May 15-19 is National Bike to Work Week and May 19 is Bike to Work Day, when people are encouraged to leave the car at home and take two wheels to work.
Every day is bike to work day for Amy Ingles, the city’s bicycle and pedestrian coordinator.
She hasn’t owned a car for nearly five years and rides her bike each day between her home in Riverside and her office Downtown at the Ed Ball Building.
“I have about a three-mile radius,” said Ingles. “I can find everything I need between Riverside and Downtown.”
She’s in charge of making sure Jacksonville evolves into a city that depends less on the automobile and more on walking and two-wheeled transportation.
A cyclist all her life, Ingles used her bicycle to get to class at Georgia Tech, where she earned a dual master’s degree in civil engineering and urban planning.
“I’ve always been interested in infrastructure and the way things work,” she said.
After she graduated, she went to work in Boston as an analyst for the U.S. Department of Transportation at Volpe, the National Transportation Systems Center.
Ingles co-authored research papers with topics like wearable sensors in transportation and incorporating health considerations into transportation decision making.
Her job with the city is closer to ground level, such as evaluating intersections and coming up with plans to make crossing the street safer for pedestrians and sharing the roadway with motorized vehicles safer for cyclists.
Jacksonville is becoming more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly, but it still remains one of the most dangerous cities in the U.S. when it comes to pedestrians and cyclists being injured or killed on roadways.
Part of that’s due to the city having been designed primarily for automobiles during its rapid growth after World War II and partly because people aren’t aware of the rules of the road when it comes to four wheels and two wheels — or feet — sharing the street.
“There’s a lot of education needed. It’s a complicated issue,” said Ingles.
Jacksonville, with its flat terrain and year-round weather conducive to cycling and walking, is reflecting the national trend toward more walking and cycling instead of driving.
Ingles said millennials are less likely to regard cars as their exclusive form of personal transportation and as baby boomers age, fewer are driving.
A study is underway to identify the areas of the county and even specific roadways and intersections that need to be improved for safety.
“In a lot of neighborhoods, pedestrians are faced with hundreds of feet between crosswalks,” Ingles said. “Northwest Jacksonville is a priority area.”
Safety improvements could be as simple as painting a high-visibility crosswalk at an intersection.
A step up from that is installing a rectangular rapid flashing beacon that allows a pedestrian to activate a flashing light to warn motorists there’s someone crossing the street.
City Council approved last week using a $3,000 donation from AARP to cover part of the cost to install a flashing beacon at a senior center in Mandarin.
Another part of Ingles’ job is making sure that future development is more compatible with pedestrians and cyclists.
She said when the multi-use path is constructed along the south side of the Fuller Warren Bridge, it will mark the first river crossing for cyclists and pedestrians that’s not only safe, but compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The walkways on the Acosta and Main Street bridges are too narrow and the slope of the Acosta Bridge is too steep,” she said.
Construction of the 12-foot-wide, $20 million walkway is scheduled to begin in a few months and take nearly four years to complete.
As Ingles works toward making Jacksonville a better place for walkers and cyclists, she’s also having an effect on her colleagues in the Planning Department.
When she went to work for the city in May, she was the only person in the department who rode a bike to work.
“Now there are three of us,” said Ingles.
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