According to the 2000 Census data, 0.44 percent of workers, or 567,042 individuals, commute by bike, compared with 76 percent, or 97.2 million, who drive alone. Cumulatively, if 10 percent of those solo commuters got out of their cars and biked to work -- assuming that a comparable proportion of driving commuters live within a biking range of their workplace -- we would be saving on the order of 2 1/2 billion gallons of gas every year.
Making the case for biking to work. Later,
letter-writers chime in.
Comments
"Still, why get the word out? . . . Commuting to work by bike is the biggest traffic bargain in town. It might not stay that way, if everyone realizes how easy and convenient it is."
That's how the article ends. Even so, I don't think there's much danger in too many people realizing the joys of non-car commuting. I love to read about it, and in the future I'll try to live close enough to work to walk or use public transit. I'll never be a biker.
Posted by: Greer | September 29, 2002 2:29 PM
why not?
Posted by: nedlog | September 29, 2002 4:02 PM
why not get the word out or why not ever be a biker? If you're asking about biking, it's because I don't want to fall, or be hit by a car, or hit & hurt a pedestrian. I'll ride bikes where there's not as much traffic. But I'm not about riding to work in the city.
Posted by: greer | September 30, 2002 1:00 PM
why not be a biker is what I meant.
Posted by: nedlog | September 30, 2002 4:44 PM
I bike to work 3 days out of 5 - and I think that's pushing it - even though my commute may be one the nicest in the City. I get to bike through lightly trafficed brownstone streets, across the brooklyn bridge, and then half a mile down broadway. But I still have to dodge idiots in cars, idiots driving taxis, idiots leaving taxis, idiots and their idiot toddlers wandering into the bike lane on the brooklyn bridge, and idiot construction workers in the middle of the constantly under construction broadway. None of these people are *really* idiots, of course, but there's just not enough room for the traffic of New York and many more bikers than the city maintains right now. I actually get angrier at other bikers who do stupid things - especially parents that put their children's life at rish by sticking in one of those side cars and then ride straight into traffic - than I do at cars. This may be elitist and misplaced, but unless the city made drastic changes to traffic patterns on almost all major arteries of the city, I would recommend that most people *not* bike to work. I do it for selfish reasons - to stay in the barely decent shape I'm in and to get to work a little quicker. I also don't want Greer to be hit by a car!
Posted by: david | September 30, 2002 7:35 PM
But dude, if some of those people clogging up those traffic patterns stopped driving and started biking, wouldn't it then become easier for even more people to bike?
It sounds like DC is much easier to bike in than NY. Not that I'm surprised. Happily I only have to be on roads, rather than a bike path, for the last mile or two of my 10-mile commute -- and that final stretch is through fairly uncomplicated traffic. I admit I might reconsider if I had to worry about cars all 10 miles.
Posted by: nedlog | October 1, 2002 11:03 AM
The traffic is not work commuters, it's delivery trucks and taxis, which will always be there. Until there's a clear bike lane and separate bike light to the brooklyn bridge and then all the way up and down broadway, it's not really safe.
Posted by: david | October 1, 2002 11:05 AM
It's drivers like the ones in this thread that make me sad.
Posted by: david | October 1, 2002 10:52 PM