As an economic journalist, I absolutely admire John Cassidy. He is one of the best economic writers I’m aware of. Few people can explain utterly complex issues as simply and entertainingly as John does. I wholeheartedly recommend his books on the internet bubble (“Dot Con – the greatest story ever sold”) and the financial crisis (“How markets fail : the logic of economic calamities”). I’ve cited his brilliant interview with Eugene Fama several times.
However, as an avid cyclist (from John’s perspective: as a sansculotte of the bicycle lobby), I’m deeply disappointed in him. He recently published a rant against bike lanes in his home town New York City on his blog “Rational Irrationality”. His central argument is that bike lanes come at the expense of free parking. (Many thanks to Andreas aka London Cyclist for drawing my attention to John’s post.)
What really annoys my inner economist is that John is using improper economic arguments. He writes:
from an economic perspective I question whether the blanketing of the city with bike lanes (…) meets an objective cost-benefit criterion. Beyond a certain point, given the limited number of bicyclists in the city, the benefits of extra bike lanes must run into diminishing returns, and the costs to motorists (and pedestrians) of implementing the policies must increase. Have we reached that point? I would say so.
I find it absolutely incredible how such a smart economist can get it so woefully wrong. For a number of reasons his economic arguments are deeply flawed.
Free parking isn’t free
First of all, John is taking free parking for granted. However, there is no such thing as free parking. As Donald Shoup, Professor of Urban Planning with UCLA, argues in his book “The High Cost of Free Parking”:
“The cost of parking is hidden in higher prices for everything else. In addition to the monetary cost, which is enormous, free parking imposes many other hidden costs on cities, the economy and the environment. (…) If drivers don’t pay for parking, who does? Everyone does, even if they don’t drive. Initially the developer pays for the required parking, but soon the tenants do, and then their customers, and so on, until the cost of parking has diffused everywhere in the economy. When we shop in a store, eat in a restaurant, or see a movie, we pay for parking indirectly because its cost is included in the prices of merchandise, meals, and theater tickets. We unknowingly support our cars with almost every commercial transaction we make because a small share of the money changing hands pays for parking. Residents pay for parking through higher prices for housing. Businesses pay for parking through higher rents for their premises. Shoppers pay for parking through higher prices for everything they buy.”
Update: The Washington Post has recently published an interesting piece on Washington’s Metrorail, which tries to encourage more people to use their bicycles to get to the station. The piece included some staggering numbers about the costs of parking:
Parking spaces cost on average $25,000 each, compared with $1,000 per space for a secured bike cage. “It’s an extremely expensive proposition for us” to expand car parking, [Kristin Haldeman, Metro’s manager of access planning] said.
Bike lanes are economically different from parking
You might ask yourself if those arguments also apply to bike lanes. Frankly, I don’t think so, because parking is a private good which the free market can easily provide. The same isn’t true for bike lanes. Parking has a market price (the going rate for one hour of parking in Manhattan around 9 am in the morning currently seems to be between $9 and $24. ) If there is high demand for parking in Manhattan private investors can knock down houses and build more multi storey-car park.
Unfortunately, however, the free market is not able to provide bike lanes in the same fashion. To a certain degree bike lanes are public goods.
If I use a parking pace, John cannot use it at the same time. However, if I was cycling on one of those malicious bike lanes John could do this as well simultaneously. (Of course, bike lanes ultimately have capacity constraints. At some point congestion would be an issue. However, it will take quite some time until they are going to bite. Cyclists need much less space on the street than cars, as this poster impressively shows)
The second criteria which defines a public good also applies for cycle paths: non-excludability. Nobody can be effectively excluded from using a bike lane. Hence, it is practically impossible to charge cyclists who are using them. This means that even if there is significant demand for bike lanes the private market won’t be able to deliver them.
From an economic perspective bike lanes are rather similar to interstate highways or paved roads.
Increasing Returns of Bike Lanes
John is suggesting that bike lanes have diminishing returns. I’m afraid this is another point he’s getting wrong. Quite the contrary is true. Bike lanes are probably characterised by increasing returns. Transport for London is using exactly this argument as a justification (see page 8 of this document) for the introduction of the so called “cycling superhighways” :
Seeing other cyclists undertaking a safe and direct journey to work is expected to attract people to start commuting by bike, or to cycle more often. The high visibility of the Barclays Cycle Superhighways is also likely to generate increased awareness and consideration of cyclists among different road users.
