Writing in the Planetizen Interchange , Gordon Price wrote:

This summer, a social policy analyst with the Netherlands government came to Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, B.C. to see what the Dutch might learn from us. (Yes, from us!) And what he discovered was the irony of our political culture: “Cycling in North America is clearly a leftist thing,” reported Loek Hesemans, “although it ties in with conservative North American values like independence, freedom and the ability to manage for oneself.” (You can read a lot more of Loek’s observations in the current issue of Price Tags.)

And so common-sense activities that shouldn’t be ideological are given a left/right slant and used to fight another battle in the culture wars. We end up blinding ourselves to opportunity – … that helps free us from oil shocks and car dependency, and pioneers a way of life that makes people in other places healthier, happier and richer, as we become vulnerable, fatter and poorer.

Interesting observation.  I’m not sure it’s necessarily a right-left political spectrum issue, however.  I think it has more to do with where you work and the dress code there.   I would argue (although have no stats to back this up) that more people who vote right-of-centre politically have jobs that require they wear formal business attire most of the time.  Those who wear their left-leaning political views on their sleeves often work where the dress code is more relaxed and more compatible with cycling.

Cycling as a commuting option requires that either you can dress casually at the office — maybe not in your cycling spandex, but in clothes that travel easily in a pannier or backpack.

I know a number of business people in Vancouver who are passionate cyclers, riding for exercise and even to compete in recreational races.  Most don’t cycle to work because their buildings don’t offer showers and lockers in which they could store their power suits.  Some have even said that they wished they could cycle to work, but they can’t resolve the need to be in fashionable, powerful business clothes at work.

The business community hasn’t reached the stage when you can be take seriously to negotiate a multi-million dollar transaction in spandex.

This got me thinking, what would it take to provide the space for more people to cycle.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound that cheap:

Most cycle commuters into a downtown would need a well-ventilated and reasonable-sized locker in which to store their business clothes.  They’d also need access to a shower.  And, of course, a safe, dry place to leave their bicycle. And all of this would need to be in a very secure space — there would likely have to be people staffing the area.  A towel service would be helpful.

Supplying this amount of space for even 10% of the people who work in an average (and not even large) office tower would take up a lot of room.

Here’s some “back of the napkin” math on this:  Let’s say a building has 30 storeys, of medium footprint (12,000 – 13,000 square feet), which would allow an average of 80 people working on each – that’s 2400 people in the building. If 10% or 240 of them needed a locker; and you needed enough showers so that most could shower between 7:30 and 8:30 AM, that’s a lot of room –likely an entire floor of a building, maybe more.  At roughly $50 per square foot for rent and the building operating costs (to pick an average, arbitrary number for medium-quality downtown space) that’s $600,000 per year for the space alone, not to mention costs of staffing and operating the showers and lockers facility.  So, for 240 people it would cost $2500 per year per person, just for the space.  Perhaps double that to cover the costs of the actual facility – $5000 per person per year?
Buy, maybe we could put this facility in a floor of the parking garage – in the basement.  After all, you don’t need a window to shower and change.  But this would come at a cost as well.  Building owners (typically pension funds) rely on the income from parking as part of their investment.  If we removed space for 100 cars to create showers and lockers and covered bike storage, this would cost the building owner $30,000 per month or $360,000 per year (assuming the parking space is worth $300 per month) .  Even if we say parking only generates half that amount, that’s still $180,000 per year.  So between $750 and $1500 per year per cyclist just for the space, and we still don’t have the costs of running the facility, so we need to double or triple those numbers.

So it would cost between $150/month and $300/month +/- to cycle.  That’s a lot unless the employer subsidized it.  Essentially, we’re at the same price as parking a car.   Of course, if many more people could use each facility — if we didn’t need large lockers for clothes, the price could come down and more than 10% could cycle.

Want more people cycling? maybe we need a revolution in business fashion.  Wrinkle-free fashionable clothing that can be carried in a backpack or bicycle bag.