Unfortunately a huge number of those bikes are gathering dust in a garage. Europeans bike 188 km/yr vs 40 km/yr for the US [1]. It would be really interesting to see the rate of change.
The claim here is that in almost every European state bikes are outselling cars. I don't think this is the case in the US as the stats you provide show figure that are quite close collectively which suggests to me some variance among individual figures in a state versus state analysis.
In Europe there are many cars for less than 500 euros. Even new ones are something around 6k euros. Those of course aren't sedans like but they're still cars.
In Barcelona we're suffering a process of making the whole city available for bikes and its one of the most wonderful things you can see. Almost everyone uses bikes to go work. It's healthy, it's confortable, and you don't need to pay taxes or insurance. I think it's a brainless option.
BTW: I forgot to mention my city runs a public bycicle program since 8 years and it's a total success. For 40€/year you get full access to a bicycle to move around the city without restrictions. I think it was the smartest move the city did.
How often you buy a vehicle, be it a bike or a car is not that much to do with the price of it, but is more to do with how much space you have and how well the current one works, or whether you are bored of it.
Besides, you cannot accidentally spend £30 to fill up a small drawer unit with bikes, cars or computers, which you can do quite easily with paper and pens, I have found.
Also, the prices are not quite as you present. Some people with not much money manage to buy old cars that cost £100 and some people with a lot of money buy new pushbikes that cost over £5000.
It's significant when you look at the numbers of people who commute on their bike daily rather than their car. In Copenhagen something like 50% of adults ride their bike to work. I'm sure it's the same in e.g. the Netherlands.
I have a car, it works well. I haven't taken it to go to work since end of may. I don't plan on buying a new one until this one dies of old age, hopefully in a decade or so.
This is only tangentially related to the article, but I'd like to say one of the reasons why bikes aren't more popular in many American cities is because the road systems give no thought to bikes at all. I vacationed to the bay area recently, where bikes seem comparatively more popular, and noted the difference in roads between there and where I live. It wasn't so much that the bay area was good for bikes, but just kept them in mind. When there wasn't a bike path, there was a paved shoulder. When there wasn't a paved shoulder, there were signs and markings to help bikes and cars share the road.
Where I live, it approaches dangerous to bike on the road. When a road has a speed limit of 45 mph, turns, and no shoulder at all, it's difficult to bike. This is not in a rural area.
I live, and bike commute year round, in a bike-friendly city (Portland, OR). I don't attribute my pleasant ride to bike infrastructure but rather to the work the city did in the late 60's to fight urban sprawl with a thing called the "urban growth boundary." It stopped farmland around the city from being turned into subdivisions which forced people to fill in and maintain the older neighborhoods close to downtown. My 5 mile commute to downtown is through quiet, nice neighborhood streets, no special bike infrastructure needed.
Note that Portland is investing in bike infrastructure now, and it makes certain crossings easier, but I think the bikers came first, not the infrastructure.
The evidence clearly indicates that bike ridership follows continuous bike infrastructure. When a city builds more and better bike lanes - especially protected cycle tracks and neighbourhood greenways - the rate of cycling shoots up.
I don't bike in Los Angeles because I have a family to provide for and I don't think it is safe at all. I do live close to work and I walk to work, because I like to keep a small footprint from both an economic (my expenditures) and environmental perspective; but my work is moving for the 2nd time in 8 years and it is not convenient to move house to follow it.
I do wish I could bike to work but I just don't feel safe. If there was a bike lane all the way to work, I'd feel safe enough to bike it.
I live five miles from work. There are bike lanes the whole way with no freeways inbetween. I drive.
I didn't move close to my job to spend 30+ minutes a day commuting.
I don't want to show up sweaty to the office.
I can run errands or meet someone for lunch. After work I wouldn't need to go home to get my car if I, on a whim, wanted to go across town for whatever reason.
Bay area is popular for biking because they make it difficult to park. Where I live they make it easy with large free parking lots. I'm in a large coastal city.
