An e-mail from the League of American Bicyclists recently educated me about how Davis, California, became the “bicycle city.” It contained an obituary notice for Frank C. Child, former chair of the economics department at the University of California-Davis, who was a key player in the development of the bicycle network in that city.

Mr. Child’s story, summarized below in an obituary from the Sacramento Bee, is a testament to the role that citizens can play in transforming their communities:

Mr. Child joined UC Davis in 1962 and became the second chairman of the economics department the following year…. [He] arrived in Davis after living for four months in the Netherlands, where bicycles were the dominant transportation mode. Eyeing the city’s flat terrain, he and his wife, Eve, launched a grass-roots effort in 1964 to establish a system of bicycle lanes on Davis streets.

The couple organized a core group of citizens who lobbied, collected petition signatures and backed successful City Council candidates who supported bike lanes. In 1966, the Davis council voted to create the city’s first bike lane, spawning a national transportation movement.

“All the bike lanes in the United States today are descendants of what started in Davis,” said Ted Buehler, a graduate student at the UC Davis Institute for Transportation Studies.

The action delighted Mr. Child, who sold his second car and bought six bicycles for his family to get around Davis. He also helped persuade UC Davis Chancellor Emil Mrak to close large portions of the campus to automobile traffic to promote cycling.

“My father had a three-speed Raleigh with a wire basket for his briefcase on the handlebars that he rode for years,” Bill Child said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under Biking/Walking, Other Places, Transportation, Urban Design.