Bicycles to the Rescue! Maybe.
The bicycle is a grand old piece of technology and is reputedly an extremely efficient method of transportation. It can provide pleasure or be used in a purely utilitarian fashion. As a one time bike commuter I can attest to the fact that utilitarian usage can at times also be pleasurable.
An increase in bicycle usage as a substitute for automobile and possibly even bus transport will bring many benefits. We can start with reduced greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum dependency. There is the reduced health care costs generated by the increase in the health of the portion of the population riding. There will be a reduction in contaminated runoff from roads. Road maintenance costs should decrease. Electric bikes, bicycles with am electrical assist can reduce travel times and increase range, make difficult rides easier and facilitate cycling by the less fit among us.
The time, it seems, is ripe. The younger generations are seemingly disenchanted with driving and an automobile based society. Bikes are better than ever. Bicycle infrastructure is growing. Bicycle usage seems to be up, not just for recreation and commuting, but for shopping and deliveries. The growing trend in Europe and Asia toward plug-in e-bikes will, one hopes, eventually happen here too.
So What's the catch?
The latest issue of California Magazine contains a very well written article, online here: Pedaling to Tomorrow: Could an Electric Bike Kick-Start the Future of Transportation? | California Magazine explores the entire question. It notes that
The latest data from the Federal Highway Administration shows that vehicle miles traveled peaked in 2005 in the United States, and has declined 7.6 percent since then. A 2013 U.S. PIRG Education Fund and Frontier Group report declared that a six-decade trend of rising per capita driving has screeched to a halt.
The article also notes the growing trend toward bikesharing programs:
\u201cWe are seeing in cities throughout the country that this is a change people want,\u201d said the Bike Coalition\u2019s Frisbee. In April, her Bike Coalition partners announced a big expansion of the Bay Area Bike Share (BABS) program. Launched in August 2013 with barely enough green-painted rentals to fill a couple of suburban garages, BABS will offer 7,000 more rentals (a tenfold expansion) within a couple of years. By today\u2019s reckoning, that\u2019s enough to give San Francisco the highest bike-share density of any American city.
Nonetheless, the tentative conclusion appears to be that expressed by Robert Cervero, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning:
"As cycling infrastructure continues to improve ... so will the bicycle's market share of travel, though we're talking about from the 1 or 2 percent now recorded in America's most bike friendly cities, to 5 or 6 percent -- not the 30 to 40 percent found in Denmark and Holland."
Culture and terrain are two of the reasons cited. For a lot more information, please read the full article. Thanks.
Comments
I'm still a bike commuter
It makes all the sense in the world. It should be encouraged.
Unfortunately there is a stigma. Anyone over 7 who rides a bike is a loser. Roads are for cars, not bikes.
In America, its acceptable to drive a car far too large, wasteful, and expensive, than it is to ride a bike. Bikes simply aren't taken seriously. They aren't manly enough. It's better to be obese and gasping for breath than to ride a bike six blocks to the grocery store.
bicycles
here are so mainstream that the most rightbent candidate in the most recent city council election, there in the town down the hill, conducted his campaign entirely on his bicycle. Now on the council, he is a nutbar and a maniac on every issue . . . except bicycles.
The roads downtown there are sometimes so dominated by bicycles it's like a flashback to China, before the Chinese went Wrong and began worshipping money.
Bike-sharing needs to come, and soon, because the prices for the things have entered the realm of the ridiculous.
Our automobile oriented society
Recently during my vacation to Michigan, we visited Mackinac Island which banned all motorized vehicles decades ago. The only exceptions are an ambulance and fire trucks. Everything else is done by horse drawn carriages, horse drawn taxis and horse drawn drays for the delivery of goods. You either walk or use a bicycle if you are not using a horse drawn vehicle. My sister, who is probably a poster child for middle American SUV owner, even admitted that being in a place where there are no automobiles is so much less stressful that when there are cars around.
The problem is that we have built our lives and our communities around accommodating the automobile. The automobile made urban sprawl possible. In effect, the car has distanced us from each other and added both pounds to our middles and stress to our lives. As a planner, I and my fellow planners were always trying to get our elected officials to consider walking and cycling friendliness as an integral part of their decision making process. It was often a very frustrating exercise to do so.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy