Cars: out of the way

Some readers have observed that we haven't paid any attention to one of the most low-tech innovations ever - the humble bicycle. We noted the sex-appeal of pedal power (and this concerns both men and women), but that's about it. So, since you asked for it, here is our concise but clear point of view on these human powered two-wheelers.

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We don't need any new infrastructure, what we need is to clear the existing infrastructure of inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient ones

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I hope that bikes - unlike oven stoves, moonlight towers or trolleybuses - don't require an introduction. But, to be sure, for those of you who have been moving exclusively from office garage to home garage via automobile and nothing else for most of your life: a bicycle is a two-wheeled, pedal-powered vehicle that was invented almost 150 years ago and can still be seen on the streets today. If you slow down a bit in that car, you will be sure to spot one.

Initially, the bicycle was quite a dangerous contraption. But, by the end of the 19th century, after the invention of the pneumatic tyre and the chain drive (so that the velocity of the vehicle was no longer determined by the diametre of the front wheel) it became a very popular means of transportation - a period that historians now label the "bicycle craze". Bikes were definitely the "it thing" back in the day, as these paragraphs from a 1896 New York Times article illustrate:

"Young men used to save up their money to buy a horse or a watch. Now, they save to buy a bicycle, and there are thousands who are cutting off unnecessary expenses in the way of clothing, cigars, and amusements and luxuries, so as to possess a wheel."

"So great was the crowd assembled in Madison Avenue at 7:30 last evening that the doors of the Madison Square Garden had to be thrown open in order to clear the street, and so the third annual bicycle show was opened a half hour before the hour originally decided upon."

What bikes can do

One more thing that beginners should know is this: bicycles are not only suited to transport people, but also to carry goods. There are many sturdy cargo bikes around these days, some of which are inspired by traditional models, and others not.

The amount of stuff you can move around by mere pedal power is surprising, as many others have noted before. In short, with the modest bicycle it is possible to transport anything usually transported by cars or vans (your suitcase, design furniture, a lover - sorry to focus on the sex appeal again but I am trying to catch your attention here).

What bikes need

Bicycles themselves are a mature technology with not that much to improve upon. They don't need rails, overhead lines, traffic management systems, smart grids, gas stations, batteries or superconductors - but they do need roads. This is where the trouble begins. It is interesting to note that the first smooth roads were built for bikes, and not for cars. Alas, that was a time before the arrival of the automobile made an end to the bicycle craze.

 Today, bicycle roads are inadequate or non-existent in most parts of the world. As a result, riding a bike is dangerous at the very least and plain suicide at worst, in spite of the pneumatic tyres and chain drive. The reason for this is simple: cars rule the roads. It does not matter whether cars drive on gasoline, diesel, batteries, biofuels, hydrogen, hot air, dead rabbits or coffee husk: their sheer existence and number makes another bicycle craze almost impossible.

The good intentions

In order to solve this, there is more and more talk surrounding the implementation of bicycle highways. The idea itself is not a new one: the comfortable ride offered by the elevated CycleWay in California more than 100 years ago is still unrivalled anywhere in the world today. Some countries, most notably the Netherlands and Denmark, are making progress with fast, safe and separate roads for bikes, tagging them as "bicycle highways".

Creative minds have designed elevated bicycle roads inspired by the long gone CycleWay (but not nearly as sturdy if you ask me). Even more creative minds have designed elevated covered bicycle highways that protect bikers from rain, wind and pigeon poop. Some of these tunnels even have the potential to generate artificial tailwinds that would make you go twice as fast. They will be heated in winter and cooled in summer.

The solution

While all these ideas are substantially better than many other inventions that are being designed these days (carbon capture technology, algal fuel and nanotech batteries spring to mind) this is not the way to go.

The problem is not that there is a lack of good roads - enough of these exist to bike from here to Mars and beyond. The main problem is that these are occupied by automobiles that are not only dangerous but also very inefficient both in terms of energy use and floor space. 

We don't need any new infrastructure, what we need is to clear the existing infrastructure of inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient ones. In other words: give all streets, highways, cloverleaves and motorways exclusively to bicycles and all other human powered wheeled vehicles. Get rid of cars. Why make things so complicated if the solution is so simple?

