RSSEnergy use by mode of transportation
Jul 09
I’ve recently become excited about bicycling again as a mode of transportation. This article has some interesting stats about cycling: Matters of Scale – Bicycle Frame
My favourite was the fact that bicycling is 53 times more energy efficient than driving a car.
I wonder why cycling has never become a significant mode of transportation in North America? It’s the absolute default that if you have a car you use it for any movement outside your house. I saw a good number of people in my old apartment complex drive to the gym that was located in the complex. This wasn’t a large place, either. At most it would have been a 2-3 minute walk from any apartment. That seems silly because of the wastefulness but also the fact that the person obviously wants some form of physical activity, it just happens to not be walking. But, most of the machines there were treadmills, which makes it even worse.
Jul 10, 2006 @ 08:34:26
I agree that it’s ridiculous to drive a car less than a block so you can go to a gym to exercise. People have come to think of exercise as something regimented, like weekly aerobics classes or daily jogging. The idea of passive exercise, like walking to the store, never occurs to people anymore.
On the other hand, I really think these bike statistics are comparing apples to oranges. For example, bikes account for 28% of urban travel in the Netherlands because it is a much smaller country with higher population density. In cities like New York, where parking space is expensive and destinations are usually a few blocks away, bike riding per capita is much higher. But compare that to spawling cities like Dallas that expand in diameter as their populations increase. Bikes will be less useful. Even public transit becomes costly as residential areas migrate farther from downtown and commutes become longer.
And how can the Netherlands have 1000/1000 bikes/person? That’s statistically impossible. 999/1000 I could almost believe, if their government gave free bikes out and threatened to arrest anyone in a car.