Update: This “bandwagon effect” probably isn’t the most important reason why cycle paths are characterised by increasing returns. Two economists idepentently drew my attention to another issue: network effects. “A few isolated bike lanes don’t help much if you still have to go through dangerous stretches on most trips”, Matthias Doepke (Northwestern University) wrote me. “Once there is a connected network, the attractiveness of biking goes up a lot. That’s where we are in Chicago now – good number of lanes, but no real network yet.”
Greg Ip, US economics editor with “The Economist” puts it this way: “Just as you are more likely to buy an Ipad the more applications it has, you are more likely to switch from car to bicycle the more bicycle lanes (and therefore destinations reachable by bicycle) are available. Doubling the number of bike lanes more than doubles the number of cyclists likely to use them.” They are both absolutely right - I’ve missed this point.
The number of cyclists is not exogenous
Another key pillar of his arguments is that there is just no demand for bike lanes in NYC.
When I drive up and down Third Avenue, as I do often, what I usually see are cars and trucks inching along in single file (it’s a two-way street) with an empty bike lane next to them. (On those rare occasions when I do happen across a cyclist, or two, he or she invariably runs the red lights.)
At first sight this is true. Only 1% of NYC citizens currently commute to work by bicycle. Nonetheless, John does not have a point here. He is treating the number of cyclists as exogenously given. I’m sure that this is a fallacy. In Amsterdam, for example, 22% of all journeys are being done by bike. Even here in Central London in morning peakthe ratio of bikes to private cars is now 1 to 3. (Felix Salmon makes a similar point.)
This is neither due to a biking gene nor to Amsterdam or London being flatter or less rainy than NYC. It’s due to cycling infrastructure as well as a different cycling culture.
Both things don’t have to be taken for granted. They can be influenced by policy.
Hence the whole argument boils down to one simple political question: Should the government promote cycling?
This is a normative question which cannot be answered using economic arguments.
My personal opinion as a citizen is: Yes, of course. The private and social benefits of cycling are impressive (the health benefits are nicely summarised by UK’s Cyclists Touring Club) and it’s obvious that cycling is carbon neutral. (Update: Problably I was overrating the emission effect, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation I’ve published on my cycling blog suggests.) Paradoxically, even car drivers are benefiting from cycling (more cyclists mean fewer cars and less competition for parking spaces). (Felix Salmon with Reuters makes a similar point here . Other good replies to John come from Ryan Avent (“The Economist”) and Adam Sternbergh (“New York Times”).
I have to accept that John apparently has a different political view on cycling than I have. However, I’m don’t think it’s fair that he disguises his political opinions with flawed economic arguments.
P.S.: John, the next time you happen to be in London I would love to convince you how much fun cycling in a big city can be. I’d love to pay for rented cycle and show you around by bike. Afterwards I’d invite you for dinner. And don’t worry, I won’t take you to “Look Mum no hands”. Just drop me an email [o dot storbeck at gmail dot com] in advance.
P.P.S: This is probably one of the very few posts I’ll publish on my econ blog as well as on my cycling blog…
Update: In case you’re interesting in traffic issues you might find my post “Why new roads do not alleviate congestion” interesting. I discuss a fascinating paper entitled “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities” which has been recently published in the “American Economic Review”.
Update regarding cycling safety: I’ve just published a post on the topic “Cycling in London – How dangerous is it?” on my cycling blog. There I present a spreadsheet and a map with information on 58 fatal cycling accidents in London since 2006.
Maybe Cassidy can get it so wrong because economics is as much about the economist’s personal opinions as it is about the data. He just doesn’t like bicycle commuters and found data to support his view.
Good write up. I really hope this trend of increasing cycling infrastructure takes off in more areas because it really makes economic sense for a lot of lower class Americans. If we could convince all those wal-mart employees working full time but only making $1000 a month to not pay a quarter of their take home salary towards a car and instead simply commute by bike, we could really raise some standards of living! (not to mention shrink some waist lines.)
Anyways, I just wanted to point out that cycling isn’t carbon neutral. Food calories are pretty carbon intensive to produce, and while biking is more efficient then walking or driving, it still incurs a cost. I tried to work it out in comparison to light electric vehicles, but my math isn’t so great.
Thanks for joining the discussion!
@ Tom: I think your’re absolutely right. That’s what annoys me most: He is disguising his personal opinions using flawed economic arguments.
@ Shelby: Technically, you`re right. While cycling we’re burning calories and food production comes with carbon emissions.