Another reason, if you live in a city like where I grew up (Port Arthur, Tx), you had better be ready to be viciously attacked if you are out on a bike (or even out walking).
I live in an area that is incredibly bike friendly, but many people don't bike. Most of them either have far too long to commute or it simply isn't realistic given the weather. In the summer you see a bit more, but (at least for me), it is far more realistic to bring my bike to work hooked up to my car, and use that to get around from there.
well the land used has something to do with it. They used special road funds around here to resurface and fix roadways. One of the requirements were to install bike paths.
Small problem, the hills are many, varied, and of enough incline and length, to make them a challenge even to seasoned riders. So its rare to see them there. If anything I am more bound to find them on the 45mph roads as those tend to be flatter. Some of them do have bike lanes.
Now we have change the purpose of some parks to be more family friendly and bike friendly, these are normally connected to purpose built bike and walking trails; the Silver Comet is one.
So I think geography does influence it a bit. Even if I were within a few miles of where I needed to go the land just isn't all that much fun to zip about, unless on a motorcycle then those curves and hills are most fun.
Definitively. Urban planning in N-A cities is focused on how to have cars circulate/park as efficiently as possible, unlike most European cities. Car lanes are large, sidewalks and bike lanes are slim. Lights instead of roundabouts, parking garages instead of bike racks.
The article notes a slump in car sales, but doesn't chart historical bike sales (it only notes that in America bike sales are "solid") It could be coincidence: European bike might have risen, might have stayed the same.
>We decided to delve a little deeper into the figures and see which of these countries had the highest rates of bicycle-to-car ownership.
I'm more interested in historical bike sales, historical car sales, and the correlations and causations we could find, than which countries had the highest rates of bike-to-car ownership.
Here's the problem in the States: The automobile lobbyists dominate all transportation legislation.
So what kind of laws does that get us? In most cities electric bikes are illegal. Sidewalks and bike lanes, more often then not, only cover partial lengths of road. It's actually illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk, but the bike lanes in the States are so unbelievably dangerous that no one in their right mind would choose the bike lane over the sidewalk. You can't ride a bike along an interstate highway --that's illegal too. Oh, some rich cities have nice new bike paths, but they go almost no where useful and it is illegal to ride on those at night.
And to top it all off there's a cultural stigma that if you ride a bike for more than exercise or a leisurely peddle around the block then you are a worthless bum.
I guess Boston is one of those rich cities. There are swarms of business people commuting through the city each morning and night. I was not aware of anyone calling them bums. All of the people that ride the bike paths at night were unaware that it was illegal. The dedicated 10mi long bikeways like the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway are especially useful. 5000 lumen bike lamps help too.
Also, why would you want to bike on the shoulder of an interstate? The whole definition of a limited access highway is that only highspeed cars, going the same direction are on it, for safety.
> no one in their right mind would choose the bike lane over the sidewalk
In my head, it's the other way. Why would I deal with pedestrians, a rougher surface, and surprised cars when I can ride a dedicated lane on the road? You just have to do it a bit to get over the initially scary feeling when cars approach from behind and you have to trust they won't hit you.
Not sure why anyone should let "cultural stigma" have any influence on what they do. Who cares?
As for sidewalks being safer than streets, that is a myth. The reality is streets are much safer for bicycles. This is a well covered subject, Googling "safer bicycle street sidewalk" brings up a lot of info. The main reason is drivers are not expecting anything on a sidewalk to be moving at bicycle speeds, so cars turn in front of bikers much more often.
Exactly. I live in Denmark and sure many of us use our bikes from transportation, but I guess that a large portion of the newly purchased bikes are for exercise.
Most of us can't afford a car that we drive just for fun, but most can afford even a $4000 - $5000 bike that's just for fun. Included in these statistics are mountain bikes and racing bikes that people ride only in the weekends.
The number of people commuting on their bikes are more interesting, but then the US and a few other countries are screwed because of the distances between the city and suburbs or industrial parks that are inaccessible by anything but a car (European countries have these too).
