Martha’s Vineyard is a great place to ride a bicycle. If it weren’t, I wouldn’t live here, and I suspect many other people who love the Island wouldn’t either. Not because we all ride bicycles, but because the things that make the Vineyard a great place to ride are the things that make it a great place, period. The Island is small and mostly flat, with plentiful scenic roads. The downtown areas are congested, but this is because the towns were not designed for car traffic, they were designed for people. Strip malls are designed for cars, and nobody wants to live in them. We have the luxury of being able to walk and bike to the places we want to go.

But mostly what makes the Vineyard a great place, and a great place to ride, is that we are a self-selected community of people who have chosen to live in a way slightly different than most other places. Vineyarders (both lifelong Islanders and weekend tourists) tend to value a relaxed, informal atmosphere, and they tend to value community as a concept. This means that when a Vineyarder driving a car comes upon a cyclist enjoying a ride out on the open road, they usually pass that cyclist in the safe, courteous manner that the law requires: traveling at a legal rate of speed and giving the cyclist a minimum of three or four feet. Of course many of us have work to get to or a ferry to catch, but on a curvy road we won’t risk the safety of others or ourselves to avoid a few seconds delay. We are not, at least when we are on-Island, road-raged urbanites stressed out about getting to Wal-Mart before it closes. We do not use our horns, except to greet people. We wave people in.

Vineyarders see cyclists not as impediments, but as people on bikes. People who are neighbors, friends, customers, clients; people on bikes aren’t taking up valuable parking spots, they aren’t wasting gas, they are having fun on an Island whose reason for existing is the having of fun. The economy of Martha’s Vineyard depends on the welcoming atmosphere we create for people who are here to have fun, and cyclists are here to have fun. In having fun, those cyclists, whether lycra-clad speedsters or wobbly beginners, whether they’ve lived here for generations or are only here for the day, drop a lot of cash.

Of course, people on bicycles do stupid things, as do people in cars. We forgive them; acceptance of the foibles of others is a core value on the Vineyard.

Edgartown’s recent, and thankfully short-lived, experiment with ridiculously inappropriate “bike lanes” on Main Street, is illustrative. The town, in response to legitimate complaints of cyclists on the sidewalk, striped unsafe bike lanes roughly two feet wide in the gutter on the section of Main street from the West Tisbury Road (where the bike path ends) to Pease’s Point Way (where Main street becomes one way). This segment of road, less than a quarter mile long, is a congested and low-speed environment, and one in which any sane vehicle driver should expect delays from any number of sources, cars turning or parking, bicycles, etc. There is no place to hurry: the traffic jams on Main street in either direction aren’t going anywhere. In this area, and elsewhere, bicycles aren’t the problem, the problem is the incorrect expectation that our Island was built for cars. It was built for people.

In this respect, much of the world is catching up with the Vineyard. Bicycle use is growing rapidly, particularly in dense environments where excessive car use is problematic. People have found that the facilities and amenities that make walking and cycling pleasant make the places themselves pleasant. And here on the Vineyard, we are protecting what we have: Oak Bluffs recently completed a terrific project downtown that widened sidewalks and added an actual bike lane in one important spot. Tisbury added a path through Veterans Park, and is seeking to do more.

But, as on Main Street in Edgartown, there are many places on the Island where physical improvements are impractical. And physical improvements will never be able to supplant the understanding that the roads are for people, not just for cars.

Look at the faces of people riding bikes: they are smiling. I ride my bike almost everywhere, and nobody asks why I do it. Everyone knows it’s a healthy, convenient, efficient, cost-effective, safe, and fun way to get around our little Island. I don’t know why more people don’t do it, because the Vineyard is a great place to ride a bicycle. And the more people ride, the greater a place it will be.

Jim Miller is a resident of Edgartown, avid cyclist, former MVC transportation planner and member of the bicycle and pedestrian committee.