The arguments

Yes, I do want the motorway. It takes me more than an hour to pedal from my town to the city, because half of the time I am waiting in front of a traffic light watching cars passing me by.

If I could ride up one of the many large highways or motorways that lead almost straight into the city, I would be there in less than 20 minutes. If driving from A to B at a stretch was an exclusive privilege for cars for so long, then why can it not be an exclusive right for a much more efficient mode of transport? The views aren't bad either.

The transportation problem will never be solved unless we eradicate cars completely. As we don't have the courage to do that, all else we try will be in vain. Streets have a limited capacity and there are few places where you can give all transport modes - pedestrians, bikers, cars, public transport - all that they need.

In order to find a solution, we need to eliminate the most inefficient vehicle type. This is definitely the automobile - their hunger for space ends up being an even larger (but underestimated) problem than their hunger for fuel.

The new roads

Picture this for a second. If cars are gone, we are left with pedestrians (on the sidewalk), pedal powered vehicles (one part of the streets and the highways) and public transportation (another part of the streets and the highways, separated from pedal powered traffic, or underground). Taxis are allowed to stay, as long as they are equipped with pedals and chain drives.

We can maintain all possibilities that we have today: bikes for people who prefer their personal means of transportation (freedom!). Public transportation for those who prefer not to pedal. It should be noted that installing thousands and thousands of showers is definitely a more cost-effective option than unfolding a charging infrastructure for electric cars. Maybe it is time for a revival of public baths?

For long distance passenger transport, we have trains. For long distance cargo transport, trains again. Short distance cargo transport could see the revival of cargo trams (streetcars). Electric vehicles could be a part of the solution, too, both for cargo transport and for the disabled, provided they keep the same speed as bicycle traffic. Roads would still be available for motorised ambulances, firetrucks and - some - police cars, they have sirens for that.

The result? A healthy population, smooth traffic, clean air, silent and safe roads, and oil independence. The beauty? No money or new technology required.

© Kris De Decker (edited by Shameez Joubert)

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Related :

• The "Crimanimalz" regularly dive into motorway traffic with a bunch of experienced cyclists, just to show that bikes are faster than cars during rush hour. Their site hosts many videos of their rides - but if you try this at home please take care as some car drivers that lose to these speedy cyclists have been known to suddenly open their car doors - on purpose. The monthly Critical Mass bike rides are less extreme, and less dangerous, but they aim to carry the same message. You can easily join them every last friday of the month in most cities around the world.

• Many of the bike tech links above were found via Lloyd Alter from Treehugger. Some interesting sites that cover bicycle news are Bikehugger, Bike Commuters, Bicycle Design, BikeHacks, Commute by Bike, Copenhagen Cycle Chic and the Center for Appropriate Transport.

• Why bicycles are faster than cars

• Low-tech solutions / Obsolete technology / Ecotech myths / Mixed links & updates.

• Main page.

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Comments

[OldStone50]

(11)

Small motor vehicles are likely to remain part of the mix for many reasons. But it should be noted that the auto and the bike are less intrinsically incompatible on roadways than is generally assumed. The problems stem from two sources: poorly defined rights of way, and wildly divergent relative energies.

Rights of way should follow a clear cut hierarchy. In descending priority: Emergency vehicles and services; Public transport; Pedestrians; Bicycles and other Human or other Animal Powered Vehicles; Goods and services transport; and, giving way to all others, Cars and other Personal motorized vehicles.

The energy embodied in a car traveling, say, 30 mph is huge relative to a pedestrian or a bicycle. It is this relative difference that is the most dangerous element of mixed use roadways. Clearly, cars need to be restricted to a maximum of around 10 mph. The utility of the car remains almost identical, but the relative differences of energy become much more manageable.

[Michael Dawson]

(10)

Excellent post! Thank you.

[Carl]

(9)

I think we can all share the road. Depending on external factors, such as oil prices, new technologies, etc, cars will either be naturally phased out due to economic factors (the only force I think capable of killing the car culture), or cars will continue to rule the roads. I'm going to keep riding as long as I am healthy enough to do so, regardless of cars being around or not.

[dr. weiner]

(8)

its called a bike path, dummy. they exist.

