How do we associate bicycles and the economics and benefits of cycling? I am a big proponent of the approach of leveraging your bicycle for getting to a place or running small erands, etc rather than just going for a pleasure ride or an exercise one… Why? Because it just makes sense. Earlier this morning I jumped on my bike and peddled to a local Starbucks (6 hilly miles away) to meet with a couple of my friends. While getting there I encountered a newly marked bike lane on the road — a bike lane which was barely two and a half feet wide….and I thought "Hm…. what message is the city and county sending to the bicycling crowd…? "

So later on in the day I started thinking more about this and decided to list on this blog all the aspects of why bicycles JUST MAKE A WHOLE LOT OF SENSE — i.e. this is the blog article about Bicycles, Bike Lanes, and the Economics and Benefits of Cycling

So here we go:

Personal Health: There have been many studies showing that the US population (and even the population in China) is increasingly overweight and a very large (and growing) percentage is obese! Why? Because the world is driving cars and/or sitting on public transport as we commute to work and leasure places. We all have heard the studes from various medical authorities — that just 30-miunutes of physical exercise three times a week can offset many of the aforementioned negative effects and keep us healthy. Entering bicycling…! Yes, a 10-12 mile round trip bike ride (30-35minutes in each direction) can burn over 400-600 calories in a woman or man….thus providing EXCELLENT approach to staying in great shape!

Environmental Impact: Bicycles are just great when it comes to carbon footprint we all know that! But guess what, they also save big time on parking surfaces etc. Hence they reduce significantly resources spent for infrastructure

Economics: Commuting a few times a week by bicycle wil certainly add a significant offset in your monthly spent for fuel and car maintenance. For the average car owner out there with a 20-25-mile per gallon vehicle in city driving, commuting by bicycle can make a nice big dent in your monthly fuel bill

Personal & Social impact: Yes, there is also that — lets face it – you will meet a lot of nice people on your bike rides…Enough said.

And here are some interesting views on the economic impact of bicycling from national sources:

Source: bikeleague.org

This same entity also published an extensive report on the Economic Impact of Bicycling — here it at this link

After listing all these — I remembered again the narrow bike lane I encountered this morning while biking in Austin…. If this is the case is a bike friendly city like Austin, I can imagine how things are in the states and cities in the US where bicycles are even less popular…. Well, I guess a lot more work to do on educating the public! Hopefully this blog will help in the long run as well.