Why cycling?

Infrequently asked questions: Why cycling?

Hello, my name is Guy and I'm a cyclist. I wasn't aware that this was a secret, but apparently it is because every now and then I am "outed" as such on Usenet. But more than that, I am a cycling advocate. And an enthusiastic one at that.

The Car-Owning Hypocrite
Yes, I'm a cyclist. I also have access to a car, when my wife isn't using it. Of course like most cars it spends most of the day sitting still and depreciating, but life being what it is our journeys tend to coincide, so one of us has to have first call, and it's not me. There is a school of thought which holds that one cannot advocate cycling without being completely car-free. Those who hold this view denounce me as a hypocrite. I find it rather hard to understand their argument because I do most of my journeys (by mileage and by number) on a bike, including commuting, and in any case I have never said that the bike is the only practical mode, just that it is a practical mode.

One must also bear in mind context. Quite a few of these accusations have been levelled during Usenet arguments where people are attempting to argue that bikes are not a practical mode of transport. These people usually advocate the private car instead. If I said bikes were the best way of commuting but drove to work every day, you could call me a hypocrite. I don't drive to work, I cycle. If I said bikes were ideal round town and did all my town journeys by car you could call me a hypocrite. I don't. I use my bike whenever possible, and my car only if I need its load carrying capacity. Cycling is my default mode.

The reason I advocate cycling is because it makes my life better. I like to tell people how it makes my life better, and how it might do the same for them. Still not convinced? Look at this chart:



This does not necessarily mean, post hoc ergo propter hoc, that cycling prevents obseity. More likely it means that cycling is one of many manifestations of a more physically active society, by extension one where sustainable transport is welcomed and ancouraged rather than the subject of terror campaigns aimed at bolstering car use, as with the UK's policy of blaming children for the danger posed to them by motor traffic. Makes you think, though, doesn't it?

Congestion, The Curse of the Cager
What is the biggest problem on Britain's roads today? I suggest it's congestion. I'm not alone in that view, I think. But somehow all the proposed solutions to the problem seem to involve someone else doing something. The Government building new roads, for example, or making contractors dig up the roads at night instead of by day, or persuading parents to give up the school run. In each case there is a common thread: get rid of the traffic so I can drive unimpeded. There is a slogan used by the Critical Mass movement in the USA: "We are traffic!" Solutions to the problem of traffic have to start, it seems to me, with an acknowledgement of just that fundamental point. The traffic is not some nebulous "them" flown in from Outer Space just to hold us up in the mornings, it's us. Us in our cars and our buses and on our bikes. But mainly us in our cars, because the private car is far and away the least space-efficient mode used by commuters.

There is a certain irony in car commuters complaining about congestion. Not only are they the primary cause, they are also a secondary cause, in that traffic problems are greatly worsened by on-street parking. It has been worked out that if car ownership grows at the current rate until 2010, we will require an area the size of Berkshire just to park the cars. That's a bit improbable but there is no doubt that cars take up space when stationary, either in traffic or parked. Would the office be quite so far from home if offices didn't have acres of car parks? And once the car starts to move, and headway becomes the dominant factor in how much road space is occupied, it is even more inefficient. A single-occupant car requires the same six car-lengths of headway at 30mph that a bus does.

Governments are lambasted for failing to spend the billions they allegedly earn from motoring taxes on building their way out of the problem. But this won't wash. First, there are no billions. Private motoring is a net cost to the economy, and every time it looks as if motoring revenues will approach the costs to the treasury the Government caves in to the roads lobby and spends a few more billions on new motorways - probably following the precedent set when Tarmac shareholder Dr Beeching recommended the rail closures which allowed the Ministry of Transport to divert much of the rail budget to road building. Second, building your way out of the problem doesn't work any better than drowning your sorrows does. New cross country routes allow people to live further from work, and the new road space is rapidly consumed (with additional traffic often generated on rural minor roads). New urban routes are constrained by property boundaries, a problem encountered by Robert Hooke when he proposed radically redesigning London's streets in 1667. The objections of landowners carried the day and the narrow lanes and twisting alleys were rebuilt. Blaming the Government for this 300-year-old problem makes as much sense as blaming Wren for the Congestion Charge.

Somebody Else's Problem
Despite all the above, and if we are really honest with ourselves it really is pretty obvious, congestion seems to be surrounded by a giant SEP field[1]. It's time to strip that away. Congestion is worst when roads reach saturation; about 15% of peak-time journeys are reckoned to be school traffic, and the day the summer holidays start the traffic jams in many British towns evaporate. This suggests to me that migrating a decent sized minority of commuting traffic to other modes, of which cycling is just one, could have a profound effect. And many if not most people seem to agree. But it's always someone else who has to make the switch.

Time and Motion
The average British commute is about 8.5 miles, and takes 45 minutes an average speed of just over 11mph. To achieve this speed the average driver uses a vehicle weighing over a tonne, which occupies well over a hundred square feet of road space when stationary and a good deal more when moving. I can achieve an average of 20mph using a vehicle which weighs 30lb and takes up about ten square feet of road space when stationary. Which it generally isn't. But speed isn't why I commute by bike.

My commute, at least the of 8.5 miles leg from Paddington to Canary Wharf, takes around forty-five minutes by tube. By bike the journey is predictably never more than 35 minutes. Traffic has negligible effect on my journey times. But predictability isn't why I commute by bike.