In February and April 2001 the British “A to B” magazine http://www.atob.org.uk/ (which I highly recommend) digged into this issue. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to get access to their content on the internet but I’ll summarise the main points:
-Prashant Vaze estimates in his book “The Economical Environmentalist” http://www.economicalenvironmentalist.co.uk/ that cycling (10mph) produces 82 grams of CO2 per passenger kilometer. (Long haul flights: 345g, average petrol car [driver only] 172g, jogging: 172g, bus: 95 g , tube: 50 g, high speed train: 27g]. If he is right, cycling is much more carbon efficient than car driving but less efficient than taking the tube or catching a train.
- A reader took issue with these calculations. He made a reference to the book “Bicycling Science” by Whitt and Wilson and argued that 10g of CO2 per km seems more reasonable for cycling.
- in a repy to this letter the “A to B” editor made the most important point,
from my point of view: a human is more like a steam enginge than en electric motor – we require a constant low level of stoking, wether watchen TV or struggling with a 1:6 hill on a bike. “If over stoked while resting – something we’ve all done – the body will simply lay the surplus energy down as fat. Excercise won’t necessarily result in any extra food consumption, because the body will simply burn some unsightly fat reserves rather than fresh food.”
This is why I think is legitimate to argue that cycling is basically carbon neutra.
- Another comment with regard to your first point: I absoluety agree that cycling saves you lot of money from a medium to long term perspective. But I don’t think it makes sense to advertise it primarily as a thing for poor people. I also don’t agree that the Wal Mat employees are the main issue – it’s all those people driving to Wal Mart by car. (I’ve recently described an alternative in my cycling blog: http://cyclingintelligence.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/weekend-shopping-brompton-style/)
Cheers
Olaf
Possibly the best post in all of Cassidy-on-cycling (save Aaron Naparstek’s original reply rant).
But, if you’re going to go the food generates carbon route, you’ve got to set a valid benchmark. Should we be comparing someone who commutes by bike 30-60 minutes a day with someone whose calorie consumption doesn’t include a similar amount of exercise? A and B, with the only difference being how they commute?
In light of government encouragement of exercise around the globe, that doesn’t make much sense. We should compare calorie consumption for two people who are both getting 30-60 minutes of exercise, with the commuting cyclist getting his during his commute.
Here in the US, the second comparison would expose yet more carbon reduction. There are a ton of people who drive to the gym to get their daily allotment of exercise. By biking to work, not only is a cycling commuter not driving to work, she’s not driving to the gym.
When He (my owner, that is) used to live in the East Bronx, He bicycle-commuted to the West side of Manhattan for several years. He told me, “I didn’t need no stinkin’ bike lanes.” Bike lanes are not needed for bicycle commuting; they are useless for serious cycling; but they are great for recreational cycling. He’s not against all bike lanes everywhere. He likes the ones on the Hudson River. He likes the traffic reorganization of Times Square, which supplied large pedestrian areas as well as (nearly totally unused) bike lanes. He likes recent regulations which require office buildings to allow bicycle commuters to bring their bikes into their offices. That will increase bicycle ridership much more than providing bike lanes.
Arguments about the value of “free” parking and what entrepreneurs can accomplish is advanced in ignorance of several facts. Parking is expensive in Manhattan because there is so little unpaid (OK, it’s not free) parking. Furthermore, the city strongly limits the amount of parking available. When building a new building, there is a maximum number of parking spots that the City allows developers to create in an associated garage. You would think that they would allow a high number, or not even mandate a cap, to keep cars off the street and allow drivers to warehouse their cars except for the rare vacation trip out of the city… but no. These sorts of policies are insane, it seems to Him. The argument about what entrepreneurs can do in this regard is advanced in ignorance of such regulations.
Bicycle riding is its own reward. Before email and FAX, we used to have hundreds of bicycle messengers riding around midtown Manhattan all the time. They didn’t need stinkin’ bike lanes either. Despite the absence of bike lanes, bicycle ridership has been increasing. “Build it and they will come” is more appropriate guidance for entrepreneurs than for public policy. It is correct that entrepreneurs likely cannot create bike lanes, but of course they can increase demand for cycling in other ways. But just because entrepreneurs cannot do it does not means somebody else (like the City) should. It does not need to be done at all in advance of demand.
In fact, the City has responded to demand, going back many years to when Central Park was first made unavailable to vehicular traffic for much of the day in order to allow unimpeded recreational (including cycling) use of the roadways.
The policy of “Let them come and then we will build it” seems to Him more appropriate to public policy than the converse. Of course, iOAD (“i’m Only A Dog”), but i agree.
He (your owner) was quite an early adopter with regards to cycle-commuting. Congratulations! As with other goods and services pioneers tend to be very different than later users on the mass market. Take computers as an example: In the late 80s the first PC users did not neet a graphical user interface. My dad even today argues that it is not really necessary for serious work. In fact, many things on the computer are easier and quicker if you know keyboard short cuts.
