Urban Biking
This is not a fad – there is plenty of evidence that bicycle usage in the cities across the US is growing. There are plenty of different reasons for that – to name a few: more people are moving from the suburbs to live downtown or closer to downtown and their workplaces, gasoline – while the gas prices have been steadily falling, still it takes a chunk of money to just keep commuting to-and-from work….very importantly – biking is actually a great form of exercise and a method to keep people younger longer….!
Bicycle usage across various parts of the US are growing – I visit many cities each year and, yes, I do pay attention – you do tend to see significant number of bicycles going around. Here is a chart which actually provides a lot of information
You will find more statistics at Statista
I was very proud and pleasantly surprised by San Francisco and Austin…..Great progress..
But – wait a minute – do not let this praise make you think that the cities in the US (even the ones listed on the infographic above) have made enough progress to allow for broad usage of bicycles. To spell it simply – THEY HAVE NOT!
Now, let’s take a look at a relatively random sampling of european big and and small, modern and upcoming, etc cities.
Then recently I went on a complex customer facing tour in Europe, where I met with tons of customers, but those located usually in smaller citifies across Germany, Belgium, and France. I was very surprised (in a positive way) to find tons of evidence of heavy bike usage – and once again thought as to how limited the same is in the US….
I went to Poing, Bavaria in Germany – the industrial company I visited had installed a covered parking for the employees that ride bicycles to work!
Then my trip continued to Bucharest, Romania — to my surprise there – again – big bike lanes to the main streets and people actually paying attention to them.
Now, why would Bucharest have a strong bike culture? It does not – but in 2011 timeframe the local government decided to encourage the use of bicycles – and voila – the infrastructure was created.
Per Wikipedia, between 2008 and 2010, the local government built 122-km of bicycle lanes – yes, indeed – I saw those and the staff at the JW Marriott in Bucharest also told me a similar story. The sad part though was that I hardly saw a person using the lanes…;
The story continued in France, in multiple cities there was the strong evidence of the bicycle lanes and in most places there were people taking advantage of the infrastructure. All in all a positive development – why? for the same reasons I started this article with – cost savings, health, and overall a more pleasant living environment!
I hope things continue to develop in a positive direction in the US as well