Have you noticed those “20 IS PLENTY” signs placed in yards around Provo? The bold signage is “a movement advocating for a default speed limit of 20 mph on residential streets and community zones.” And have you perhaps also noticed BikeWalk Provo’s name featured at the bottom/right corner of each sign? Bryce Johnson did. Noticing such a sign planted in a neighbor’s yard, and seeing the said name, led Bryce to a BikeWalk Provo volunteer meeting.
Bryce and his wife arrived in Provo two and a half years ago from a city that didn’t have much interest in active transportation. “Living in our cars,” so to speak he says with humor. Initially living in the Tree Streets area of Provo and being so near to the old Wasatch Elementary, Bryce “started riding [cargo biking] the kids to school every day, and liked it so much.” This was in autumn, and the weather was still rather warm and dry here in Provo. When winter came, Bryce was really enjoying his bike rides to school with the kids, so he just never stopped.
Working as a software engineer, Bryce “found it stressful” and is “now semi-retired,” turning his full attention towards “learning to be a stay-at-home dad” for the family’s three children, ages three, six, and eight. “I have this window of time to get ready for the next school year,” he explains to me, “I have a few weeks before school lets out to plan for the summer.” At Bryce’s feet during my interview with him is a stack of books on parenting, etc. that he had picked up at the Provo City Library shortly before I arrived. I sense this is an important transition for him.
Bryce’s wife is a professor at BYU, teaching in the College of Humanities. “My wife bikes to BYU all the time,” thus making the family nearly car free… a near-term goal they have both taken seriously ever since moving to Provo. By using a cargo bike the entire family can travel together. They now live near Exchange Park, “everything is rather accessible, Macey’s, Ace Hardware, when I get these pannier bags it will expand my areas of doing errands.” Bryce and his wife also like to “go on dates down to Center Street, find some place to eat on our bikes. I like walking and skateboarding even more.”
“I do think Provo is pretty good, compared to other places, more energy here. I do see more improvement, the river trail, bike lanes.” And when I ask Bryce what might be challenging or problematic: “I see people walking and biking constantly on 9th North, on the south end of the park [Exchange]. I’d like to see reflectors on one side for a bike lane, it’s used by so many people, and would be used more, if it was protected.” Bryce also has a serious concern about the underpasses on the Provo River Parkway at West Columbia Lane and State Street, he mentions “flooding and narrow,” and he’s always apprehensive of “running into someone.”
“I really like riding the bike in the morning, taking the kids to school. Feeling the wind in your face, seeing your neighbors. I have read a little about the bike bus, and am considering it,” but Bryce says he enjoys riding with his children so much that he may continue to do so even as they become old enough to ride their own bikes to school.
“Sometimes people ask me why… faster, easier, more fun, but it’s nice to show people the benefits of biking. I can get to the grocery store, the doctor, parks, the library, it’s all close enough that I can get there in fifteen minutes or less.”
