Cycling Toward Happiness

Fremont, California may be on to something. WalletHub—an award-winning personal finance company—has named Fremont its Happiest City in America five years running.

With ambitions of improving quality of life for their citizenries, eliminating roadway fatalities, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and bolstering their economies, municipalities across the US and globally are making efforts to be more bicycle friendly. Fremont, California, is one such city, and may be a strong case study for other US cities making similar efforts.

US cities litter “best of” lists every year. But, according to the Copenhagenize Index in 2019 and Luko’s Global Bicycle Cities Index in 2022 (both comprehensive and holistic ranking of bicycle-friendly cities), no city in the US ranks amongst the top 20 bicycle friendly cities in the world. Fremont is trying to change that. The City’s current Bicycle Master Plan was adopted in 2018. In consolidation with the Pedestrian Master Plan (adopted 2016), the two plans make up Fremont’s Active Transportation Plan (ATP). Hans Larsen explained that the consolidation of the plans improves efficiency. “So, it includes walking and biking, but it’ll also address ‘rolling’, so kids on skateboards or as scooters become more popular, and even folks in wheelchairs.”

According to some recent studies, the jury is in, and efforts toward more complete streets that incorporate and encourage bicyclist, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users are safer for all, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and benefit economies.

In 2011, the European Cyclists’ Federation quantified the CO2 savings of cycling and motorized transport over vehicle lifetime and found that “although not a carbon free mode of transport, the bicycle’s [greenhouse gas] emissions are more than 10 times lower than those stemming from individual motorized transport.”

Furthermore, the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), in 2015, modelled the benefits of a global high shift cycling scenario. ITDP found that a shift from the present ~7% of urban trips being taken by bicycle and e-bikes to 23% of trips by 2050, would eliminate ~300 megatonnes of CO2 emissions and save cities $25 trillion USD over 35 years. In 2022, ITDP also found that “for every 200 USD spent on highways, [ITDP estimates] one tonne of GHG emissions per year will be created, while the same spent on protected bicycle lanes mitigates almost exactly the same level of GHG emissions.”

As for the economy, the League of American Bicyclists in 2009 found that, “the national bicycling industry contributes an estimated $133 billion a year to the U.S. economy, supports nearly 1.1 million jobs and generates $17.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. Another $46.9 billion is spent on meals, transportation, lodging, gifts and entertainment during bike trips and tours.” And in 2016, AARP reported that “one of America's most ambitious bicycling projects is Indianapolis’ Cultural Trail, an 8-mile network of separated bike and pedestrian lanes that has reinvigorated several struggling business districts and sparked a whopping $1 billion in increased property values. The Cultural Trail has also bestowed considerable cachet on this often-overlooked city.”

Bolstering economies and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is all well and good, but according to city officials, the driving force behind Fremont’s bicycle friendly infrastructure: safety. And more explicitly, the elimination of roadway fatalities on Fremont streets.

In a 2014 analysis of protected bicycle lanes, the New York City Department of Transportation (NYDOT) found that bicycle lanes and parking protected bicycle lanes reduced crashes with injuries by 17%, reduced pedestrian injuries by 22%, decreased cyclist injuries by 2% (despite dramatically increased bicycle volumes), and reduced total injuries by 20%.

Soon after, in 2015, Fremont’s City Council initiated and adopted its “Vision Zero” policy, acomprehensive approach to the implementation and planning of roadway infrastructure that considers the loss of life from traffic crashes unacceptable. In accordance with their Vision Zero Action Plan, between 2015 and 2020, Fremont restriped 40 miles (47% of arterial roadways) as safe and complete streets, rebuilt five intersections as protected intersections and broke ground on several other projects. Fremont’s most notable project to date, the Walnut Avenue Bikeway (a 1.2-mile, $6,000,000 project funded by a Measure BB grant) completed construction in 2020. The capital project which features raised and separated bikeways, four protected intersections, bus boarding areas and upgraded traffic signal infrastructure, ranked number 6 on PeopleForBikes (a bike advocacy group)’s list of Best New Bikeways in America in 2020 and was dubbed the Bay Area’s Best Bikeway by Streetblog SF.

A protected intersection at BART Way and Civic Center Drive in Fremont.

Perhaps more impressive, Fremont’s efforts returned a whopping 45% reduction in major traffic crashes involving a fatality or severe injury from a three year average of 35 from 2013 to 2015, to 19 from 2018 to 2020. Fremont has an average fatality rate of 2.1 (annual traffic deaths per 100,000 population) which sits far below California’s average of 9.1 and the countries average of 11.0.

