Encouraging Bicycling in the City of Geneva, NY

Susan Kridler

"The purpose is, as the title suggests, determining ways in which bicycling might be encouraged in the city of Geneva. Suggestions are based on working models from bicycle friendly cities elsewhere. One example suggestion is a bicycle route map modeled after a map published by the city of Ithaca/Tompkins County.
The main issue is that there aren't a lot of bike-only routes in the City of Geneva. So I am looking at roads that are less traveled by cars while considering where people actually want to get to and from. This project includes a survey to the community asking questions like: "Do you own a bike?", "What do you use it for?", "If you did, what would you use it for?", etc. The results of the survey will be used to determine whether people want to be more of a biking community."
- Susan Kridler, William Smith '11
Possible Art History Major

What are your goals for the project? What do you hope to accomplish?

  • Distributing the survey and collecting results to assess the community's current biking
    culture and needs.
  • If the community wants to become more biker friendly, then Kridler hopes to complete compiling a general route system.
  • If the community is hesitant about utilizing bikes more, then a new direction would be to provide the community with information about the importance consequences that biking would have on the environment and on the community.
  • Creating a proposal on how to make people aware of where the bike routes are and which roads are more conducive to biking than others.
  • One idea is to paint the roads (at least temporarily) so that drivers as well as bikers can distinguish which roads are more accessible (and safe) for bikers.

What have you personally learned so far? How has this project affected you?

"I've learned that it's very important to actually speak to the people that are more directly involved with the issue such as people at the bike center in Geneva." Kridler has talked to several bikers in the Geneva community on how things should be done in addition to looking at models of cities and towns that also have a biking program in place. Through her research she has learned to distinguish the details of what is comparable to the City of Geneva.