I used to spend an hour a day in the gym, but I haven't needed to do that for over a year. I get most of an hour's good quality cardiovascular exercise in time I would not have been able to use anyway. Using the phone on the move is dangerous, and commuting is outside business hours anyway, so commuting is dead time for most people. Just them, the radio and a day's frustrations for company. By cycling I get exercise for free in time which would otherwise be wasted. Not only that, I enjoy the journey because I am a cyclist and I'm doing something I actively enjoy. I don't know anybody who actively enjoys commuting by car, however much they claim to enjoy driving. That is why I commute by bike.

Where did my life go?
This last point is an important one. Commuting time is unproductive. Instead of wasting it, you could use it to benefit your body. Obesity and coronary heart disease are becoming major killers in the West, and your risk of both is reduced by cycling. According to the BMA the life expectancy of a regular cyclist is around a decade longer than average, and you can get that benefit for free in time you weren't doing anything with in the first place. How can you lose?

Cash Cow
Another good reason for using a bike is the cost saving. Now I no longer drive to work, we have sold our second car. However I add it up I can't get the saving to come out at less than £3,000 per year, and that's on the low side - according to motoring organisations the average annual cost of running a car is over £5,000. To put that in context, for a standard rate taxpayer ditching the car is equivalent to a £6,250 pay rise. Who is the master here and who the slave?

Bikes aren't free, of course. A good quality bike can easily cost £2,000 (what kind of car do you get for that?) and lasts indefinitely, albeit with running costs in tyres and chains and such. The bike is probably the only major manufactured product which is designed to be user-serviceable, but not everyone can do it themselves. The cost of running a bike for a year is still less than a single service for a car. Yes, there is the bloke who bought an Escort for £50 and maintains it himself. And yes, there is the cyclist who rescued his bike from a skip and keeps it going with scrounged parts. Neither is typical. The average cost from the motoring organisations is more likely to be typical.

You might put the high cost of motoring down to the perennial motorist's whinge, taxation. But that doesn't hold water either. Most car owners name petrol and insurance as their major costs but RAC figures reveal that the biggest costs are finance charges and depreciation. Even if you buy with cash, that cash has to come from somewhere. You could offset it against the mortgage, for example. Neither is British motoring taxation particularly high: over an average five year ownership term the British driver is smack in the middle of the European tables for car taxation revenues. We do not have the highest petrol prices in Europe, and we don't have the highest vehicle excise duties either.

We could also open the debate to include secondary costs. Does your house have a garage? A drive? What proportion of your real-estate is used up parking the car? Do you park on the road? What proportion of the road network is unusable by traffic due to parked cars? How much is that costing to maintain? And remember that car taxation doesn't cover the costs of private motoring to the economy. Your tax bill is higher because you (we) drive.

Think Global, Act Local
Motoring is essentially a selfish choice. Before you get irate, be honest about it - do you really drive out of necessity, or because you would rather sit in your car on your own than share space with other people? Being a selfish choice doesn't necessarily make it a wrong choice, but pretending it's not a selfish choice is, for most people, self-delusion. I could avoid many of the car journeys I do make by planning ahead and having building materials delivered, but I don't because I prefer to go to the timber yard and choose my own timber. That's selfish and impatient. I console myself with the fact that I don't do it every week, let alone every day.

Similarly if we are absolutely honest with ourselves we must admit that pollution is undesirable. Locally cars cause noise pollution and air pollution, and arguably visual pollution as well. I would certainly much rather see a wind turbine in a National Park than a Tarmac car park, but I am odd. Cars emit oxides of carbon and nitrogen as well as hydrocarbons and particulates. Some of these emissions are mutagenic, notably benzene and microparticulates. The fuel we burn was laid down over millions of years. At present rates of consumption we will release oxides of carbon trapped over millions of years in less than two human lifetimes - a geologically insignificant period. Earth's ecosystem is large and adaptable, but poorly adapted to dealing with fluctuations of this magnitude. Car exhausts are the major source of nitrogen oxide pollution, which goes on to become nitric acid and low-level ozone in the atmosphere, the dreaded photochemical smog which plagues Los Angeles.

So, what is the extent of pollution emitted by cars? Cars are not the primary source of air pollution in the UK, they are responsible for about 25% of the UK's CO2 emissions. Some people take that as meaning that it's not worth trying to tackle car pollution until all other sources have been addressed. This is the same argument the USA uses to resist energy efficiency measures - they say other countries are worse. I don't know about you but there isn't much I can personally do to change American energy efficiency or pollution from power stations, but there is something I can do to reduce pollution emitted by my car. Think global, act local.

The precise extent of the effect of motor vehicle pollution on the environment will always be a matter for some conjecture, but it's very noticeable that the only ones saying it's insignificant seem to be the Global Climate Coalition - a body wholly funded by the oil industry. As in any area where scientists disagree it pays to read both sides of the argument and form a judgement. In my view the consequences of believing the wrong side makes the choice much easier. If we believe the climate change doomsayers and they are wrong, we will have saved some energy unnecessarily (engineers call this "efficiency"). If I believe the GCC and they are wrong, the climate on the planet could change to the extent that it threatens human life and civilisation. Tough call.

Why?
Why do I advocate cycling? Because I enjoy it, it saves me money, it saves me time, it's good for my health and it reduces my impact on the environment both locally and globally. You want me to keep quiet about that? I think not!

[1] SEP field: Somebody Else's Problem. An invention of the late Douglas Adams, from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.