one can tell when they quickly accelerate with the engine roaring once they can pass you, but this is safer than having a car racing a bike rider to beat it to the center island or passing it while riding through it. Besides the center islands, taking left turns at stop signs onto major roads from local roads can be hard, and the left turns while riding on major roads are very difficult maneuvers because the bicycle must move over from the far-right side of the road towards the center of the road while traffic is moving fast, which creates a dangerous situation too. I’ve learned that the best way to take left turns while riding is by trying to move slowly towards the center of the road a couple hundred feet before the turn. It’s still not an easy maneuver, and it can be very hard to do in some places, maybe not even possible, but if it’s safe to do so as you approach the left turn, one can signal the turns so the driver behind you can be a little bit patient for a moment knowing that you’re about to turn and they’re not stuck having to drive slowly behind an annoying bicycle rider! 

So far, I still ride wearing my regular exercise clothes, but I’m starting to realize that having adequate bike riding clothes and gear will be a necessary investment to make my ride safer, more comfortable, and enjoyable. At a minimum, I realized that wearing a pair of gloves is essential for comfort and to prevent damaging your hands, and high visibility clothes are also very important for safety.   

To conclude, while I think that riding a bike to work is great exercise and more fun than driving, there are many challenges that make it difficult for most people to be comfortable commuting to work by bicycle. I have no crystal ball to know how much additional bicycle infrastructure would increase ridership, but one thing I know for sure is that more bicycle infrastructure is essential to make bike riding safer and more enjoyable, so more people feel confident choosing to ride their bikes to work and to exercise because they feel that it’s safe to do so.