I pedal to many meetings these days. It's fun, healthy and social. When a stranger pedaled up to me in the bike lane a few days ago and initiated a conversation, my day was made.
You see and experience more from a bike and it clears the mental cobwebs for me. Maybe my bobble head Yoda on the handlebars helps too :)
You know, recent trends in transportation are pretty weird if you think about them. Classic science fiction always predicted a future with space ships and interstellar travel, yet here we are discussing the most efficient ways to pack everyone together in urban areas in order to make it easier to ride bikes.
I finally pushed myself to bike to work this year, and up until this week managed to make my way to work 4-5 times a week using the bike. Living a 10-15 minute bike ride away from work really encouraged me to try this year, and I'm glad I did. I found it considerably more relaxing, even when riding in traffic, when compared to driving.
Unfortunately, living in the Great White North, it has gotten too cold in the morning to bike (or at least it has for me). Temperatures are dipping below 0C, and I'm sure we will see snow soon enough. Bike is on standby mode now until next April or May when the snow is finally gone.
Its still doable even at those temperatures - here is what I do (though I don't use the bike when its snowing, yet):
1. Dress well. Its especially important to fully cover your face (except eyes), ears and hands. Winter hat, scarf, gloves are always mandatory.
Legs may also need good (multi-layered) coverage but its not that critical. The number of layers for the rest of the body varies with the temperature
2. Don't overexert yourself. Avoid getting to a point where you're breathing too quickly or too deeply - this can be painful and can trigger breathing problems. If your breathing starts getting deeper and faster, slow down.
Basically, its much better to overdress and go slower than to under-dress and try to go fast to compensate with body-heat. Most cyclists will claim the contrary, but the contrary only applies after having some experience (or for people who just can't bear to go slow).
3. Carry extra layers of clothes with you. You never know if the layers you need in the morning will be the same as the layers you need in the afternoon.
• As a point of reference, the average price of a new car in August was $31,252. (That's a US statistic, but all I found.) The average cost of a bicycle is probably three-figures.
• Ownership of the two is not mutually exclusive.
• Usage habits of the two vary wildly, probably mostly favoring cars, not only because keeping an unused car is far more expensive and complicated than keeping an unused bicycle is, and because people don't tend to buy cars the first week of January to work off those holiday pounds.
I wish I could use my bike all year long but the truth is that for someone living in Canada (I'm guessing it's similar for some northern states too), it's impossible to bike half the year. Some brave folks do it but it's quite dangerous. For someone who has lived in Amsterdam many years it's a sad realization that my city will never become a bike haven.
In Belgium , there are some tax rules that subsidize companies that give employees company cars. So its very common for a white collar worker to have a company car.
I wonder if thats why Belgium is the only country where this isnt true ( well besides luxembourg )
More interesting will be to see stats on car purchase rates in Uber and Lyft's top cities over the coming years. In SF, car ownership is becoming a luxury amongst people I know - they either have a sports car, or no car and use Uber/Lyft/Zipcar for transportation everywhere.
A recent David Sacks tweet claiming this got a lot of attention: "Why Uber/Lyft market is so much bigger than people think: it's not a substitute for cabs, it's a substitute for driving." https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/378305832602980353
I once carpooled with a very nice lady from Netherlands. She would not stop talking about how she was amazed to see very little bikes in the US while back home, she grew up with bikes being part of a daily routine.
I wonder how much the 'cycle to work' scheme in the UK has affected our numbers. (It means a lot of middle class white collar workers buy a new high-end bike every year, before income-tax.)
What's so surprising? Clearly there's a limit on the growth of auto infrastructure.
I like to think that bikes offer a path out of the rat race being that transportation is 2nd in cost of living expenses.
(however, a 60+ cyclist I know bikes 15 miles on grueling hills to his low end job, disputes this dream??)
And so does the tech world where there are still massive profits to be made on sustaining the auto culture (gps, hybrids, ev's,google navigation, etc.) (And I don't necessarily think that's bad)
[+] [-] frogpelt|12 years ago|reply
In 2009, in the US, there were 14.9 million bicycles purchased [1] vs. just over 13 million passenger vehicles[2].