I think a similar argument applies to professionals like bike messengers: They have rather different needs and preferences than private users. (When I’m cycling on my road bike in Germany, quite often I don’t use the fantastic cycle paths as well because if you want ride very fast that’s not the most appropriate place to be. )
However, a technology will only make it to the mass market if it is really easy to use and accessible for ordinary guys. Apple and their products are a case in point: They take an existing innovation like MP3 players and design a fantastic product which caters to the mass market.
With regards to getting more people on the bike, safty concerns turn out to be a major obstacle. Riding a bike in a city like NYC or London is consideres unsafe by a large number of people. “Isn’t it dangerous?” is by far the most frequent question I’m being asked by anybody when the topic comes on cycling in London. For sure, decent cycle paths are not the golden bullet but they can alleviate these safety concers.
P.S. Have you evern been cycled with Him? Being carried in a dog trailer must be great fun!
No. He says it’s too dangerous.
But i wonder if it’s more dangerous than being taken for a stroll along the Hudson River walking path, which in many place is shared by roller bladers, runners and, of course, cyclists.
On network effects; yes. That’s why He thinks bike paths are worthless for commuting. He doubts that we will see the phase transition to a multiply connected, low-resistance network in NYC within the lifetime of readers of this blog. In Amsterdam, bike paths evolved organically, he imagines, and He still prefers this model.
By the way, He thinks that there is yet another collective effect beyond network and bandwagon. It works in the other direction. Namely, the more bike riders there are on the streets, the more used drivers become to seeing them and the safer cycling becomes on the shared road. He once bought a bike at the Amsterdam flea market and rode it to Paris. (He hastens to add that this was probably *before* the lifetime of most readers of this blog.) There were no bike paths in Paris, but drivers were used to seeing cyclists; hence, it was less dangerous than in NY, even though the streets were more crowded and drivers drove faster.
Thus, the more we isolate bike riders to paths, the more dangerous the streets become for cyclists, and the more indignant drivers become when bike riders occupy “their” space. (“Hey, kid, get on the goddam bike path!”) Bike paths create a grotesque sense of entitlement in the minds of both cyclists and drivers, and outraged sense of entitlement and consequent protection of what is regarded as one’s own turf against interlopers is a great social danger. He thinks sharing is a better model. (Then again, he came of age in the ’60s….)
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@SamAdamsTheDog
“In Amsterdam, bike paths evolved organically”
Uh…what?…I’m not even sure what that means. I think they were designed and built by public planners. Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and the other big bicycling cities were not known for large percentage of cyclists until fairly recently. What changed was that the local officials pursued a conscious policy to encourage cycling including bike specific infrastructure. It didn’t happen with magic European fairy dust as many believe.
On your other points you are on firmer ground. However, I think you’re confusing bike paths with bike lanes. It can be argued that fully separated paths fail to force auto and bike traffic to deal with each and don’t induce the other “familiarity” network effect you mention. On street bike lanes are generally accepted to not have that problem (though this is mostly anecdotal). But it is worth noting that accidents per mile ridden are down significantly in NY as the number of cyclists increase (as is true nearly everywhere that cycling increases.) While that doesn’t prove that bike lanes help or hurt the effect, it does seem pretty clear they are contributing to the overall increase in cycling.
He admits to not knowing the history of bike lanes in Europe, which is why he stated that he “imagined” they grew organically. But that was not a good way to put it, either. He suspects that they were built by government in response to widespread use of bicycles, rather than proactively to encourage such use. He’s in favor of the reactive model, as when NYC restricted use of roads in Central Park in response to intensive use of the road by runners and cyclists.
He disagrees with your point of view on bike paths vs. bike lanes. He thinks it is just the opposite. Drivers don’t complain when bikes are out of sight and out of mind (bike paths). They complain when bike lanes take up space that they previously could use (bike lanes). He sees no reason why bikes and cars shouldn’t share the same space, as they have up to now….
…and still do. He walks about 8 blocks along Broadway between the ’50s and Times Square at least once a day. There is a bike lane there — which is actually a bike path, since it’s separated from the roadway by a pedestrian mall. Both take up space that as previously accessible to cars. He has never, ever, seen a bike rider in the bike lane. He does see the occasional bike rider in the roadway. They’re voting with their, umm, wheels. They don’t seem to need no stinkin’ bike lanes….
If cycle paths are a good thing or not is an old and contentious issue in the cycling community. David Hembrow is making some interesting points in his blog. I think he is getting it mostly right.
