Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities

By Jeff Mapes

Oregon State University Press, 2009, 288 pp., $19.95

Seeking to alter decades of entrenched and outmoded transportation policies, an increasingly diverse coalition of progressive citizen-activists, planners, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and politicians is working passionately to move America more sustainably into the future.  Finding a place among all of these groups are the bicyclists who — despite their relatively small numbers — are altering the built environment through skillful political action, according to Jeff Mapes.

A seasoned political reporter for The Oregonian and bicycle commuter in his hometown of Portland, Mapes has written his new book to hold the attention of hardcore bicycle advocates and non-bicyclists alike. While the author is well-versed in the challenges inherent to bicycling in American cities, he also consistently connects bicycle travel to larger urban policy goals. By not losing sight of the big picture, Mapes appeals to a wider audience.

The introduction and opening chapter detail the rise of America’s currently optimistic state of bicycle activism. The swiftness with which the book’s opening pages turn indicates that Pedaling Revolution may be used as a guide for other advocacy groups — including new urbanists — on how to better assimilate their message into this country’s political dialog. The first chapter, however, also reminds us that the history of bicycling in the US is one of ebbs and flows — or perhaps more accurately, booms and busts. So while Mapes paints bicycle advocates as a politically savvy bunch taking to the streets in droves, he accurately depicts the tenuous psychological state of those “unlikely transportation revolutionaries foregoing the safety of a steel cage with airbags and anti-lock disc brakes for a wispy two-wheeled exoskeleton.”

The latest bicycling craze
So what, if anything, makes the recent rise of bicycling in America any different from similar trends in the 1970s, or even the 1890s? Will thousands of recently painted bicycle lane miles be well-worn and never replaced? What the heck is a “sharrow”? And why aren’t more cities building comprehensive bicycle infrastructure?

Searching for answers, Mapes first travels abroad to Amsterdam to study the state of the art, only to return to his own country’s most bicycle-friendly cities to measure their successes and failures. Meeting local and national activist leaders, high-level bureaucrats, and politicians along the way, the author carefully traces the resurgence of a movement energized by the converging catastrophes of the twenty-first century and the growing political acceptance.

Bouncing between Davis, Chicago, New York City, and his own Portland — America’s most bicycle-friendly big city — the author covers the long-standing vehicular cycling debates, the deliberately anarchic Critical Mass rides, and the expansion of Safe Routes to School programs, which shape the fabric of America’s unique tapestry of bicycle sub-culture. Most importantly, Mapes colors the book with human-interest angles, anecdotes, and easy-to-digest statistics that help readers to understand how each of the cities is faring in the quest to unlock latent bicycling demand.

Mapes credits “low laying municipal planners and congressional aides” as the ones to thank for slowly chipping away at the motoring majority and the myriad policies that skew local, state, and federal policy toward auto-dependency.

In the final chapters, the author explores safety barriers (both real and imagined), health benefits, and how to get kids bicycling again. Regarding the latter, he concludes the book by citing a drop in the number of teens licensed to drive automobiles. While this may be attributable to higher costs and more stringent regulations, he posits that if America can once again accommodate bicycling children safely, and keep them riding through the car-hungry, status-driven teen years, then “you’ve begun to change the world.”

In the epilogue, Mapes explains his own reasons for bicycling, which revolve around fun and utility, not environmental extremism. After all, he reasons, “do you really need more than a ton of steel to move your rear end two miles?”