One of the questions we have been thinking about on our trip so far is based on two seemingly conflicting pieces of advice we have received during our meetings with professionals. The first piece of advice was to prioritize putting bike infrastructure on a city’s most important streets first. The second piece of advice was to start with easier tweaks on quieter streets to build neighborhood networks. While the ideal solution is probably some kind of happy medium, if I had to choose one over the other I think that prioritizing the biggest, most traveled streets in a city would have the greatest impact.

One reason I feel this way is based on personal experience. My decision to bike to a destination is heavily influenced by how safe, connected, intuitive, and easy-to-navigate I perceive the busiest portions of the ride to be. If I worry that the most car-heavy portions of my trip will feel overwhelming on a bike, I am more likely to drive instead. I would much prefer to navigate smaller, neighborhood roads that lack bike infrastructure because there are usually fewer cars that generally travel more slowly.

I am happy to ride my bike to school, for example, because a robust system of separated bike trails along the river path takes me through what would otherwise be some of the busiest, most car-heavy parts of of Eugene. On either end of the trip, I have to do some road riding, but those areas are generally slower paced and very short. Were the situation reversed (bike trails on the tail ends and the bulk of the trip being road riding with fast-moving cars), I would be hesitant to undertake the journey.

Another reason I think it makes sense to invest in adding bike infrastructure to busier streets is that those streets are the ones most likely to have a lot of “destinations,” like shops, restaurants, and grocery stores, along them. Adding bike infrastructure to these areas provides people from many neighborhoods with the opportunity to experience the joys of fulfilling daily tasks on a bike. Especially in a society where many people have never even considered anything other than cars as a viable form of transportation, exposure to the possibility of safe bicycle transport is critical to shift mindsets. Even if someone ends up driving to the busy area, parking, and then biking around within it to complete a set of errands (“trip-chaining”), having good bike infrastructure encourages them to imagine what having this kind of infrastructure throughout the city could be like, which could increase demand for positive policy changes. In contrast, prioritizing bike infrastructure on smaller, neighborhood streets is likely to benefit the smaller group of people who live in that specific area. Because of this, it seems like a less effective way to disrupt peoples’ assumption that cars are the only reasonable way to get around.

As I mentioned above, the ideal solution is probably some combination of the two extremes, but if you have to start somewhere, the biggest roads seem to be the ones that will pack the greatest punch.