Utopian Design: Bike Lanes

After growing up in Davis, I am no stranger to bike lanes. I biked to school in elementary school and junior high (unless I could coerce my parents or my friends' parents into taking me). However, I had long since fallen out of practice of biking, because of my gratefully received car, when I started UC Davis this fall. In just one quarter, I have re-founded my appreciation for Davis's utopian use of bike lanes. Davis claims itself to be the bike capital of the United States, and was one of the first towns to implement bike lanes. These lanes help bike riding children, university students, and adults navigate their way safely through the streets of Davis.

Bike lanes help bikers and cars feel safer together on the road. In my experience on both sides, bike lanes make the experience much more enjoyable. There is nothing scarier than rushing to school on a weekday morning, and being afraid of hitting the bikers that insist on biking on 5th street (There aren't bike lanes on 5th for a reason people! Take a side street!) As a biker, I know how hard it can be to negotiate traffic when there are bike lanes, and when bike lanes aren't present, I find myself very uncomfortable. I take an extra long route to my job at Baskin Robbins downtown in order to avoid biking on roads without bike lanes.

Though this isn't their intended use, I also think bike lanes contribute the the small town visual aesthetic of Davis. Every time I go to San Francisco, I marvel at how close the cars are to the curb. However, in Davis, the wide street gives a more leisurely and open feeling, unlike the cramped, busy feeling of cities.

Bike lanes encourage bikers: Davis is the bike capital of the United States because the bike lanes make it so easy to get to destinations without a car. Rather than using cars, which use up fossil fuel and create pollution, Davisites turn to the cheaper, environmentally friendly mode of transportation. There is no doubt that the implementation of bike lanes was based on utopian ideas at its conception.