Among other things he is describing the history of cycle paths in the Netherlands:
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/06/attitude-towards-cycling-infrastructure.html
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/reality-vs-myth-dangers-of-dutch-cycle.html
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/09/junction-design-for-safer-cycling.html
For brushing up His knowledge about cycling in Europe, He might also find this paper interesting: “Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany” by John Pucher and Ralph Buehler, Rutgers University.
Their key conclusion is:
“The key to achieving high levels of cycling appears to be the provision of separate cycling facilities along heavily travelled roads and at intersections, combined with traffic calming of most residential neighbourhoods.
Extensive cycling rights of way in the Netherlands,
Denmark and Germany are complemented by ample bike parking, full integration with public transport, comprehensive traffic education and training of both cyclists and motorists, and a wide range of promotional events intended to generate enthusiasm and wide
public support for cycling.
In addition to their many pro-bike policies and programmes, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany make driving expensive as well as inconvenient in central cities through a host of taxes and restrictions on car ownership, use and parking.”
http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/Irresistible.pdf
Here is a great video, which explains a bit more about the Dutch cycling history. It is not new at all, it just had a dip in the 60′ and 70s, but then the roads were reclaimed. Now The Netherlands has 29,000km of separate cycle lanes. (about 17,000 miles). And the country is only 200×100 miles small (of which a large part is actually water)..
Thanks for the mention, Olaf.
Cycling slumped pretty steeply in the Netherlands after the second world war, just like everywhere else as the car became dominant in the thinking of planners and politicians as well as the public. During this period, cycle paths were removed in some parts of the country to make more room for cars.
It was only the 1970s, after a series of public demonstrations, that the bicycle came into favour again. After this time there was government support for cycling, and enough funding to make it work.
Experiments were undertaken across the country, notably in Houten. This was the time of the Dutch equivalent of the “Cycling Demonstration Town”. Much work was put in, and many solutions to problems were found – and virtually all of this work has been ignored by the rest of the world.
One of the most important things found was that cycle paths had a positive effect on cycling levels only when they were of a good enough quality and close enough together to form a grid. Time and time again I’ve seen cities around the world put in tokenistic infrastructure which is neither of sufficient quality nor sufficiently tied together as a network (commonly there will be a path along a disused railway, an easy place to put it but not necessarily one which means it joins together parts of many peoples’ journeys) and then there is surprise that this doesn’t result in a “cycling revolution”.
The results of the Dutch research have formed the basis for all development across the country ever since. We’ve examples in Assen.
It’s taken over thirty years to get this far, but it’s been a continual process. Even twenty years ago things already looked pretty good.
Finally, I must point out that the links you suggested before all contain work by my friend and co-writer on the blog, Mark Wagenbuur.
Mr. Hembrow raises the very critical point that isolated bike infrastructure typically achieves very little. You need a network of lane/paths to really stimulate uptake of cycling. As well as all the other ancillary ammenities. This is a major issue in technical terms, but also in public opinion matters. As with Sam Adams the Dog complaint about a path that never gets used in NY. His compaint is common and not invalid, “they built it and no one uses it.” It is hard for politicians & planners to say “we’re going to build something, but it won’t do much until we build a bunch of other stuff over the next few years.”
There are also serious planning implications from this. What we’re seeing in Los Angeles (and I assume a lot of places) is that the city is beginning to seriously invest in lanes/paths. But they tend to spread them out all over the city in the “easy” spots so you end up with a completely un-interconnected system. While there are more and more lanes, it’s almost impossible not to spend a large amount of time out of bike lanes when you travel even short distances. I suspect we would be better served by focusing on a core district, build a good interconnected network, and then expand out. Another fallout from a poor network is that cyclists must retain their “road warrior” riding style since they will have to still spend a fair amount of time on roads that really don’t suit them well. I think this contributes to Sam Adams the Dog’s other compalint that cyclists ride in the street instead of in the lane. A 1/2 mile lane is more inconvenience that help when you ahve to ride 2 miles on either end in traffic. So many jsut don’t use them. NY also has a notoriously agressive riding culture that is changing very slowly.
At last! Someone who untdersands! Thanks for posting!
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Yes…
We get the “we don’t need bike lanes: there’s no cyclists” argument here as well, and no it doesn’t seem to apply to roads. When confronted with the situation in say, Freiburg, our local politicians wave it off with the comment “They have a different philosophy there”.
I notice you haven’t even begun to touch on the external factors like health care costs -for drivers and other citizens- and damage to the fabric of a city caused by vehicular traffic. Or is that a follow-up post?
