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"Bicycling Boom in Germany:
A Revival Engineered by Public Policy. A Comment"
by
Peter Gordon and Harry W. Richardson
Published in Transportation Quarterly, 1998 (Volume 52, Number 1,
pages 9-12).
This note is not a critique of John Pucher's interesting article,
but rather a skeptical look at his argument that bicycle-promotion
policies would work almost anywhere, including the United States.
Let us start by saying that we have no objection to such policies
under certain conditions:
i. they take the form of incentives rather than disincentives;
ii. if they involve capital expenditures, they do not take too
many scarce resources from more cost-effective transportation measures;
iii. they do not significantly reduce highway capacity; and
iv. they do not have major negative impacts on non-bicyclists.
We have no doubt that pro-bicycling policies can increase ridership.
Where we differ with Pucher is that we do not see "much potential" in
the United States; rather we would expect that the impact to be marginal,
with the benefits perhaps outweighed by the costs.
Let us explain some of the reasons for this view. First, Pucher acknowledges
that lower densities in the United States result in longer trips, but then
argues that this could not explain the differential in bicycling's modal share
(1 percent in the United States vs. a European average of 8 percent). We do
not know how anybody can claim how important or unimportant lower densities
are because, to our knowledge, there have been no estimates of the elasticity
of demand for bicycle travel with respect to trip length. Thus, Pucher's conclusion
is an assertion not a research result.
To take commuting as an example, bicycling's share of commuting modes is trivial
because there is a disconnect between the bicycle's average commuting length
(2.06 miles) and the average commute by all modes (9.55 miles). Looking at
the distribution, 85 percent of commutes by bicycle are less than 3 miles,
whereas 67 percent of all commutes are more than 3 miles (National Passenger
Transportation Study [NPTS] data). This does not augur well for an expansion
of commuting by bicycle, despite the fact that many large companies have made
appropriate arrangements from bicycle racks to shower facilities and changing
rooms, unless one believes that people will change their residential location
to be close enough to bicycle to work.
In fact, most bicycle use in the United States is for social and recreational
purposes, i.e. for exercise and fun (more than 58 percent of bicycle trips
are for either social and recreational purposes or for visiting friends and
relatives). Introducing public policies to promote bicycling may result in
recreational use without any impact on transportation problems by substituting
bicycling for other modes. To the extent that any substitution occurs, it is
likely to be at the expense of transit. The typical loaded supermarket cart
does not lend itself to bicycling, even with carriers or trailers, so shopping
by bicycle is rarely practical. Some communities (e.g. Hermosa Beach in Southern
California) have introduced a program of free bicycles (pick it up here, leave
it there), an innovative program to be sure; interestingly the program has
been compromised by theft. The defenders of the program say this does not matter;
the bicycles are being used anyway, if by thieves. As for the assumed complementarity
between bicycling and transit use (except when free or highly subsidized transit
passes are available), in Southern California there is a stronger complementarity
between cycling and auto use; most keen cyclists have bicycle racks on their
cars, and many prefer to drive to the beach to make use of the 30-pus mile
beach bikeways.
To explore why the bicycle is so little used in the United States it may be
useful to look at some intercity differentials rather than focusing on the
nationwide 1 percent average. For example, among the CMSAs (the Consolidated
Metropolitan Statistical Areas) the outliers are Sacramento-Yolo (1.5 percent
of trips), Seattle (1.4 percent) and Denver (1.3 percent) at one extreme and
Philadelphia (0.2 percent), Dallas (0.3 percent) and Cincinnati (0.4 percent)
at the other (1995 NPTS data). We lack detailed knowledge of all these cases,
but a few observations are merited. Sacramento is consistent with Pucher's
European data that medium-sized cities are more conducive to bicycling than
giant metropolitan areas. Also, the Sacramento rate is heavily weighted by
nearby Davis (where a major University of California campus is located) which
has a bicycling modal share of 25 percent, according to the city's Web site.
The Dallas results are to be expected given its immense size (larger than the
country of Wales), although its walking share (about double the CMSA average,
at 10.3 percent) is something of a surprise. Seattle presents the most interesting
case from the viewpoint of Pucher's argument. With the exception of some of
the smaller towns in the metropolitan region, there are few pro-bicycle policies
in place (apart from bike racks on the buses). Bicycling is dangerous because
of chronic underinvestment in roads, ubiquitous potholes, aggressive drivers
and a climate that too often creates visibility problems. This suggests that
the relatively high bicycling rates in Seattle reflect personal preferences,
perhaps even ideological principles, in this environmentally conscious part
of America rather than public policy.
To the extent that bicycling is more common in denser areas such as in central
cities, another consideration in the U.S. vs. European comparisons is the higher
risk of crime and other safety concerns. Although homicide rates (the most
reliable crime indicator for international comparisons) in Germany are the
second highest in Western Europe (behind Italy), they are nevertheless only
46 percent of the U.S. rate (3.8 vs. 8.2 per 100,000 population; United Nations
data). Public opinion surveys in the United States increasingly confirm that
fear of crime remains (despite falling crime rates) a dominant concern affecting
social, including travel, behavior.
Finally, we strongly object to the use of disincentives to driving as an inducement
to bicycling. For example, an OECD report (OECD, 1995) recommends a quadrupling
of fuel prices over two decades. It is bad policy to damage severely the welfare
of 99 percent (or even 98 percent, assuming a consequent doubling of bicycling's
current modal share) to benefit the 1 percent (or, eventually, 2 percent) who
bicycle. There is a big difference between punitive measures ("get people
out of their cars" at any cost) and efficient measures, e.g. "value
pricing" defined as giving people an opportunity to pay for improved mobility.
OECD (1995), Urban Travel and Sustainable Development. Paris: European
Conference of Ministers of Transport, Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development.
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