a story that we all know, that a bicycle is the most efficient form of transportation, it's benefits exceeds it's risk (not that it's risky anyway) and another study that shows money invested in cycling infrastructure returns more than invested.

I know of one other study that originated in Europe that said (almost) the same thing (it said the return was 5 times investment), but this one was done in Sydney.

* also, nice shorts in the pic!*

active links in the original article

World's most energy efficient transport

BY WARREN MCLAREN

ABC Environment | 17 MAR 2011



The humble bicycle is the most energy efficient transport ever devised, yet government funds to support it in Australia are running dry.

Susan Anthony, a prominent 19th Century anti-slavery and women rights advocate once decreed the bicycle had "done more to emancipate women then anything else in the world." What Susan would make of humankind's current enslavement by automobile.

We are ensnared by cars. Australia ranks fourth in the world by motor vehicles per capita, 619 vehicles per 1,000 people. Last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said we had 16 million registered motor vehicles, including motor cycles. Roughly a motor vehicle available for every Australian able to sit a driver's licence test.

In a society so saturated with cars, one may wonder how we might ever unshackle ourselves from the addiction. Withdrawal symptoms are imminent. Without the magical elixir of petroleum most of us would grind to a sudden holt. Yet oil is a finite fossil fuel and global production of the stuff has been in decline for the past 15 years, whilst demand increases. Some studies suggest demand will outstrip supply by about 2015.

The World Resources Institute calculated just shy of 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions result from road transport, a figure that mostly tallies with the Australian experience, where, for example, Queensland estimates that road travel in that state accounts for 12 per cent of their greenhouse gas total. Nationally, the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics conclude that our "passenger car fleet will remain the single largest contributor to total sector emissions," predicting it will be around 47 per cent of 2020 domestic transport output (pdf).

Riding steadfastly into these storm clouds is the unassuming bicycle. Not that folk such as the environmental think tank, the Sightline Institute see the push bike as really so humble. In their view, the bicycle is, "the most energy-efficient form of travel ever devised." They reckon that, "Pound for pound, a person on a bicycle expends less energy than any creature or machine covering the same distance."

Not only is the treadly mankind's most effective means of transport, it's also often the swiftest. In commuter races held across the globe, all modes of transport compete against one another; car, bicycle, train, bus, even helicopter. Often the first person to arrive across the metropolis at Point B is the bod aboard the bike. Even TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson had to lament, "You've killed Top Gear," when a bicycle ridden by one of the program's fellow presenters finished a London commuter race 15 minutes ahead of all other transport modes, including a speedboat.

With so much going for it, why is the bicycle so commonly dismissed as a form of personal transport? Well, there is the issue of propulsion. Someone has to push those pedals, and for many that is simply too much exercise. Although as Minna, in the ABC's TV drama, Bed of Roses, discovered, electric bikes help solve this concern.

But is a little exercise really such a big ask, when well over half of our citizens are classified as overweight or obese? A study by Melbourne University found that due to increased health of cyclists, the Australian public health service was spared an estimated $227 million annually. Getting 'on ya bike' might just save your life.

AusRoads, the association of Australian and New Zealand roads authorities acknowledges the significant benefits of cycling commuting, stating that not only do bicycles impose 95 per cent less traffic congestion than an average car, but if we were to shift a mere five per cent of car trips to bicycle, greenhouse gas emission impacts could reduce by up to eight per cent. Hence the goal of the National Cycling Strategy to double the number of Australians cycling by 2016 (pdf).

It is true that there are risks involved in cycle commuting, but they need to be considered within context. The above noted Melbourne Uni study also revealed that you're seven times more likely to be hospitalised playing football than riding a bike. In 2008 1,242 Australian drivers, passengers and motor cyclists died in road traffic accidents, compared to 27 cyclists. While there are less cyclists on the road than car drivers, the precise ratio is a hard figure to verify. But as of 2009, bicycles outsold motor vehicles in Australia, a feat they've managed for the previous 10 consecutive years (pdf).

That's not to belittle the real dangers inherent in cycling, but it's not as risky as first imagined.