That’s really intesting comment, Andy. As you might have already guessed, I’m a rather serious cyclist. I’m increasingly getting upset how motorists are being priviliged by policy makers (in this country it’s even worse than in Germany, to be honest) albeit cycling has significant health benefits, drivers clog roads pollute the environment, generate significant noise, kill pestrians and cyclists on an almost daily basis… You name it.
However, that’s not what this blog is about. Here, I’m writing about Economics and economic since, not on my personal views about the environment, cycling or whatever. (For cycling related issues, please have a look on my cycling blog “Cycling Intelligence”). I’ve picked up on Cassidy because he is exactly doing the opposite: I think he’s disguising his personal views about cars with (pseudo-) economic arguments and I’m trying to debunk his flawed arguments.
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One correction (Wikipedia is not always right
) : Amsterdam has a bicycle modal share of 55% (more bike than car movements since 2007) for the city within the ring road. For the entire metropole (including suburbs) it’s 40%. The Netherlands as a whole has a bike modal share of 27%.
Best,
Marc
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I don’t believe you have successfully countered the arguments presented by John Cassidy.
Free parking isn’t free
- Yes free parking isn’t free, and I agree that parking can be a private or public good and the cycling paths are a public only good. But bicycling lanes aren’t free either. Because they are a public good, they must be paid for by the public (local government). So the costs still exist, just that New Yorkers will have to pay to maintain it. In the end, I think it should be parking, just paid parking. The city will receive money to maintain the spot and the costs go straight to the consumer. The city could also charge parking at market instead of minimal rates. The city makes money to spend elsewhere and against costs go to the consumer. The problem with bike lanes is that it will never be profitable or pay for itself because it is a public good.
Increasing Returns of Bike Lanes
- “A few isolated bike lanes don’t help much if you still have to go through dangerous stretches on most trips”. In my opinion, you need to look at it from the other side. You need to invest lots of money into lots of bike lanes all over the city to get the “mass” of cyclists. It’s going to be the city that has to take a leap of faith that “if you build it, they will come”.
Those are the two main reasons why I believe you haven’t presented a successful argument. 1) Its a public good agreed, so the public has to still pay for it. Both still have diffused costs. Parking (not free) can be use to recoup costs. Biking lanes can never recoup costs 2) Bike lanes get better returns when there are more of them mean that, you need many of them to get people to bicycle. So you need lots of money to invest in it. Where does the money come from?
New York is different from Europe (London, Amsterdam) in that it hard to get government money to green light projects (let alone giant ones with visible delays to traffic). Look at how long it’s taking (note the tense) to get universal health care. Also, it snows a lot in New York. A cyclist’s viability is significantly reduced come winter time. There needs to be a stronger case for bike lanes for it to be accepted.
To show that I’m not all piss and vinegar (I’m mostly). I believe the resolution is to set better rules for how car traffic and bike traffic is to interact. Then you need enforcement of those rules and have a big campaign telling everyone what those rules are. Where I’m from, I see horrible problems between cyclists and motorists. I don’t think the solution is to separate them, but rather set good rules to have them interact safely. In the end, bikes and cars need to learn share the road.
That’s true. Economic theory has the answer to such a problem: The government has to provide public goods that society wants to have, like they do with roads and street lighting.
I think your’re vastly overestimating the costs for the building of cycling infrastructre. There’s an amazing expample from Portland, Oregon, one of the most cycling friendly cities in the U.S. and one with the highest share of cyclists. About 6% of all Portlanders commute to work by bike.
According the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), the replacement cost of Portland’s entire bikeway network (300 miles) are approximately $60 million (2008 prices). As they point out in a document: “This included every off-street path, every bicycle
lane, every bicycle signal and associated civil improvement made to create Portland’s network of bikeways.”
How do these $60 million compare to other infrastructure projects? Well, at first I could not believe the number myself, but this is that the PBOT document says: “That is roughly equivalent to the construction costs of one mile of urban freeway.”
Having a decent infrastructure for cycling really is ridiculously cheap!
Pretty much all economics is cherry picking. Sure, it may look smart to an uninitated observer, and it will make complicated interdepencies look simple (and even make a few people go “oh he makes something complex look simple, he must be very smart”).
But as you’ve witnessed, it never holds up to scrutiny. The first time you read an economic argument regarding something you actually know something about first hand, it is painfully obvious how it’s just pretending to be science on the surface.
There are a lot of comments here (opposing Olaf) which have been left by individuals who did not read the Seville Story–
it shows that you can dramatically increase cycling for less than the cost of a car parking garage.
