Crowded trails show need for new bike lanes

If you’ve been to any of Houston’s parks since the beginning of March, you will have noticed a fascinating sight: Parks are absolutely overflowing with people. If you didn’t know that the world was suffering a pandemic, the sight would have been baffling. Throughout the bayous and parks, cyclists, runners and outdoor enthusiasts have been contending for space. One thing is clear: Houston trail infrastructure is insufficient during this pandemic and will be insufficient to support increased postcoronavirus usage. For Houston bike shops, business is booming, and many shops are having to bring on new employees to help with the demand. Many stores can’t keep bikes in stock and are having to refrain from accepting any new repair orders in order to finish the backlog. Furthermore, Houston’s bicycle share program BCycle is reporting record breaking numbers of riders. Houston is experiencing an explosion of cyclists unlike it has ever seen before.

Houston parks are facing two choices: either shut down, or somehow increase social distancing. The dangerous overcrowding that currently exists cannot continue. Unfortunately, many of the trails and paths in Houston’s parks are only 10 feet wide. This makes it impossible to pass at a safe distance and means that many people are biking directly behind one another waiting for their turn to pass. To further complicate matters, a recent study demonstrates a “slipstream” effect where if you are directly in-line behind someone you need to be much more than 6 feet away (around 33 feet for cyclists moving fast) to prevent transmission of coronavirus.

But we shouldn’t shut down the parks. The mental and physical cost of staying at home is high, and people are desperate to get out and move their bodies, especially in nature. It’s also important to see other people, even at a distance. To remove a major source of physical, mental and social well-being would be disastrous: People can’t sit motionless indoors for very long — they need a safe place outdoors to exercise.

So if shutting down parks is a bad idea, what should Houston do about the overcrowding? One of the most obvious solutions is to shut down major streets and thoroughfares and reserve them exclusively for bicycles and pedestrians. This would be exceptionally effective if the closed streets were alongside park trails, as it would diminish overcrowding and provide plenty of space for social distancing. Many large cities like Oakland, Toronto and New York City, have done this or are considering doing this. But they are all implementing street closures in different ways: Some are partial closures or merely speed restrictions, while other cities are closing blocks around packed apartment buildings.

The main problem with closing streets is quantifying trade-offs. Closing streets can appear to be a zero-sum transaction: outdoor enthusiasts benefit at the expense of drivers. However, right now there are fewer cars on the road, while there are too many cyclists on the paths. Unfortunately, the cost-benefit analysis of road closures is difficult and rife with disagreement even when there isn’t a pandemic. Furthermore, since the benefits of outdoor recreation are hard to quantify, it’s hard to make a convincing case even in this unusual period of diminished car use and increased trail usage.

BikeHouston has been encouraging cyclists to try biking on unusually quiet neighborhood streets instead of braving the crowded trails. This is a good solution for cyclists and trail users who are familiar with bicycle safety and have enough “street sense” to know which streets to avoid. The downside of street riding is that many of the cars remaining on the road are driving much faster due to less traffic.

The solution that BikeHouston recommends for the city of Houston is to continue enacting the Houston Bike Plan, a commitment that the city made to build approximately 1,800 miles of high comfort bikeways. We have experience fasttracking high comfort bikeway projects. To accelerate the bike plan, BikeHouston convinced the city to take on the Build-50 Challenge in April 2018 to build 50 miles of high-comfort bikeways in 12 months. Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis provided the funding and the city provided the streets and assistance from the planning and public works departments. What we need now is a new challenge, Build-50 Challenge 2.0 — more high comfort bikeways to support Houston’s growing cycling community during the pandemic and to support the increased bike users after the pandemic.

The mayor has charged the chief transportation planner and public works to prepare a list of projects — transformative projects like New York City’s tactical urbanism approach — projects that have been vetted by two years of public scrutiny preparing the Houston Bike Plan and approved by the 2017 city council.

We need cycling infrastructure for the Houston community during the pandemic for public health and safety, and we need it afterward to support vastly increased numbers of cyclists. The crowded trails are mirrored by crowded bike shops and rental stations. There are many reasons to believe that there will be increased ridership after the pandemic — we should have the infrastructure ready to handle the demand.

Now that the roads have quieted, it’s the perfect opportunity to begin building, painting and constructing the promised high comfort bike lanes. Join us in this endeavor by joining BikeHouston and help create a bike-friendly Houston.