Ithaca’s central transportation management organization GO ITHACA has partnered with social biking platform Love to Ride to promote increased bike travel in Tompkins County through its Cycle September challenge. For the Ithaca College community, Love to Ride’s Cycle September might offer an opportunity to lower the campus’s carbon emissions.
Scott Doyle, director of energy management and sustainability at the college, said 10% of all emissions produced by the college are connected to faculty and students commuting to campus. Doyle said that through its initiative to get more people riding, Love to Ride may be able to offer a fun means of lowering this percentage.
“There’s a lot of interest in programs through GO ITHACA that help to encourage multiple ways to travel and diversify your work [and] think about commuting differently,” Doyle said. “I think it’s fun — especially to encourage somebody to see just how they do — and translates in terms of emissions and [is] also just a chance to connect with other people.”
Cycle September, Love to Ride’s yearly challenge, offers users to compete to ride the most hours and win prizes. The app doubles as a fitness and social media platform that encourages users to compete in different challenges during the year.
Jane Bowman Brady, executive director of GO ITHACA, was familiar with the app from when she worked as a policy analyst for the Ministry of the Environment in New Zealand, which is where she first came across Love to Ride.
“What that program did was it encouraged me to get out and try riding a bike,” Brady said. “[We are] bringing Love to Ride to Ithaca because we know there’s a lot of people who are currently getting around on bikes, but we know that there could be a lot more.”
However, because Ithaca is a hilly terrain, it can make biking a challenge and consists mostly of car-dominated infrastructure. According to Tompkins County’s website data on the commute of individuals to work, 5,418 out of Ithaca’s working population of 8,886 travel by car, truck or van. This excludes neighboring areas like Lansing and Newfield.
Michael Smith, professor in the Departments of History and Environmental Science, is a daily bike commuter and said he rates Ithaca a four out of 10 with regards to navigability.
“In terms of getting around by bike to the things you need to do on a day-to-day basis — go to work, pick up groceries, whatever — it’s mostly you on the street with cars,” Smith said.
Senior Renee Madcharo is a frequent bicyclist and said that being a biker in the area is not easy and comes with its own challenges that could be dangerous.
“Around [the] Ithaca area as a whole, the hardest part for me was figuring out which roads have the safest places to bike,” Madcharo said. “Some roads are very beautiful, but they’re gravel or they have no shoulder.”
Roads surrounding the college — like Farm Pond, Danby and even the main road to campus — are marked in orange and red on the Ithaca and Tompkins County Bicycle Map, meaning that they are “heavy” or “very heavy” traffic warnings for bike commuters.
Doyle, who worked as associate planner in the Tompkins County Department of Planning and Sustainability for over 15 years before starting at the college, said he observed first-hand the push for safer biking infrastructure.
“I think there’s a lot of people … on public service that I formerly worked with that are helping to make [biking in Ithaca] safer and more convenient for people,” Doyle said. “Because it is challenging graphically and also [in terms of] infrastructure with roads that are always in need of repair.”
Now Ithaca is ranked as a bronze-level bicycle-friendly community according to the League of American Bicyclists. The main areas of improvement suggested by the League include expanding Ithaca’s bike network, upgrading existing bike lanes, lowering speed limits on residential streets, increasing bike education in schools and encouraging more local businesses to promote.
Lauren Jenkins, communications director of the League of American Bicyclists, said via email she is excited about Love to Ride’s new station in Ithaca. Jenkins said its social network is a great opportunity to get more people biking and, as a result, strengthen community ties.
“Oftentimes it’s events or initiatives like Cycle September (or Bike Month in May) that energize a community around biking more — and we know that when more people bike, biking is safer and life is better for everyone,” Jenkins said via email.
Ithaca Bikeshare, a nonprofit bike organization, was launched in November 2022 as an eco-friendly option for commuting in downtown Ithaca with its system of city bike rentals. The persistent implementation of these programs reflects the city’s objective to meet its standards stated in the Green New Deal. According to the action plan, the goal is to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles by 50% from the levels in 2010 by 2025.
Brady said Cycle September and Love to Ride could potentially play a role in achieving this goal.
“I think it’s a very ambitious goal, particularly given that we’re [in] 2023,” Brady said. “But I think changing travel behavior has a huge role in that. … Love to Ride has a big part to play in that in terms of getting people to try active modes like cycling and walking.”
Brady said she hopes that the result of more people participating in Cycle September will push city administration to think more about enhancing biking facilities in Ithaca.
“I’m hoping [that] getting more people out and cycling … will help show the city that there actually is a huge demand for these infrastructure improvements,” Brady said.
