America forgot about bikes. Now it needs them more than ever. [View all]

Bikes aren't really public transportation. Is there a bicycle forum, or should I leave this here?

America forgot about bikes. Now it needs them more than ever.

By Matt McFarland May 15 at 7:01 am

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Cycling to and from work remains a rarity among Americans despite the positive impact it could have on two of the country’s pressing problems — global warming and obesity. Forget the celebration of a recent uptick in cycling. U.S. Census Bureau data overwhelming finds commuters travel via cars, trucks and vans. Biking ranks dead last behind even “other means.”

The truth is, America is anything but bike-friendly. Our infrastructure generally discourages cycling in favor of other alternatives. Bike lanes and cycletracks are the exception, not the rule. Roads that are shared by motorists and cyclists come with a fear factor for cyclists. A typical car weighs about 4,000 pounds, while your typical road bike is maybe 25 pounds. In the event of the collision, this is a dangerous mismatch. A car will need minor body work, but a cyclist could be dead. Given every human’s natural aversion to risks, it’s obvious that cycling will remain a niche activity as long as “Intersections of Doom” remain.

While the gains are small in the grand scheme of things, there’s been an uptick in American cycling. Washington D.C., for example, has seen the number of commuters biking to work double in a decade. Every American city trails Portland, where 6.1 percent of commuters bike to work.

But that pales in comparison to arguably the world’s most bike-friendly city, Amsterdam, a place that knows how to incentivize biking. In the heart of Amsterdam 43 percent of trips are made on bike, and 29 percent of all trips in the city are made on a bike. Watch a few seconds of this video and you get a sense of how different the biking culture is: