OK-for those who are reading who don’t know my background, let me explain a little bit about myself. I spent almost three years as the vice-chair of Portland’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, hours and hours of my life in meetings reviewing various city plans for bike things, and finally, I worked at the nation’s leading bike and pedestrian and trail planning agency for a year and a half. I am a certified bike safety teacher for kids and adults; I also teach pedestrian safety to young children. Finally, I taught the bike part of the diversion class (if you get a ticket for not having a light on your bike or something like that, you can take the class) offered by Multnomah County. I know an awful lot about bike and ped facilities. I really enjoy geeking out about this stuff. So, if you want to know more, read on. These are just some impressions of four months of riding.

Our first day riding in South America consisted of following directions from our super awesome hostel, the Gecko to a series of gorgeous parks in Buenos Aires. I was utterly shocked to find that there are great bike paths all through the city. In fact, riding there wasn’t as bad as I thought at all. Not only were there bike paths, nice, separated, signalized bike paths, there were also clearly marked shared lanes and other facilities. A free, touristy bike map is available at the tourist offices. That was a nice surprise, and a lovely taste of what was to come.

It seems that every small to moderate sized town has a multi-use, paved path leading into the center of town. They seem to start at the outskirts, or in Esquel, about 4k from the city, and go on for 1-5 kilometers. There are also frontage roads in many towns signed for bike use. I am not sure I can describe the feeling of welcome a bike tourist gets when you can get on a separated path and ride it all the way into town. This was taken to the next level by Santiago’s bike path. It actually started just where the highway into town ended and rode, on the sidewalk and in the center median, all the way to the center of town. In fact, it went so far that we didn’t take it all the way. Santiago would’ve been terrifying for us without that path. As it was, we rode all over and were able to get a lot done because it was easy and safe. There were also on-street two-way bike paths, separated from the auto area by little curbs, well signed and clearly part of a cross-town system. Sorry we didn’t get any photos of these; they were really cool.

As far as the actual facility in Santiago, well, my professor in Bike and Ped Planning Issues would instruct me on how to rate it, and I guess it wouldn’t come out too high on the scale. The pavement was rough in places. There were some crossings that were pretty bad for right turning cars to hit crossing cyclists. Many of the pavement markings had worn away, and often the path was less than 5′ across for two way traffic. The path even went out of direction a couple of times. And there were stubborn pedestrians in the way, even though they had about 20′ of sidewalk on either side of the street. All these issues are the sorts of things that rabid bike geeks and planners hold up as examples of Badly Designed Facilities. But here’s the thing that I have come to realize: a Badly Designed Facility is a radical improvement over No Facility At All. I mean really.

In Portland, we get our panties all in a bundle about the silliest arguments-we can’t put a bike lane in that place because a car might be confused, etc. And I understand that we want to create the absolute best facilities possible, of course we do. And we should be trying to do our best. But I am really starting to think that something is better than nothing. By a long shot.

In Bolivia, there are signs on all the highways warning cars of the presence of bikes. That was sweet. Everyone rides bikes there for transportation, and while we didn’t actually see any facilities specifically for bicycles (beyond the signs), we felt incredibly safe on our bikes. Even in the mini-bus insanity of La Paz, it was really clear that drivers were watching for cyclists and pedestrians, and didn’t have any negative feelings about them. No one was trying to hit us. It was lovely.

Then we saw the Zebras. While no one is trying to hit anyone else in La Paz, the traffic on the main road might best be described as a chaotic nightmare. Traffic signals seem to be optional, and brave police in white gloves and safety vests try and impose order at intersections. Meanwhile, women dressed as Zebras stand at pedestrian crossings and, when traffic has a red light, stand in the middle of the crossing and assist pedestrians across the street. They dance, and scold people who cross against the light, and generally call attention to the fact that pedestrians need to get across too. I loved, loved, LOVED the zebras. I can just see people dressed as Zebras in some of the busier school crosswalks in the mornings…wouldn’t it be great?

Finally, riding in Chile, even on a major highway between Valpariso and Santiago, we felt relatively safe. There were the tunnels that bikes weren’t allowed to ride, but you could just go and ask the highway maintainence folks to drive you and your bike in a truck through the tunnel. It was no big deal. Like of course there were cyclists who needed to get through, and of course the transportation authorities should make it safe for them.

In Valparaiso, between Vina del Mar and Valpo, we rode on a separated, well marked bike path along the coast on a boardwalk-the sort of thing that cost very little to install (some paint, some reflectors to designate bike space from ped space) once the decision had been made to make a wide boardwalk along the coast. It was the kind of path that every waterfront (like they do in Vancouver BC) should have, in my snobby opinion. It made everything so, so easy. And for the dozens of people riding on a gray day into and out of Valpo, clearly commuting, it was fantastic.

All in all, I would say that the places we visited in South America were far more accommodating to cyclists than most places in the States. Not only in the attitudes, but in the facilities offered to non-motorized transportation. And you know their governments don’t have much, if any, money.

Surely our communities can get it together, right?