[1]: http://nbda.com/articles/industry-overview-2012-pg34.htm
[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_Unite...
[+] [-] stevewilber|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/jpah08.pdf
[+] [-] kbutler|12 years ago|reply
Apparently "In Almost Every European Country, Bikes Are Outselling New Cars, Just as Usual in the United States" was too long for a headline.
[+] [-] s_dev|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WildUtah|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] err4nt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philiphodgen|12 years ago|reply
I would not be surprised to hear that more paper and pens are sold in Europe than computers.
[+] [-] meerita|12 years ago|reply
In Barcelona we're suffering a process of making the whole city available for bikes and its one of the most wonderful things you can see. Almost everyone uses bikes to go work. It's healthy, it's confortable, and you don't need to pay taxes or insurance. I think it's a brainless option.
BTW: I forgot to mention my city runs a public bycicle program since 8 years and it's a total success. For 40€/year you get full access to a bicycle to move around the city without restrictions. I think it was the smartest move the city did.
[+] [-] moocowduckquack|12 years ago|reply
Besides, you cannot accidentally spend £30 to fill up a small drawer unit with bikes, cars or computers, which you can do quite easily with paper and pens, I have found.
Also, the prices are not quite as you present. Some people with not much money manage to buy old cars that cost £100 and some people with a lot of money buy new pushbikes that cost over £5000.
[+] [-] antr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] workhere-io|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kome|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jobigoud|12 years ago|reply
And repair yourself when something goes wrong.
I have a car, it works well. I haven't taken it to go to work since end of may. I don't plan on buying a new one until this one dies of old age, hopefully in a decade or so.
[+] [-] pushingsocial|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rthomas6|12 years ago|reply
Where I live, it approaches dangerous to bike on the road. When a road has a speed limit of 45 mph, turns, and no shoulder at all, it's difficult to bike. This is not in a rural area.
[+] [-] mildavw|12 years ago|reply
Note that Portland is investing in bike infrastructure now, and it makes certain crossings easier, but I think the bikers came first, not the infrastructure.
[+] [-] RyanMcGreal|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atsaloli|12 years ago|reply
I do wish I could bike to work but I just don't feel safe. If there was a bike lane all the way to work, I'd feel safe enough to bike it.
[+] [-] buckbova|12 years ago|reply
I didn't move close to my job to spend 30+ minutes a day commuting.
I don't want to show up sweaty to the office.
I can run errands or meet someone for lunch. After work I wouldn't need to go home to get my car if I, on a whim, wanted to go across town for whatever reason.
Bay area is popular for biking because they make it difficult to park. Where I live they make it easy with large free parking lots. I'm in a large coastal city.
[+] [-] ronnier|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DavidBradbury|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|12 years ago|reply
Small problem, the hills are many, varied, and of enough incline and length, to make them a challenge even to seasoned riders. So its rare to see them there. If anything I am more bound to find them on the 45mph roads as those tend to be flatter. Some of them do have bike lanes.
Now we have change the purpose of some parks to be more family friendly and bike friendly, these are normally connected to purpose built bike and walking trails; the Silver Comet is one.
So I think geography does influence it a bit. Even if I were within a few miles of where I needed to go the land just isn't all that much fun to zip about, unless on a motorcycle then those curves and hills are most fun.
[+] [-] euphemize|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] groups|12 years ago|reply
>We decided to delve a little deeper into the figures and see which of these countries had the highest rates of bicycle-to-car ownership.
I'm more interested in historical bike sales, historical car sales, and the correlations and causations we could find, than which countries had the highest rates of bike-to-car ownership.
[+] [-] transfire|12 years ago|reply
So what kind of laws does that get us? In most cities electric bikes are illegal. Sidewalks and bike lanes, more often then not, only cover partial lengths of road. It's actually illegal to ride a bike on the sidewalk, but the bike lanes in the States are so unbelievably dangerous that no one in their right mind would choose the bike lane over the sidewalk. You can't ride a bike along an interstate highway --that's illegal too. Oh, some rich cities have nice new bike paths, but they go almost no where useful and it is illegal to ride on those at night.
