Last October, a coworker and I, who both live near the Anaheim Packing House, had to be in Irvine at 8:30 a.m. for training. Gratefully, I made it on time. My coworker wasn’t so lucky.
We’ve all been there, the freeway at a standstill as the minutes of our lives tick by: late for class, an important meeting, or our kid’s game. Over half a million Orange County workers (nearly 40%) commute over 30 minutes to work, and more than 100,000 travel more than an hour.
My secret to beating the traffic? I took my bike. I know. I know. It sounds crazy, but it was faster to get from Anaheim to Irvine on a bike than in a car.
Orange County is especially well suited to bike commuting. We don’t fight the freezing temps and snow that we’ve seen in so much of the country this winter, and the advent of e-bikes has made bike commuting even more practical. You can get some light exercise, but you needn’t show up to work sweaty. And with e-bikes able to accelerate quickly to a top speed of 28 mph, many commute times are comparable to driving.
Twice a week I ride to work. It’s seven miles, and the biggest challenge is the lack of bike infrastructure. Orange County has 1,167 miles of bike lanes and paths, compared to 6,461 miles of roadway. Riding down the street with cars flying by—too often piloted by distracted drivers—is unnerving to say the least. And if you’re a driver, I’m guessing you don’t love it when you’re stuck behind a cyclist. I know I don’t.
Sidewalks don’t work well either. Curb cuts make it difficult to keep up a decent speed, and pedestrians don’t want to be buzzed by a cyclist at 20 mph.
Perhaps you think, “Streets aren’t made for bikes. People should just drive,” but do you really want more cars on your commute? And let’s not forget about the health, environmental, and economic benefits of cycling. The average annual cost of car ownership in California is $4,800. What if the 57% of rent-burdened households could cut down from two cars to one and save $400 per month? An e-bike can be had for under $750.
More housing—and thus more traffic—is coming whether we like it or not, and while traffic ebbs and flows from year to year, the long-term trend is almost certainly worse. We know that expanding the freeways won’t solve the problem. What if we took a different approach?
Research shows effective bike infrastructure increases ridership and can reduce congestion for drivers.
If you live in Irvine you might think, “We have plenty of bike lanes!” In Irvine you probably do. If you look at the map of bike routes in Orange County, you’ll see pretty good coverage in south OC, but you’ll also notice a distinct lack of bike lanes in north and central OC. Where bike lanes do exist, they often run for a half mile and then disappear… I’m not sure how much good those are doing.
Orange County Transportation Authority, 28 Mar. 2025. Screenshot by author.
The Orange County Transit Authority has a plan for bikeways. The problem? Underserved cities remain underserved. Even if all proposed routes were fully implemented, huge sections of north OC would still lack adequate bike infrastructure. Incidentally, those are also the cities where residents could most benefit from the cost savings and pollution reduction that result from bike commuting.
OCTA should develop and fund a countywide bikeway master plan that prioritizes protected, connected routes throughout all of Orange County, allowing residents to more easily commute via bike and e-bike.
If you want to encourage the development of effective bike infrastructure, complete this CalTrans survey by Friday, March 20 and contact your local elected officials, encouraging them to prioritize cycling infrastructure.
This won’t fix traffic tomorrow, but long term it can play a key role in helping move our growing population around in an efficient, effective, equitable, economical, exercise-forward, environmentally-friendly way.
Will Johnston, resident of Anaheim, is a Master of Social Work student at the University of Southern California and commutes to Garden Grove on his bike.
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