If we could safely segregate 14 kilogram bicycles from 1,500 kg passenger cars with more sensibly designed and located cycleways, cycling would be even safer. Yet the Commonwealth's $40 million National Bike Paths Project Fund runs dry in June 2011. A study (pdf) commissioned by City of Sydney Council shows that for every dollar spent on an inner city regional bicycle network, Sydney would gain almost four dollars in net economic benefit. A saving of $506 million over 30 years. Such a network is predicted to reduce Sydney's traffic congestion by 4.3 million car trips a year.

Surely a top up is needed for the National Bike Paths Project Fund to free us from our bondage to the automobile and allow the health, environment and economic advantages to unfold.

Warren McLaren is an ecodesign consultant, who writes for the international sustainability solutions blog, TreeHugger.com

Here's the link from the other article that cites data that shows,

the majority of the north american population will never buy the environmental argument in favor of cycling

but they do acknowledge bicycles do not pollute and riding them makes one healthier

I just don't get why they think people on bikes create traffic chaos and building infrstructure for them is unaffordable

This factoid comes up again and again, but really, it's only true for certain ways of measuring efficiency. If you're measuring the energy expended to move a person one mile on an already existing flat road and bicycle, yes, it beats just about everything, even simply walking.

If there is no road or no bicycle (i.e. they have to be built or otherwise procured, or the human is going somewhere where there is no road or path), or the road is broken up or super hilly or something ... then it's not so clear.

OK but most transportation needs of the masses involve relatively smooth roads... where bikes beat anything else hands down.

They actually do fine on poor roads.

I too don't buy the bicycle as the most efficient form of transit. I'm pretty sure an e-bike wins that. And, actually, a long passenger train operating at 15mph probably beats that.

Not that this matters.

Walking is more efficient in many ways and situations -- especially when the distances are really small, there is no room to store the bicycle (or infrastructure to maintain it) or there is no road.

Mechanized transport of some sort often beats biking in other situations with other criteria.

We all repeat this factoid, and there is truth to it, but it does warrant more critical thought than it's normally given. And yes, not that this matters.

funny how people get all bent out of shape about the costs of infrastructure.

When Vancouver put in the Hornby bike lane many people said 3.2 million was too much to pay, but 3.2 million pays for 1 left hand turn bay on a major roadway in town. No one complained about the costs of those.

Funny too how this is Australia, where a helmet law was passed on the basis of cycling safety. Now people down under are saying cycling isn't dangerous, which is what the law opponents were saying all along

Here's a study produced by the Australian Government that says,

A bicycle's performance, in both biological and mechanical terms, is extraordinarily efficient. In terms of the amount of energy a person must expend to travel a given distance, investigators have calculated it to be the most efficient self-powered means of transportation.[1]

You're probably underestimating muscle efficiency and overestimating that of power generation.

I don't think it's physically possible that an ebike is more efficient than a normal bike. You take two otherwise identical bikes, one is operated physically, directly from the energy source (legs). The other is operated by a motor that's less efficient than the muscles in the legs, run from a battery that loses energy (in the form of heat) as it discharges, through a controller that heats up as it runs, the batteries heated up again as they were charged, by a charger that lost heat as it worked, running from power that heated up the transmission lines back to the substation where heat was lost, through more heated transmission lines and back to the power plant where more losses occurred.

The efficiency measurement of the muscles gets an unfair but unavoidable advantage from the fact that most of the base maintenance level of inefficiency is going to be paid anyway, because the person is alive whether they're riding a bike or riding an ebike.

Add in the fact that the more you ride, the more efficient you become, because your body becomes more and more efficient at using fuel the more fit it becomes.

Measurements based on how much Big Macs cost per calorie versus gasoline are kind of bogus IMO, we're talking about efficiency of movement versus calorie input here.

A lot of the efficiency of a bike comes from the fact that you can coast a lot of the time, so it depends a lot on the riding style of the rider. The faster the rider goes, the less efficient they will be since they're fighting air resistance which increases (I think exponentially, as a square?) as speed increases. I'd guess peak efficiency is probably at around 12 to 15 MPH on a diamond frame bike, probably higher in more aerodynamic setups.

Muscles are about 20% efficient. Good quality electric motors peak at around 95% efficient (but their efficiency suffers somewhat when they're not run in exactly the right way.) Your muscles lose energy in the form of heat too ... you have noticed that you sweat when riding hard, right?

