Vicious cycle for urban biking

September 13, 2010 by Scott Nowicki 

Las Vegas is bicycle unfriendly, but it could be worse

I’m sorry, Las Vegas.

I feel the need to apologize because I’ve been a little too hard on you. I’ve spoken some harsh words in the past, blamed you for some things that are not really your fault, and I honestly didn’t give you the little praises that you deserve.

Well, I’m willing to try to see if our relationship can get a little better. You are attempting to do the right thing, and even if you can’t possibly compete with your peers, you’re trying to make living and bicycling here a little better.

I say all this because I recently learned a good lesson.

This past summer, I had the opportunity to live and work in Singapore, at (who knew) UNLV Singapore. It turns out that our own Harrah College of Hotel Administration operates a satellite campus in Singapore that caters to Southeast Asian students. For the month of June, I taught and lived in the central business district in Singapore, just a short walk from campus. While I was there, I saw many magical things: a subway system that was space-aged and super-cheap, the largest and most continuous malls I have ever seen and little fried sesame balls with peanut butter on the inside that were about as good as dessert gets.

But, ever the intrepid cyclist, I flew my bike with me, determined to experience what breakthroughs an ultra-modern, non-Western city has made in the way of sustainable, non-motorized urban transport.

The best way to describe my experience in Singapore is by comparing it to what I consider the worst possible cycling condition on the planet — crossing the Las Vegas Strip.

I believe that the Strip presents more of a barrier to my safety, health and feelings of well-being than an impenetrable forest full of poop-flinging monkeys (which I did see in Singapore). While most of Vegas isn’t terrible, all the roads that cross the Strip have no shoulders or bike lanes, they are crammed full of taxis all jockeying for position and are actually barricaded from the sidewalks, so that if a cyclist does get into trouble, there is no escape. The feelings that I experience crossing the Strip are a mixture of fear, exhilaration and disgust that make me want to move to a civilized city upon reaching the opposite side.

The conditions in Singapore were almost as bad as crossing the Strip on a bike. But rather than being a confined region of bicycle hell, it was like that for every mile of every major street. I would get passed by hundreds if not a thousand cabs per mile. The speed alone was harrowing.

It also seems that Singapore made a conscious decision to not include bikes in the road system. Therefore, not only were there no bike lanes, but the traffic was routed like a freeway on all arterial streets, where cars are expected to make turns at speed. For the majority of the roadways, if I made a mistake or if a car made a mistake or if anything else unexpected occurred, I’d be squished dead.

Only slightly less ridiculous was the off-street path network. The city boasted more than a hundred miles of park connector paths that criss-cross the city in family-friendly routes suitable for bicycles and baby strollers.

My few attempts to navigate this system resulted in my carrying my bike more than on any mountain bike trail in Bootleg Canyon. It is as though the city planners simply superimposed paths on top of the existing street network, and any time the path crossed a street, the street won.

I’d be riding along a nice paved path, only to dead-end at the bottom of a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs would be a 4-lane road with no crossing. So, I’d play Frogger through to the traffic, carry my bike back down the flight of stairs and continue on the route for less than a half a mile before having to do it again. Needless to say, nobody was out on these paths.

This experience changed my perspective. Singapore is what a modern city looks like if bikes and pedestrians are not included in the transportation mix. The transit system is spectacular, and cabs are everywhere, but if you want to propel yourself, you are taking your life into your own hands.

As I look at the modest attempts Las Vegas has made to encourage and accommodate cycling and walking, maybe it isn’t as hopeless as I was feeling before I boarded the plane to Singapore.

Throughout much of Vegas, there are shoulders or bike paths on arterial streets. The off-street network is limited and poorly connected, but most street crossings are relatively safe. There are a growing number of cyclists on the roads for commuting and recreation.

More importantly, there are plans for a slow and steady increase in bike and pedestrian facilities in the future, so that as Vegas evolves into a modern city, there will be more space for the self-propelled residents. Now, if we can just import those peanut butter sesame balls, we’d have the best of both worlds.

So Las Vegas, please accept my heartfelt apology. You’re not that bad after all.