Bicycle – Advantages

Bicycles – Advantages

Want to improve your health, brighten your day and lessen air pollution in one easy step? Ride a bike! I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Buehler: For many governments, it’s an inexpensive way to provide transportation infrastructure.

According to Urban planner Ralph Buehler, there are many advantages for us to encourage bicycle riding particularly in cities.

Buehler: Striping a roadway for a bike lane or providing a separate cycle track is much cheaper than providing a highway interchange, big roadways, or even a public transport system. For individuals, just getting regular physical activity by cycling around town at normal speeds about 10 to 30 minutes a day will prolong your healthy life expectancy, and many studies have shown that. There are many more societal reasons. If fewer people go to work by car, you’ll have less traffic congestion because bicycles use less space on the roadway. Fewer people in cars means less tailpipe emissions. It’s not just the local air pollution, but also global air pollution.
And then, if you are thinking about saving money, maybe, bicycling is quite an inexpensive way of getting around, compared to owning one, two, or even three automobiles per household. You may just need one car and can save the money for owning and operating that second or third car.
When we look back at the history of US cities, streets used to be full of people, pedestrians, cyclists and then, the car came along and needed that space as a transportation space to move through. So we dedicate a lot of our public space in cities for the movement or storage of automobiles. By walking and cycling more, we can take back some of that space as a living space for people, versus a space that’s used for movement or storage of cars.

Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.

Bicycle - Advantages

Want to improve your health, brighten your day and lessen air pollution in one easy step?
Air Date:01/19/2015
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Bicycles - Advantages

Want to improve your health, brighten your day and lessen air pollution in one easy step? Ride a bike! I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.

Buehler: For many governments, it's an inexpensive way to provide transportation infrastructure.

According to Urban planner Ralph Buehler, there are many advantages for us to encourage bicycle riding particularly in cities.

Buehler: Striping a roadway for a bike lane or providing a separate cycle track is much cheaper than providing a highway interchange, big roadways, or even a public transport system. For individuals, just getting regular physical activity by cycling around town at normal speeds about 10 to 30 minutes a day will prolong your healthy life expectancy, and many studies have shown that. There are many more societal reasons. If fewer people go to work by car, you'll have less traffic congestion because bicycles use less space on the roadway. Fewer people in cars means less tailpipe emissions. It's not just the local air pollution, but also global air pollution.
And then, if you are thinking about saving money, maybe, bicycling is quite an inexpensive way of getting around, compared to owning one, two, or even three automobiles per household. You may just need one car and can save the money for owning and operating that second or third car.
When we look back at the history of US cities, streets used to be full of people, pedestrians, cyclists and then, the car came along and needed that space as a transportation space to move through. So we dedicate a lot of our public space in cities for the movement or storage of automobiles. By walking and cycling more, we can take back some of that space as a living space for people, versus a space that's used for movement or storage of cars.

Pulse of the Planet is made possible in part by Virginia Tech, inventing the future through a hands-on approach to education and research.