Need inspiration to bike? This city planner has been riding daily for 30 years

Michelle Swanson, 48, loves to ride her bike. Not a day has gone in the last 30 years when the Olympia senior city planner hasn’t ridden her bike, and she couldn’t be more excited to celebrate Bike-to-Work Day, which is Thursday. She referred to it as the “High Holiday of Bike-dom.”

Hundreds, perhaps even a couple thousand, people participate in Bike-to-Work Day around Olympia, Swanson said. Several Thurston County businesses are sponsoring a riding event from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Thursday, May 18. You can register to ride on Intercity Transit’s website.

But Swanson said there’s still tons of work to do to make cycling safer and more accessible throughout the region every day and not just on a holiday.

Riding for joy

Swanson learned how to ride a bike from her father, who himself spent most of his childhood on two wheels as a paperboy in Centralia. She said she got serious about cycling the summer she was 14, having lived in a rural area miles from town and from her friends. Her family had some bikes lying around the garage, and she commandeered her mother’s.

“If I wanted to do anything, I was so far from everything and there were no kids my age around,” Swanson said. “All my friends lived far away, so I would just get on my bike and I would just go. It was so joyful and amazing as a kid to have your own piece of the world.”

Swanson said she lived in a car-dependent area when she was an older teenager. She had to drive a lot and work an after-school job, like many others her age. Her car was a junker, she said, and would break down constantly.

When she turned 18 and moved out, Swanson said she had the opportunity to decide where and how she wanted to live. She decided then and there to always strive to live close to where she worked so she could ride her bike if something went sideways with her car. And if there were ever issues with her bike, she could just fix it herself or take it to a mechanic, which costs much less than car repairs.

She’s ridden her bike now every day for 30 years. She said she and her husband still share one car, which makes it easier to get their 13-year-old daughter places. But driving is more her husband’s thing. Even when the COVID-19 pandemic forced most office workers to stay home, she made the decision to continue working at City Hall just to have the bike commute as part of her day.

Swanson described her 4.25-mile bike commute as “heavenly,” but she wishes it were twice as long. From the west side into downtown, she passes through residential streets to Yauger Park, then to Capital Mall and down the hill to the roundabouts at Harrison Avenue and West Bay Drive.

She passes over the Fourth Avenue bridge and gets to smell the seawater before doing some window shopping through downtown. When she gets to work, her mind is clear and she’s ready to engage.

“One of the things about riding a bike is you are a thread in the tapestry of the urban fabric, and a really visible one,” Swanson said. “I get to experience all different types of environments, get to see a lot of regulars, different people every day smile and wave. There are so many interesting people in the city from so many walks of life.”

Then at the end of the day, she rides her bike home, and she admits that heading west up Harrison Hill is never easy. She said by the time she’s home, whatever was bugging her at work is gone.

“I ride my bike because it brings me joy,” Swanson said. “Every time life has been difficult, I get on my bike. I’ve grieved on my bike, I’ve recovered from childbirth while riding my bike, I have experienced so much joy riding my bike.”

Making cycling accessible

But Swanson understands that cycling isn’t accessible to everyone, nor does every city have the proper infrastructure for non-motorists to travel safely, including Olympia. She didn’t grow up in a safe cycling environment and had to learn from experience. And there’s a significant gender gap in the U.S. when it comes to cycling, she said.

Swanson said about 23% of cyclists nationwide are women, and there are many reasons for that. She said she was lucky to have been raised by a father who was interested in cycling, because he taught her all she needed to know. But that sort of knowledge transfer from father to daughter isn’t as common as those that follow gender lines, she said.

Locally, Swanson said there aren’t enough people cycling to provide any reliable regional gender data.

On top of that, she said there’s so much else to do to make the region a supportive environment for cyclists that planning groups don’t have the money, time or luxury to dive into that type of research. The focus right now is on making the region accessible for all non-motorists.

Swanson said where she rides in Olympia is generally quiet, but she understands that she also has a lot of experience that allows her to feel comfortable. She said she’s ridden in a variety of challenging environments, from her rural childhood home to dense Seattle, and from Granada, Nicaragua, to using studded tires in Spokane snow. She has the skills, know-how and understanding of how to navigate her environment to prioritize her safety, but things are still out of her control.

“My safety depends on the decisions people piloting multi-thousand-pound objects are making, but I do my best to minimize the risks,” she said.

Swanson said the Thurston Regional Planning Council is updating its Regional Trails Plan, and within that is Olympia’s Transportation Master Plan. She said it defines what the city needs to have a complete network for people walking, biking, taking transit and driving.

Previous generations have really only focused on the last item, she said, leaving lots of work for those who have inherited the massive concrete web.

Swanson said the transportation plan looks to create a low-stress bike network across Olympia. That means minimizing interactions between cyclists and motor vehicles, going against the traditional method of painting a bike lane onto a busy street. The plan includes more than a dozen proposed bike corridors to be built over the next 20 years. There are also enhanced bike lanes in the plan, which are most often separated from traffic.

The first place this is happening is on Fones Road. Swanson said next year, crews will add separated bike lanes to the section from where Karen Fraser Woodland Trail crosses the road, south to 18th Avenue. The end goal is that no matter where you are in the city, you’re never more than a quarter-mile from a bike route.

But there’s hardly any funding identified to meet that end goal, she said.

Despite the obstacles, Swanson said she still sees a lot of people riding their bikes around Olympia. She said she thinks Thurston County’s Bicycle Commuter Community challenge has illustrated that and made people all the more interested in picking up their bikes.

She said she’s seen 1,500 to 2,000 people participate in Bike-to-Work Day, and there are plenty more cyclists who don’t participate in the events. Plus, electric bikes have made the activity more accessible.

“I love Bike-to-Work Day,” Swanson said. “My response is a deeply emotional one; it makes me feel appreciated for riding a bike. I love hearing other people’s stories, because everyone finds a way to their bike differently. Everyone stays on it for variations of the same reason: It makes you happy.”