Posts Tagged ‘worst cycling cities’

Memphis was designated a Worst Cycling City by Bicycling magazine citing no bike lanes and an uncooperative city government. While I love Bicycling magazine, I strongly disagree with this opinion. I’ve heard through local sources that the author of the article (click here for article), Christine Mattheis, interviewed a few of the bicycle advocates in Memphis as fodder for her story. But that’s what it mostly is, fodder.

I live in mid-town Memphis and bike on the roads on a daily basis – I doubt Christine has done this. Many times, I do this with my two children in tow. While there are no bike lanes, many roads throughout mid-town and downtown are sufficiently wide to for both cars and bikes. The traffic in mid-town is also pretty light for a mid-sized city, even during peak traffic hours. I would also argue that the drivers here, while almost never following traffic rules, are not unfriendly to riders. I have had only one mild confrontation during my year and a half of riding here. I got harassed on a weekly basis in small town Indiana.

While the bike advocates in Memphis have an honorable agenda, I feel their priorities are not aligned with the needs of Memphis. I recently saw that bike advocates are proposing a $50,000 addition of bike lanes to Cooper Avenue. I bike Cooper 5 to 6 times per week and rarely see another cyclist. Nor do I feel unsafe due to heavy traffic. I also seriously doubt that adding a bike lane will suddenly increase the number of people riding bikes. And since Memphis drivers (of undesirable vehicles) rarely follow traffic rules they are certainly not going to observe the bike lanes. It’s comical to think that they would. Furthermore, Memphis has greater problems. Rampant crime and poor schools are more detrimental to cycling than not having bike lanes.

It would be nice to have a pedestrian friendly east-west route. I have a very hard time reaching east Memphis on any of the existing roads. This would be nice but the reality is that few other Memphians would use it.

Memphis is a good city for cycling. Instead of making it a great city for cycling, let’s make it a great place to live and go to school.