And to top it all off there's a cultural stigma that if you ride a bike for more than exercise or a leisurely peddle around the block then you are a worthless bum.
[+] [-] twistedpair|12 years ago|reply
Also, why would you want to bike on the shoulder of an interstate? The whole definition of a limited access highway is that only highspeed cars, going the same direction are on it, for safety.
[+] [-] jahabrewer|12 years ago|reply
In my head, it's the other way. Why would I deal with pedestrians, a rougher surface, and surprised cars when I can ride a dedicated lane on the road? You just have to do it a bit to get over the initially scary feeling when cars approach from behind and you have to trust they won't hit you.
[+] [-] city41|12 years ago|reply
As for sidewalks being safer than streets, that is a myth. The reality is streets are much safer for bicycles. This is a well covered subject, Googling "safer bicycle street sidewalk" brings up a lot of info. The main reason is drivers are not expecting anything on a sidewalk to be moving at bicycle speeds, so cars turn in front of bikers much more often.
[+] [-] evanb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pinaceae|12 years ago|reply
When I was living in Vienna we had 2 cars and 3 bikes for the family.
Bikes were replaced more often, I needed to buy a bike twice in 5 years due to the original ones being stolen. Kept my car the whole time.
Not exactly sure what this article is trying to show. Bad statistics?
[+] [-] mrweasel|12 years ago|reply
Most of us can't afford a car that we drive just for fun, but most can afford even a $4000 - $5000 bike that's just for fun. Included in these statistics are mountain bikes and racing bikes that people ride only in the weekends.
The number of people commuting on their bikes are more interesting, but then the US and a few other countries are screwed because of the distances between the city and suburbs or industrial parks that are inaccessible by anything but a car (European countries have these too).
[+] [-] teaneedz|12 years ago|reply
You see and experience more from a bike and it clears the mental cobwebs for me. Maybe my bobble head Yoda on the handlebars helps too :)
Pedaling on in California.
[+] [-] VeejayRampay|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clarkm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eliasmacpherson|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sivetic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spion|12 years ago|reply
1. Dress well. Its especially important to fully cover your face (except eyes), ears and hands. Winter hat, scarf, gloves are always mandatory.
Legs may also need good (multi-layered) coverage but its not that critical. The number of layers for the rest of the body varies with the temperature
2. Don't overexert yourself. Avoid getting to a point where you're breathing too quickly or too deeply - this can be painful and can trigger breathing problems. If your breathing starts getting deeper and faster, slow down.
Basically, its much better to overdress and go slower than to under-dress and try to go fast to compensate with body-heat. Most cyclists will claim the contrary, but the contrary only applies after having some experience (or for people who just can't bear to go slow).
3. Carry extra layers of clothes with you. You never know if the layers you need in the morning will be the same as the layers you need in the afternoon.
[+] [-] CrankyPants|12 years ago|reply
• Ownership of the two is not mutually exclusive.
• Usage habits of the two vary wildly, probably mostly favoring cars, not only because keeping an unused car is far more expensive and complicated than keeping an unused bicycle is, and because people don't tend to buy cars the first week of January to work off those holiday pounds.
I'm not sure why this article matters much.
[+] [-] qwerta|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] euphemize|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ojbyrne|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drblast|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soundwave|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drofmij|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] utnick|12 years ago|reply
I wonder if thats why Belgium is the only country where this isnt true ( well besides luxembourg )
[+] [-] langer|12 years ago|reply
A recent David Sacks tweet claiming this got a lot of attention: "Why Uber/Lyft market is so much bigger than people think: it's not a substitute for cabs, it's a substitute for driving." https://twitter.com/DavidSacks/status/378305832602980353
[+] [-] codegeek|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tommypalm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tehwalrus|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mactitan|12 years ago|reply