This isn’t theory–it happened, and it happened in the last 5 years, in a city that had a far lower rate of cycling than NYC.
http://www.peopleforbikes.org/blog/entry/seville
On the sociological side of things, it’s amazing to me how worked up people can get about cyclists sharing roadways. Or how vehemently these people will oppose advocacy or legislation that has to do with cyclist-friendly infrastructure development.
Mr. Cassidy’s remarks remind me very much of opinions presented by many motorists who are openly aggravated by on-the-road cyclists. The extreme form of what he is representing through his arguments is the basis from which motorist harassment stems. Every cyclist has experienced this, with consequences that range from frightening to life-threatening.
It may be a bit out there, but when I’m riding to work and experiencing road rage from people who disagree with my use of the road, I’m reminded of racial or social bigotry. Instead of a skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or social class; discrimination is presented over a person’s choice of transportation, despite that person’s reasons, justifications, or rights.
I’m not suggesting that Mr. Cassidy openly taunts or impedes cyclists or cycling, nor that he is discriminatory. This is true of most people with his views. Ultimately what I’m trying to express is that Mr. Cassidy’s arguments reflect a dangerous mindset of 1) ignoring sound statistical information (as presented in the article) but also 2) failure in establishing a sound moral imperative over an issue relating to being accepting of someone’s lifestyle choices — choices that would happen to benefit society greatly if more people made them.
Thanks for the article, Olaf.
As someone who bikes to work in NYC, and got rid of my car, I have two things to add.
One is that he is absolutely right about cyclists ignoring traffic laws. Even as a cyclist I do not support these people asking for bike lanes. Not because I think bike lanes are not economical. But because you can bike on a road without them. All they do is increase safety. And when 90%+ of cyclists run red lights, it’s hypocritical for them to ask for more safety. Not to mention all the hipsters riding fixies and track bikes without brakes! The cops should stand at the end of the bridges and confiscate/impound every bike without brakes.
Also, even though I bike to work (when it’s warm) I only do so because of the bikes in buildings law. The real reason I don’t bike more often is theft. Even with a bike lane on every street, there will still be professional bike thieving rings in NYC. No lock is good enough to stop them. I never ride my bike somewhere if I will have to leave it unattended outside. I think secure bike parking will increase ridership more than bike lanes will.
Also, I would be very happy if there were just no cars at all. They should just ban all cars from the island of Manhattan except taxis, fire trucks, ambulances, police, delivery vehicles, city buses, construction, etc. All other cars should be forced to stay on the highways.
Good for you. I think that those dangerous cyclist are worsening the situation for all. All they do is help drivers as they can now point a finger at the fixies and use them as an example why bike lanes are a waste.
Cycling should become mainstream, which means, no crazy cyclists, no lycra and no helmets. Check Western Europe. When I lived in Amsterdam I saw thousands of people going to work, friends, restaurants and shopping on their bike. Not a single fixie, zero helmets, zero accidents and cyclist wear normal daily clothes. Including high-heeled women and people with fancy suits.
Theft is a problem as well, but all companies have safe indoor bike parking. Besides all Dutch have at least 2-3 bikes: one nice one to visit friends and go to work, one to go out and one for sports.
Also, everybody knows that it is simply faster on a bike. From the moment you leave your door, step on your bike until you arrive and park in one minute, you have saved about 20-80% of time compared with car commuting.
Which brings me back to the article: thanks for the write up. What I was missing is the economic costs of medical care for people that do not exercise. How many yards of bike lane can you make for one open heart surgery that can be prevented by cycling to work?
Also, space is not an issue. If you remove half the parking spots or even just one car lane in each direction, you will have enough space for thousands of daily bikes, including a space to park them. Next to Central Station in Amsterdam there is a 3-floor bike parking space which holds about 5000 bikes. These are all from commuters that go or come by train and it takes about 15×30 yards of space (3 stories).
Where would you possible leave 5000 cars instead?
Stating that 90% of cyclists run red lights is a bold statement, easily done when there’s no accountability.
Granted saying “when so many of the cyclists I see run red lights” it is hypocritical so for them to ask that they not be run down by hostile drivers yapping away on their cell phones” doesn’t have the same authoritative ring to it, but backing up your argument with a bogus statistical analysis doesn’t help your point either.
I absolutely agree to the point that cyclist have to obey the law like any other road user. I’m very annoyed by the fact that many fellow cyclists regular jump red lights (Admittedly, occasionally I do this do – very rarely but there are some weak moments…) and that “fixies” without any brake (or even with one proper brake) are insane and should be confiscated by the police. (I’d like to add cyclists who ride without lights in the dark to this list, by the way.)
