The Return of the Bicycle
Lester R. Brown
The bicycle has many attractions as a form of personal
transportation. It alleviates congestion, lowers air pollution,
reduces obesity, increases physical fitness, does not emit
climate-disrupting carbon dioxide, and is priced within the reach of
the billions of people who cannot afford a car. Bicycles increase
mobility while reducing congestion and the area of land paved over.
Six bicycles can typically fit into the road space used by one car.
For parking, the advantage is even greater, with 20 bicycles
occupying the space required to park a car.
Few methods of reducing carbon emissions are as effective as
substituting a bicycle for a car on short trips. A bicycle is a
marvel of engineering efficiency, one where an investment in 22
pounds of metal and rubber boosts the efficiency of individual
mobility by a factor of three. On my bike I estimate that I get
easily 7 miles per potato. An automobile, which requires at least a
ton of material to transport one person, is extraordinarily
inefficient by comparison.
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The bicycle is not only a flexible means of transportation; it is
ideal in restoring a balance between caloric intake and expenditure.
Regular exercise of the sort provided by cycling to work reduces
cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and arthritis, and it
strengthens the immune system.
World bicycle production, averaging 94 million per year from 1990 to
2002, climbed to 130 million in 2007, far outstripping automobile
production of 70 million. Bicycle sales in some markets are surging
as governments devise a myriad of incentives to encourage bicycle
use. For example, in 2009 the Italian government began a hefty
incentive program to encourage the purchase of bicycles or electric
bikes in order to improve urban air quality and reduce the number of
cars on the road. The direct payments will cover up to 30 percent of
the cost of the bicycle.
China, with 430 million bikes, has the world’s largest fleet, but
ownership rates are higher in Europe. The Netherlands has more than
one bike per person, while Denmark and Germany have just under one
bike per person.
China dramatically demonstrated the capacity of the bicycle to
provide mobility for low-income populations. In 1976, this country
produced 6 million bicycles. After the reforms in 1978 that led to
an open market economy and rapidly rising incomes, bicycle
production started climbing, reaching nearly 90 million in 2007. The
surge to 430 million bicycle owners in China has provided the
greatest increase in mobility in history. Bicycles took over rural
roads and city streets. Although China’s rapidly multiplying
passenger cars and the urban congestion they cause get a lot of
attention, it is bicycles that provide personal mobility for
hundreds of millions of Chinese.
Ripon College in Wisconsin and the University of New England in
Maine have gone even further. Rather than build new automobile
infrastructure, they find it cheaper to give each incoming freshman
a bike if they agree to leave their cars at home. Replacing cars
with bikes on campus is reducing air pollution and traffic
congestion while creating a sense of community.
Among the industrial-country leaders in designing bicycle-friendly
transport systems are the Netherlands, where 27 percent of all trips
are by bike, Denmark with 18 percent, and Germany, 10 percent. By
contrast, the United States and the United Kingdom are each at 1
percent.
An excellent study by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler at Rutgers
University analyzed the reasons for these wide disparities among
countries. They note that “extensive cycling rights-of-way in the
Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany are complemented by ample bike
parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive
traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists.”
These countries, they point out, “make driving expensive as well as
inconvenient in central cities through a host of taxes and
restrictions on car ownership, use and parking.… It is the
coordinated implementation of this multi-faceted, mutually
reinforcing set of policies that best explains the success of these
three countries in promoting cycling.” And it is the lack of these
policies, they note, that explains “the marginal status of cycling
in the UK and USA.”
Fortunately, many Americans are working to change this. Prominent
among them is Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon. An avid
cyclist, he is the founder and coordinator of the 220-member
Congressional Bike Caucus.
Nearly 75 percent of U.S. police departments serving populations of
50,000 or more now have routine patrols by bicycle. Officers on
bikes are more productive in cities partly because they are more
mobile and can reach the scene of an accident or crime more quickly
and more quietly than officers in cars. They typically make 50
percent more arrests per day than officers in squad cars. Fiscally,
the cost of operating a bicycle is trivial compared with that of a
police car.
Colleges and universities are also turning to bicycles. As campuses
are overwhelmed by cars, traffic congestion, and the need to build
more residential facilities, they are being forced to take
innovative measures to discourage cars. Chicago’s St. Xavier
University launched a bike-sharing program in the fall of 2008, in
which students use their ID cards to rent bikes. Emory University in
Atlanta, Georgia, has introduced a free bike-sharing system, also
based on ID cards.
Back at the national level, the Netherlands, the unquestioned leader
among industrial countries in encouraging bicycle use, has
incorporated a vision of the role of bicycles into a Bicycle Master
Plan. In addition to creating bike lanes and trails in all its
cities, the system also often gives cyclists the advantage over
motorists in right-of-way and at traffic lights. Some traffic
signals permit cyclists to move out before cars. By 2007, Amsterdam
had become the first western industrial city where the number of
trips taken by bicycle exceeded those taken by car.
Within the Netherlands, a nongovernmental group called Interface for
Cycling Expertise (I-ce) has been formed to share the Dutch
experience in designing a modern transport system that prominently
features bicycles. It is working with groups in Botswana, Brazil,
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, South Africa,
and Uganda to facilitate bicycle use. Roelof Wittink, head of I-ce,
observes: “If you plan only for cars then drivers will feel like the
King of the Road. This reinforces the attitude that the bicycle is
backward and used only by the poor.…But if you plan for bicycles it
changes the public attitude.”
Both the Netherlands and Japan have made a concerted effort to
integrate bicycles and rail commuter services by providing bicycle
parking at rail stations, making it easier for cyclists to commute
by train. In Japan, the use of bicycles for commuting to rail
transportation has reached the point where some stations have
invested in vertical, multi-level parking garages for bicycles, much
as is often done for automobiles.
Sales of electric bicycles, a relatively new genre of transport
vehicles, also have taken off. E-bikes are similar to plug-in hybrid
cars in that they are powered by two sources—in this case muscle and
battery power—and can be plugged into the grid for recharging as
needed. Sales in China, where this technology came into its own,
climbed from 40,000 e-bikes in 1998 to 21 million in 2008. China had
close to 100 million electric bicycles on the road that year,
compared with 18 million cars. These e-bikes are now attracting
attention in other Asian countries similarly plagued with air
pollution and in the United States and Europe, where combined sales
now exceed 300,000 per year.
In contrast to plug-in hybrid cars, electric bikes do not directly
use any fossil fuel. If we can make the transition from coal-fired
power plants to wind, solar, and geothermal power, then electrically
powered bicycles can also operate fossil-fuel-free.
Above all, the key to realizing the potential of the bicycle is to
create bicycle-friendly transport systems. This means providing
bicycle trails and designated street lanes for bicycles, designed to
serve both commuters and people biking for recreation, and making
bike parking facilities and showers available at workplaces. This
simple bicycle is a winner in the
Plan B economy.
Adapted from Chapter 6, “Designing Cities for People” in Lester R.
Brown,
Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), available on-line at
www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/books/pb4