[Uncle B]

(7)

No matter what happens, battery cars, Hydrogen vehicles, Bullet trains, whatever, the bicycle will always be around! Asians favor them Europeans love them, even Canadians use them summer-long! Great cheap transportation of humane speed and proportion!Billions of Chinamen can't be wrong! Americans on the other hand seem to be in for a lesson in modesty, frugality as the end of the "Cheap Oil Era" and scarcity of their favorite brew, "Light Sweet Crude" cannot be found anywhere on earth in quantities of consequence, even with sophisticated satellite searches. With Lithium battery improvements and better electric motor technologies I see the ubiquitous bicycle electrifies and Solar or Wind powered in the next few decades and very popular in a much different America than we know today, a few years hence. China may soon produce and effective re-chargable bike of light weight, durable, without planned obscolescence built in, and repairable until the last part is worn away, as is the penchant for commies and socialists to do. If allowed to be imported to Americans a small revolution in lifestyles of sustainability could be started! Even small farm machinery and rotor-tillers,saw-mills, water pumps and the like running from the rechargeable bike motors, unlike the time of adaptations for the Ford Model A's, T,s of yesteryear in America when all was "Swell"! and the corporatists were just grabbing at power.

[Simon Baddeley]

(6)

When people ask how the bicycle can cover distances we take for granted when driving a car, they seem to forget that autodependency created those distances, making suburban sprawl viable. The car is inextricable from the settlement patterns it makes possible - including distances betwen shops, recreations areas, places of worship, schools and - so called - neighbours. The car creates access by mobility. For walking and cycling to work we need planning based on access by proximity - the recovery of centres and places blighted by the dominance of the car. The car more than any other form of transport has made the journey more important than the destination; movement of humans more important than their interaction. We are not just prisoners of the car, but prisoners of the environment it has been instrumental in creating. I divorced my car two years ago but I live in the city and I enjoy - mostly - rapid transit for the journeys I can't do on foot or by bicycle. I used to love cars but now the freedom they offer has become highly conditional. A love affair became a loveless marriage. Separation and divorce recovered a freedom I haven't known for years.
http://democracystreet.blogspot.com/2007/10/dignified-divorce.html
I still travel in cars occasionally, but they're not much fun, and not very efficient and ridiculously expensive.

[BAW]

(5)

What about people who live out in the country? Or people who live in places like West Virginia (called "The Mountain State" for good reason)? Or the elderly? Or people who live in places with extreme climates? I remember visiting my aunt in Phoenix in July--cycling in such weather is a good way to get heatstroke. On the other extreme, what about Maine or Alaska in the winter?

[Peter]

(4)

I like the idea in general, but there are some problems. Cycling is OK when the terrain is flat, but not so in the hills. I would have to struggle for 3 hours or more to get home instead of 15 minutes by car. I could imagine a powered cycleway in places where the road goes uphill, but it costs money and maintenance. Also I vote with my wallet by going farther from the local bad shops, and I would have less choice then. The streetcar idea is OK as long as you can afford the billions to put rails on all the small roads.

[Rhamnus]

(3)

There is one thing that the author is not considering here, and that is the fact that cars are more than just a means of transport. They have become an extension of ourselves, an accessory, something that defines us in a rather similar way as our clothing may do. Also, no matter how good you are pedalling, you will never beat a car when travelling a long distance in a very short period of time (in comparison with the time it would take if you do it with a bike). If you can afford it, you would not want to pedal for hours to reach to your destination only to repeat it all over again at the end of the day, regardless of the consequences (contamination, energy consumption, etc), it's a matter of status, and that is still an important issue for us, human animals that we are. Cars are here to stay, and our only hope is that the manufacturers will make them more efficient with time and the pressure that governments, competition and lack of energy may put on them.

[Roland]

(2)

You forgot to mention the accidents. Car accidents are a nasty thing with many horrible deaths and gruesome scenes. Bicycle accidents may, at worst, break a bone.

BTW, I really appreciate your work and ideas.
Keep up the great work.

[ross]

(1)

The IEA sees it different

http://www.greenbang.com/cutting-transports-carbon-footprint-will-take-tech-revolution_12367.html