If you're going to count all the losses in the entire supply chain for electricity, you should also count all the losses in the supply chain for food -- and they're a lot worse than the electrical grid. And it gets so much worse if you eat meat.

The 20% I quoted is just for actively used muscles -- not keeping them alive or keeping you alive. If you include that, the efficiency drops (but of course, an athlete becomes more efficient than somebody else, as they can produce more mechanical energy while using more food/energy to power their muscles and the same energy to keep them alive.)

I don't think becoming fit changes the efficiency (i.e. converting chemical energy into motion) of your muscles significantly, but of course losing weight will make you require less food to keep you alive and indeed less energy to move you from place A to B.

Well, if we are, then the electric bike beats human powered bikes hands down -- 85% efficient (real world) vs. 20% efficient.

Big Macs aren't a very efficient form of energy -- transport of the food and the meat really lowers the efficiency. Some sort of vegetable -- potatoes? -- would give nicer values, and even that is really really low if you look at the entire chain.

It depends on how you're measuring efficiency. Are you including the energy needed to keep the human alive? If not, the speed for peak efficiency (looking only at energy used per mile) is a good deal lower than that, probably as slow as you can go without having problems balancing. The only reason humans like 12-15 mph so much is that that is about as fast as most can easily maintain. To put this in perspective ... if 15 mph requires 100 watts on flat ground with no wind, 7.5 mph probably requires less than 20 watts (air resistance is proportional to speed cubed, and rolling resistance is proportional to speed.)

I stand by my original statement ... it depends on how you define efficiency, on what you're measuring. In some situations, the bike wins. In others, walking. In others (especially if time is factored in somehow) ... motorized transport will win. I think in most cases when somebody says "bikes are the most efficient!" -- they haven't even really fully thought about what they're saying.

well, in the case of the article, it's titled

I don't think that's wrong, and in terms of getting around in a city, the article correctly says,

so I think in terms of the article saying, "bikes are the most efficient!" isn't too much of a stretch

To be fair, such races typically use extreme cases -- it's basically rigged. We [the readers in general, not cyclists specifically] are supposed to think that the car will win with it's increased speed, and we're supposed to root for the "underdog", but they've come up with a situation where being able to bypass traffic (usually by breaking the law repeatedly) will let the bike win by a small margin. But your average cyclist probably couldn't reproduce the results.

In Austin, getting from one end of the city to another, a car is a good deal faster than a bike in almost all cases. A bike does win big in cases when roads are closed for special events and you can't park anywhere near where you're going, however.

the article talks about being "ensnared by cars" and being, "in a society so saturated with cars" so talking about the application of bicycles in these conditions as being more efficient and swift in comparison seems fair. It's not talking about Kansas.

I'm fortunate enough to live in an area that has seen almost non-stop growth in the 40 years I've been here. In that time, along with the growth, traffic has noticeably changed, so much so that a trip that would once have been quicker in a car than a bike has become slower than the bike.

Luckily, city council has recognized this and invested in infrastructure that encourages more efficient management of the limited resources the city has to move citizens more efficiently. That usually means more support and encouragement for cycling, transit and walking than ever has been granted in the past.

I suspect more of this in the future because after all, this investment results in greater return than investing in personal motorized options. When that policy was pursued in the past, mobilization became worse, not better.

Who said anything about Kansas? The author was talking about Sydney, Australia, which has a population of about 4.5 million. It's a big city. The official city limits encompass almost 4700 square miles.

Even assuming that that it's a perfect square, that would make it 68 miles across -- so four or five hours to ride a bike from end to end under good conditions? You can probably do that in a car in a little over one hour.

When people talk about bicycles being "efficient" -- they're rarely talking about their "swiftness" at the same time. (Bikes are so efficient compared to cars in a joules per mile*pound way because they go slow.) They will get you there in some situations faster -- in very highly congested areas, short distances, places where parking is impossible to find -- but outside of that niche, a car will get you there faster. And I've never been there, but I'll bet cars are faster in most of Sydney for a trip of more than a mile or two.

there's the rub - good conditions.

Too many cars on the road is inefficient