Wednesday 10 September 2008

Infrastructure: the missing key to US bicycle acceptance

The good folks at TerraPass have a commentary on a Washington Post article about the need to develop good infrastructure to encourage cycling. I was impressed that 12 percent of trips in Berlin are now done on bicycle, which must represent a considerable increase from when I lived there in 1998-2002. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that Germans are ten times more likely to use a bicycle to go somewhere than Americans, and three times less likely to get hurt while doing so.

Mr. Antony Lo, the President of Giant, the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles, commutes 130 miles/210 kms a week to work. He is probably smiling as he rides since Giant's sales have doubled since 2000, and are up 24 percent in the first half of this year.

Another great statistic from the Post article:

On any given workday, more commuters park their bikes at train and subway stations in Tokyo (704,000) than cycle to work in the entire United States (535,000), according to the Tokyo government and the U.S. Census.

2 comments:

Judi said...

Hey thanks for stopping by the blog. Good to hear from you again.

Everyone is all about this GILF and it is pretty upsetting. It is scary cuz I wonder just how much more effed up the USA will be after 4 more years of this.

Hope your riding is going well.

Lily on the Road said...

Unfortunately North America has been built for vehicles, not cyclists...if I were to cycle to work it would be over 30K on a dangerous road.

The thought has crossed my mind, but not the way drivers treat cyclists these days...