It’s National Bike to Work Week — but you’d hardly know it in Alabama

This week is National Bike to Work Week, but you could be forgiven if you don’t know that in Alabama.

It’s not obvious by scanning the state’s commuting routes.

Alabama ties Mississippi for the smallest percentage of commuters who use bicycles — just a tenth of 1 percent of the state’s workers in 2016, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

An estimated 2,110 Alabamians used a bicycle to get to work. That was the least-used method. Fewer than the 68,581 who worked at home. Or the 23,875 who walked to work. Or the 19,065 who commuted via taxi.
Even in a state with notoriously poor mass transit, three times as many Alabama residents used public transportation to get to work.

What can we say? It’s just not a bicycling state.

Unlike, say, Hawaii. Alabama has roughly 3.3 times as many people. Yet, the Aloha State has more than twice as many bicycle commuters.

As a percentage, Washington, D.C., has the heaviest concentration of bikers among the 50 states and the District at 4.6 percent. Oregon (2.25 percent), Montana (1.24 percent), Idaho (1.17 percent) and Colorado (1.09 percent) round out the top five. That national average is about five times greater than in Alabama. And it is growing; the estimated 863,979 bicycle commuters in 2016 was up 39 percent from 2006.

Among American cities with at least 100,000 residents, Boulder, Colorado, and Berkeley, California, lead the way. Bicyclists make up about 9 percent of commuters in each. Palo Alto and Chico, both in California, exceed 7 percent. By comparison, bicyclists barely crack 2 tenths of 1 percent of workers in Birmingham and Mobile.

Not that there are not bicycle enthusiasts in Alabama who promote the idea.

“It’s way less stressful than driving,” said Kathryn Doornbos, executive director of Redemptive Cycles in Birmingham. “You don’t have to worry about parking. It gives me 15 minutes to sort my day on the way in and 15 minutes to digest on the way home.”

Doornbos said she frequently takes different routes to work and, therefore, sees different things. Biking has other benefits, she said, calling it a “gateway drug for social awareness.”

The highway system can be isolating, Doornbos said. She said that six blocks to the west of where she works is an impoverished part of Birmingham that is easy to miss when whizzing past on an interstate highway.

“It really looks very different from the urban core, and if you’re traveling by bicycle, you see that,” she said.

Robert Traphan, president of the Montgomery Bicycle Club, said he does not regularly commute via bicycle but has during National Bike to Work Week. He said he understands why the state has been slow to catch on.

“A lot of it is people don’t know how to properly plan to be able to take a bike to work,” he said.

Traphan said that when he has done it, he has kept a change of clothes and tie at work.

Another deterrent in Alabama can be summed up in one word — summer.

“It does get rather hot in Alabama,” Traphan said.

Commuting by bike can be feasible or impossible, depending on how far home is from work. In his case, Traphan said, the congestion on the roads meant that using a bicycle did not add time but did reduce gas usage.

“For me, one of the biggest advantages was the cost savings. … When I drive, it’s not faster than on my bike,” he said.

Doornbos said the “commuter culture here is a real thing.” She said infrastructure plays a role, as well. She said few places have dedicated bikes lanes, for instance.

The cost of driving also is relatively low, Doornbos added. Parking is plentiful and cheap in most places, even in cities. And few places have overwhelming traffic congestion, she said.

“In places like D.C., in many ways, they have disincentivized the use of a car,” she said.

@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”