Andreas Kadavaich, an organizer with Bike Fremont—an advocacy group promoting cycling as a mode of transportation in Fremont and the Tri-Cities—praises  Fremont’s resourcefulness “one of the things Fremont has been really good at is they are using routine road repair and so the city basically says ‘okay so every time we fix a road we don’t just make it the same road that it was before, we make it a better road’”

Kadavaich who is also involved in advocacy efforts in the City of San Jose (also a Vision Zero adopter) cautiously praises Fremont’s pointed commitment. “Fremont is one of the few places that I can see that they’re actually trying to get to zero [roadway deaths]. It’s just it’s going way too slowly for my taste.”

Fremont citizens have come to appreciate the changes too. Eric, 28, who commutes to work via bike noted the changes and the improved safety measures “The bike lanes that they put on Stevenson, they’re up off the road. I noticed Fremont is doing more of that stuff [...] separating bike lanes and making defined bike lanes. Sometimes there isn’t a bike lane and so that can be kind of iffy [for] safety, you have to ride up on the sidewalk.” 

But it hasn’t all been smooth riding. There continues to be pushback on the changes that come with the implementation of bicycle friendly infrastructure in Fremont, notably a backlash to the inability to make free right turns at protected intersections. Kadavaich and others refer to this phenomenon of negative or hostile reactions to cyclists and bicycle-friendly infrastructure as bikelash. “People are used to the old way, and they don’t like it. This is true of any time there is a privileged majority that has to accommodate people they didn’t have accommodate before. There is backlash.” says Kadavaich. 

As a result, Fremont has done some backtracking on plans to implement bicycle friendly infrastructure in accordance with the ATP and Vision Zero. At a meeting on September 14, 2021, City Council voted 5-2 against a “road diet” that would remove a traffic lane on Paseo Padre Parkway to slow speeds and add a wide bike lane. Kadavaich, believes City Council caved to the pressure of Fremont citizens who opposed the changes “people complained to city council a lot and city council basically caved. I’m going to say that straight up, because it was purely based on political pressure and people complaining.” City Council voted instead, against the advice of City staff, to narrow traffic and parking lanes to accommodate a four-foot bike lane.

Residents and opponents to the road diet noted further congestion in an already heavily congested stretch of road leading to the I-680 as their main concern and argument against the proposed road diet.

I reached out to Mayor Lily Mei, Vice Mayor Teresa Cox, and Councilmembers Teresa Keng, Desrie Campbell, Jenny Kassan, Yang Shao and Raj Salwan for comment. I did not hear back. Mayor Mei, Vice Mayor Cox and Councilmembers Jones, Salwan, and Cox voted in opposition of the Paseo Padra Parkway “road diet”. Councilmembers Keng and Kassan voted in favour.

In addition to the bikelash, not everyone is sold on the safety of the bike lanes or the rolling out of bicycle friendly infrastructure in Fremont.

Luisa Torelli, a Fremont resident, personal trainer and outdoors woman says, “they’ve added [bike lanes], I wouldn’t say they’re safe.” Torelli sticks to hiking now, unsafe streets and unpleasant interactions with drivers put her off biking well over a decade ago. “They put [in] what they call the bollards, and I understand they couldn’t make them out of concrete because if a car hits it, it causes too much damage […] but they’re plastic. The other day I was driving down Blacow and I was counting it’s like one every fifth one was knocked over already.” She references Sacramento as a better best practice “in Sacramento they actually have like a sidewalk [between the road and the bike lane] and then they have the bollards on top of that. And so it’s driving, parking, the [sidewalk] barrier and then the [bikes]. They’re actually triple safe.”  Torelli advocates also for drivers’ education put back into high schools and safe cycling campaigns targeting both cyclists and drivers. “They can put in the most beautiful bike lanes, the safest bike lanes in the world, until they change the mentality of the people [and drivers], that bike[ing] is not just for exercise, people aren’t going to use them. Right now, the mentality is [biking] is for exercise, not for everyday getting around.”  

Andrew Kwok, an employee at the Bike Garage—a local Fremont bike shop—and an avid mountain and BMX biker shares many of Torelli’s sentiments. “It’s like they build whatever [infrastructure] they can and then people don’t follow it. The cars don’t care. At this point there’s not much more [Fremont] can do. [Drivers] are a bit careless and reckless.” Where Torelli propositions drivers’ education, Kwok proffers enforcement “unless they actually crack down on [reckless driving] no one is gonna care about a bike lane.”

Backlash and concerns aside, the awards seem to be coming up Fremont. The city received the Vision Zero for Youth Leadership Award in 2020 and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) sited the 45% reduction in roadway casualties when they awarded Fremont an Achievement Award in the Safety Category in 2021. Not to mention the happiness.

At the heart of Fremont’s laurels: the people. Kadavaich believes staffing is behind the progress “Fremont [has been] really good at getting a transportation staff that really understands that roads are not just for cars.”

*Initially published 4/23