A few months ago John Pucher, professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University, gave a lecture titled Cycling for Everyone: Lessons for Vancouver from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany at a Canadian public policy conference.
Citing the personal and public benefits of increased cycling, Pucher explains why riding a bike is by far one of the most environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable forms of transportation.
The meat of his presentation lies in his exploration of cycling infrastructure in societies where trips by bicycle are much more common. In the Netherlands, for example, over a third of all local trips are made by bike, as compared to less than 1% here in the United States. The reason they are riding more is that the infrastructure in place in their cities makes cycling practical, safe, fast, and convenient.
Ezra Klein, associate editor at The American Prospect, agrees with many of Pucher’s points. In a recent post on his blog Klein suggests that these kinds of transportation issues have been recast as what he calls lifestyle issues:
In America no one cycles, and when you’re over thirty, really no one cycles. In the Netherlands, a quarter of the old make their trips by bike. Which is just to say, everyone cycles. It’s like walking, or driving: A mode of transportation that’s often the best for a given trip. Not some sort of radical lifestyle statement. Meanwhile, the problem in America is that, compared to other countries, cycling is incredibly unsafe, and we have little infrastructure dedicated to supporting it.
This of course means that cycling ends up concentrated among the young, who tend to take more risks and feel more physically capable, and males, who tend to take even more risks and feel even more physically capable. But there’s no reason it should be that way. It’s a public policy choice, and given the energy and public health benefits of cycling, it’s an odd one.
The comments on Klein’s post make a pretty interesting read, discussing wether it’s fair to compare the US and European countries, how cycling advocacy may be indicative of a culture war, and ways in which European modeled cycling infrastructure may or may not be applicable in the United States.
One commentor, Philly, argues nicely:
All the anti-bike people here have very short-sighted sense of what it would take to make more Americans ride bikes.
It isn’t about getting a lawyer who […] lives in a Houston exurb to bike to the city wearing an expensive Italian suit in mid-July. […] It’s about first creating the infrastructure for the people live close enough to work and in appropriate climes (which is a larger number of Americans than most people here concede, but does not include, I will admit, Texan exurbans). And it’s about developing and redeveloping urban areas so that commercial and residential areas are more mixed and closer together.
I think the ideal goal is not an America that looks like 1970/80s-era China where the streets are filled with flocks of bikes, but rather a place where a respectable number of people (but realistically, probably never more than 10% of the population) bike to work and an even larger number of people (again, never a majority) use bikes to run everyday errands and on the weekend rather than using cars or buses, and that there would be a far greater number of bike lanes, bike paths, and bike racks throughout the developed landscape.
I personally need to become much more of a cycling advocate. I’ve always thought of trying to be the best bike mechanic I can be as a way of encouraging others to ride their bikes more often (since you can’t ride your bike if it’s not working), but I can and should be doing more to affect changes in my community that will cultivate more cycling.
