The Rise of Walking and Biking in America
awesome.good.is
awesome.good.is
* They cost a lot of money and the value depreciates quickly.
* They break down. When that happens, you have a problem that you have to respond to immediately no matter what else is going on. If the subway breaks down, you are late but you don't have to fix it.
* My transportation costs are very predictable. I don't have any sudden major car repairs that cause a financial crisis.
* My current transportation costs equal my former car insurance costs.
* Car keys are big and unwieldy.
* Car alarms suck.
* I don't worry about that funny noise in my engine anymore.
* I don't have to replace my tires. I just have to buy new shoes more often, which is less expensive.
* I don't have to ask around to find a good mechanic.
* I don't have to take the time to have the oil changed and the tires rotated.
* I don't have to take time out of my week filling up my car with gas.
* I spend zero time looking for parking spaces.
* I don't have to pay parking tickets or worry about speeding tickets.
* Instead of spending my commute in a stress-inducing traffic jam, I spend my commute walking, which is naturally stress-relieving.
* My car doesn't get scratched.
* Because I walk a lot, I've probably added 10 years to my life.
* I don't lock my keys in the car.
* I don't spend any more money or time on car washes.
* I don't spend time or money getting my car inspected.
Unfortunately, the majority of Americans don't live in a walkable city. :( But at least you can offer your support for projects that will make your city more walkable.
* I spend far less time involved in the simple act of transportation. On the bus? Read, watch a movie, catch up with the news, chat with someone, or just grab some shut-eye and rest. When one is driving, they are actively engaged in transportation only, to the near exclusion of just about everything else.
BUT, I like driving. Get a pretty quick car (even better if its a stick) and a lot of the time driving can be very fun. Unless of course you live in one of those cities with horrible traffic.
Some more good ones:
- You don't have to pay for gas.
- You don't have to pay car registration fees every other year.
- Traffic jams afford you opportunities to walk across the street, rather than to sit and wait.
- You don't have to pay interest on car payments for a financed or leased car.
- You don't have to pay $100-$200/mo to park your car off the street.
- You don't have to move your street-parked car every so often to avoid violating one of many types of ordinances, such as for street sweeping, snow plows, etc.
- You don't have to "pay" for depreciation even when you don't drive your car, or especially when you do put mileage on it.
- You don't have to maintain your monthly transportation pass for those months when you're not in town/not using it, while you do with insurance.
- In many cities, you can scale up/down your transportation costs, between $0 (walk everywhere in the summer) to about $50 (maximum) per month, as you wish. Hard to do that with car insurance.
- You don't have to take time to run to the meter every so often.
- You don't have to remember to keep a supply of quarters in your car.
- You can change plans without worrying about what to do with your car, or how to get back to it.
- You don't have to ride alone, which is what most drivers do. You can take a bus and interact with passengers.
- You can read a book, surf the internet, watch videos, or sleep in public transportation, which you can't as a driver.
- Although you might get to a gym faster by car, you can jog to the gym and be warmed-up for classes, weight lifting, sports, etc, by the time you step inside.
- Your feet get used to running and walking on harder surfaces, rather than just a treadmill.
However, this is essentially chart junk. The time spacing is not consistent, which makes comparing any two years essentially impossible. Also, this data does not take into account the growth of walking & biking per capita. The stick figures are clever but tell me less than the numbers below them. The only thing this chart really shows is that the government is spending money. Sorry GOOD, this is pretty, but you should do better.
In the Netherlands 26% of all trips are bicycle trips, so probably more than 1 per person per day. To put that into perspective, fifty years ago this was more than 80%. The budget for cycling is about 2 times higher than in the US (per capita).
I think the group you should focus on is children. In the Netherlands 49% of primary school children (4-12 years old, no helmet ;) cycle to school, 37% walk to school and 14% use a car. I bet the ones that use a car are exactly the ones that don't use a bike later in life.
Here's the spreadsheet I made to do the math: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AllYoqUY9bu5dGEwTDlz...
My opinion, and I have no hard data to back it up, is that it's not a case of build it and they will come, but a case of they come, they complain bitterly about the lack of facilties and then and only then does it get built.