Update 13: July 17, 2002-9
Copyright © 2002 Earth Policy Institute
WORLD TURNING TO BICYCLE FOR MOBILITY AND EXERCISE
Bicycle Sales Top 100 Million In 2000
In the year 2000, world bicycle production climbed
to 101 million, more than double the 41 million cars produced. Sales of
bikes are soaring because they provide affordable mobility for billions
of people, increase physical fitness, alleviate traffic congestion, and
do not pollute the air or emit climate-disrupting carbon dioxide.
A half-century ago, it was widely expected that automobile production
would quickly exceed that of bicycles. Indeed by 1965, car production,
which had been growing rapidly since World War II, was poised to overtake
bicycle production. But it never did. Mounting environmental concerns
slowed the growth in car output and accelerated that of bikes. Between
1969 and 1970, the year of the first Earth Day, bike sales jumped from
25 million to 36 million.
Shortly after the first Earth Day, the two oil-price shocks of the 1970s
underlined the risks of oil-dependent mobility. Car sales stalled near
30 million from 1973 to 1983. Bicycle sales, meanwhile, jumped from 52
million to 74 million.
The bicycle's principal attraction is its low cost. With cars costing
easily 100 times as much, the bicycle offers mobility to billions of people
who cannot afford a car. The widely affordable bike attracted 960 million
buyers during the 1990s, compared with 370 million for the car.
The bicycle also reduces the amount of land that needs to be paved. Six
bicycles typically can fit into the road space used by one car. For parking,
the advantage is even greater, with 20 bicycles occupying the space required
for a car.
As the world automobile fleet expanded and as people moved in droves to
cities, ever worsening traffic congestion highlighted the inherent conflict
between the automobile and the city. In London today, the average speed
of a car is roughly the same as that of a horse-drawn carriage a century
ago. Each year, the average motorist in Bangkok spends the equivalent
of 44 working days sitting in a car going nowhere. After a point, more
cars mean less mobility. Another attraction of the bicycle is that it
does not contribute to the air pollution that claims 3 million lives annually.
In recent decades, the densely populated countries of northern Europe
have turned to the bicycle to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce
air pollution. In Stockholm, one of the world's wealthiest cities, car
use has declined in recent years. Railroads and buses are increasingly
linked with pedestrian and bicycle routes. In Sweden's urban areas, roughly
10 percent of all trips are taken by bicycle, about the same number as
by public transit. Almost 40 percent of trips are on foot. Only 36 percent
are by car.
In the Netherlands, bicycles account for up to half of all trips in some
cities. Extensive bike paths and lanes in both the Netherlands (almost
19,000 kilometers) and Germany (over 31,000 kilometers) connect rural
and urban areas. These networks offer the cyclist separate right-of-way,
making for safer trips and less direct competition with cars and trucks.
In Copenhagen, one third of the population commutes to work by bicycle.
By 2005, Copenhagen's innovative city-bike program will provide 3,000
bicycles for free use within the city. Bike use there is expected to continue
growing as city planners increase already high car parking fees by 3 percent
annually over the next 15 years, impose high fuel taxes and vehicle registration
costs, and concentrate future development around rail lines.
In many cities in the United States, bikes provide mobility that cars
cannot match. More than four fifths of all urban police departments now
have some of their force on bicycles. Officers on bikes can usually reach
the scene of a crime before those in squad cars, typically making 50 percent
more arrests per day. For fiscally sensitive city managers, the low cost
of operating a bicycle and the high productivity of an officer using one
is a winning combination.
Urban bicycle messenger services are now common in large cities. For firms
that market on the Internet, quick delivery means more customers. In a
city like New York, where this creates an enormous potential for the use
of bicycle messengers, an estimated 300 bicycle messenger firms compete
for $700 million worth of business each year.
Land scarcity is also driving the world toward the bicycle, particularly
in densely populated Asia, where half the world lives. In heavily populated,
affluent Japan, the bicycle plays a strategic role. In Tokyo, where 90
percent of workers commute by rail, 30 percent use a bicycle to reach
their local rail station.
When the Chinese government announced in 1994 that it was going to develop
an automobile-centered transportation system, the policy was quickly challenged
by a group of eminent scientists who produced a white paper indicating
several reasons this approach would not work. The first reason was that
China did not have enough land both to build the roads, highways, and
parking lots needed for automobiles and to feed its people. The scientists
argued instead for a rail/bicycle-based transport system.
Although some cities in China, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are restricting
bicycle use in favor of the car, bike ownership throughout the country
is still on the rise. Automobile ownership in China is measured in the
millions, but bicycle ownership is in the hundreds of millions.
Bicycles are also used to transport goods. In rural Africa where women
use bicycles to transport farm produce to market, the resulting market
expansion has raised farm output. In Ghana, bikes help HIV/AIDS educators
reach 50 percent more people than those on foot.
For decades, the United States largely ignored the bicycle in transport
system planning as federal funds were channeled almost exclusively into
highway construction. This began to change in 1991 when Congress passed
landmark legislation recognizing the role of the bicycle in the development
of transport systems and requiring each state to have a bicycle coordinator.
From 1992 through 1997, more than $1 billion of federal funds were invested
in bicycle infrastructure. In New Jersey, this translated into an 800-mile
statewide network of bicycle trails.
This new federal commitment helped boost U.S. bike sales from 15 million
in 1991 to 21 million in 2000. When President Clinton signed the Transportation
Equity Act for the 21st Century in 1998, he set the stage for further
integration of bicycles into transportation planning.
Bicycles are gaining popularity in industrial countries because they provide
exercise. With half or more of adults now overweight in countries like
the United States, Russia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, obesity is
one of the world's leading public health problems. In the United States,
obesity-related deaths currently total 300,000 a year, fast approaching
the 420,000 for cigarette smoking.
The bicycle's role in the world transport system is expanding. Not only
does it provide low-cost mobility, but in cities it often provides more
mobility than the automobile. Because it provides mobility and exercise,
does not pollute the air or disrupt the earth's climate, and is efficient
in its use of land, the bicycle is emerging as the transport vehicle of
the future.
Copyright © 2002 Earth Policy Institute
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001).
Lester R. Brown, "Paving the Planet: Cars and Crops Competing for Land," Earth Policy Alert, 14 February 2001.
From Worldwatch Institute
Michael Renner, "Vehicle Production Declines Slightly," in Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2002: The Trends that are Shaping Our Future (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp. 74-75.
Gary Gardner, "Bicycle Production Rolls Forward," in Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2002: The Trends that are Shaping Our Future (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp. 76-77.
From Other Sources
Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, "World Market Report," Industry Directory 2002 (Santa Fe, NM: Bill Communications, 2002).
Todd Litman, Evaluating Transportation Land Use Impacts (Victoria, BC, Canada: Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2 April 2002).
Todd Litman, Quantifying the Benefits of Non-Motorized Transport for Achieving TDM Objectives (Victoria, BC, Canada: Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 1 December 1999).
Peter Newman and Jeffrey Kenworthy, Sustainability and Cities (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1999).
John Pucher and Lewis Dijkstra, "Making Walking and Cycling
Safer: Lessons from Europe," Transportation Quarterly, vol. 54,
no. 3 (summer 2000).
LINKS
Bicycle Retailer and Industry News
http://www.bicycleretailer.com
Institute for Transportation and Development Policy
http://www.itdp.org
League of American Bicyclists
http://www.bikeleague.org
National Center for Bicycling and Walking
http://www.bikewalk.org
Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org
Surface Transportation Policy Project
http://www.transact.org
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
http://www.vtpi.org
Washington Area Bicyclist Association
http://www.waba.org