However, I don’t see why these arguments should make a case against providing a better and safer infrastructure. A lot of car drives do not respect the speed limits (again, me being one of them, sometimes). However, it never occured to me that this could make a case against building highways?
I don’t share your argument for another reason. Jumping red lights is illegal and must not be done. One compelling reason is that cyclists are the weakest road users. We are the ones that have to loose the most if anarchy broke out on the streets and we rightly expect other road users to obey the law. Hence we have to do it ourselves as well. However, if you look at accident statistics, at least here in London jumping red lights very rarely leads to severe or fatal accidents. On my bike blog, I’m collecting detailed data about severe and fatal cycling accidents in London (see here). Since 2006, more than 80 cyclists died on London’s roads. However, very very rarely press reports mentioned that cyclists had jumped a red light. (And believe me, the tabloids here were more than happy to make a fuss about such misconduct.) The most important source of death for cyclists are lorries that make left turns. Sometimes, they pass cyclists immediately before they make a turn, sometimes cyclists are trying to undertake them at junctions.
I perfectly understand your worries about bike theft. This is a nightmare in London, too. Have you ever considered using a folding bicycle? The theft issue vanished within a fraction of a second. You just take the bike everywhere you go. I’ve been the happy owner of a Brompton for almost two years. This wounderful device folds into a parcel of the size of a small suitcase within 15 seconds and rides amazingly well (I even cycled from London to Paris on my Brompton a few months ago.) I wrote several posts about the bike (see here).
The fact that some cyclists run red lights is another infrastructure consideration, as there are actual safety reasons for doing so.
1) This allows the cyclist to avoid acceleration competitions with traffic.
2) Some lights change based on sensing traffic, and usually bikes aren’t large enough to trigger these sensors.
Bike lanes would help 1, more bike-friendly traffic-light design would help 2.
Excellent article, thanks.
Let me add my personal experience: I’ve lived most of my life in Santiago, Chile, and here we have almost no bike lanes, hence very few people ride their bikes anywhere (I don’t even own a bike here, because I don’t like riding between the cars, especially with drivers who are not used to having bikers around, which makes it pretty dangerous).
In contrast, when I was living in San Francisco and in Berkeley, I had a bike, and I used to ride it everywhere. That’s because there were quite a lot of people riding their bikes, and because there were enough bike lanes to get around.
I believe there is a sort of ‘if you build it they will come’ mentality to making bike lanes in NYC. Sure there were cyclists before NYC put down any bike lanes, but they were the “daredevil” variety, and NYC is trying to attract the mainstream “everyday” cyclist. And to do that they need safety. They need infrastructure.
In terms of cost there there are two things cycling has, health and maintenance. The roads of NYC are beat and it’s all from cars and trucks. Calculate the cost of a repave and compare that to the minimal damage from bikes. And the health issue, getting people active should help keep our skyrocketing health care down and lower the emissions we are all inhaling. A few parking spots and some paint is a worthwhile investment.
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I’m a bit of a cyclist myself and blogged about it here: http://thejessicaness.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/sweatin-on-a-schwinn/
I believe riding in the street (whether there is a bike lane or not) is mostly safer where I live in Florida than riding on the sidewalks where cars are even less likely to care to look for any other traffic they might collide with. I abide by bicycle laws and it’s cars that run red lights, stop signs, and reverse in intersections that have come the closest to putting a damper on my biking abilities. I believe cyclists and pedestrians should show that they can respect intersection laws and that the cities should take more interest in educating other drivers, people that may occupy the bike lane or sidewalk, and the authorities in charge of keeping all the citizens safe. I’m a huge fan of Casey Neistat, a fellow cyclist, who lives in NYC. Here is a video he made with his concern:
As bikes lanes attract more cyclists, cycling gets safer because for cyclists, there is strength in numbers. A driver might overlook one cyclist whose lights happen to be broken, but he won’t overlook ten of them.
Says another cyclist from London who gets to work quicker on a bike than by bus, let alone a car.
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All of the above appear to leave out the value of the pavement, previously used for traffic, that is reallocated for bicycles. In many places, a street with 4 traffic lanes drops to 2 lanes when a bicycle lane is added on each side. The value of these 2, now not available for motor vehicle, lanes must be considered in any economic analysis.
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Living in Los Angeles I have to say that there actually is no such thing as free parking (for the most part) in the city. Most parking is metered and in my residential area it’s by permit only. If you want to have guests over you actually need to buy a guest permit from city hall. Parking seems to be a money maker here. However. I agree with the poster above that we could really raise the standard of living for lower income individuals if they would bike instead of drive.
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