Around the world by …bicycle
Why women tend to cycle more in cities
with higher share of bicycle trips? Which city is the Amsterdam of the US? Is
it possible
a country's economy to rely on the automobile industry and its citizens to
prefer travelling by bicycle? Why Canadians cycle more than Americans and
Japanese more than Canadians? Do citizens of Copenhagen use their bikes to have
fun or business? Does the cold climate prevent us from riding a bike? Which is
the relationship between the bicycle, obesity and diabetes?
These were some of the questions that J. Pucher, Professor in the School of
Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey focused on
during his very interesting talk last Friday afternoon (11.16.12) @IURD, UC Berkeley. Actually, the
discussion had already begun some hours earlier, when I had the chance along
with several other researchers from UC Berkeley to have a brown bag lunch with
Professor J. Pucher (many thanks to Dan Chatman, Assistant Professor of City
& Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, who organized it!). Within almost an
hour we managed to “travel” around the world discussing about recent trends in
cycling research. Starting from Berkeley (where about an impressing for the US 8% of commuting trips are made by bike), we continued to Downtown LA, New York
(where a new bike share program is about to start – Citi Bike), Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen
(where, contrary to the US, there is no gender imbalance in cycle use) and then
Beijing, Sydney and Tokyo (where almost 18% of trips are made by bike although
cycle infrastructures lag behind those of western Europe).
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| With Robert Schneider, Prof. J. Pucher, and Jesus Barajas @IURD|UC Berkeley |
The discussion continued with a much
wider audience after Prof. Pucher’s afternoon lecture “Promoting Cycling and
Walking for Sustainable Cities: Lessons from Europe and North America”. He
argued in his passionate talk that cycling and walking are the most
environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable of all transport modes,
and also a …clever way to maintain
high levels of public health. Technologically
advanced countries with high per capita income and high levels of car ownership
like USA, Canada and Australia can have high levels of walking and cycling and
much lower levels of car use just for a simple reason: a large share of trips
today (41% in the US) are shorter than 2 miles. Northern European cities are
great examples of cycle integration, but as Prof. Pucher noted “citizens of
Amsterdam and Copenhagen were not born on bicycles, as many believe”. These
cities have heavily invested in cycle and pedestrian infrastructures and
discouraged car use before seeing significant increases in walking and cycling
trips during the last 30 years. A smooth integration of bicycle with transit,
education and enforcement are also important for enhancing cycle use. Prof.
Pucher enriched his presentation with very interesting photos from cities around
the world (especially North European), which have already promoted policies and
programs to make cycling and walking safe and convenient for daily travel. He
also included highlights from his new book (along with Ralph Buehler, and “a galaxy of
international authors” as Prof. D. Banister has written about the book) "City Cycling" with MIT Press,
which provides an overview of cycling trends and policies in cities across the
globe.
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| City Cycling @IURD|UC Berkeley |
My conclusion: When you build it,
discourage car use and promote cycle culture, they will come. It doesn’t matter
what comes first, but it is sure that all together can create a success cycle
story...
Quiz answers
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