These documents compare the costs of commuting via public transport or other alternatives to cars versus owning, and not merely commuting with, a car. That comparison is irrelevant to many people who, like me, commute by bike but, for other reasons, cannot relinquish their cars.

True, but they apply more directly to cases where a family is able to relinquish at least one of two or more cars.

"Bicycling is not a viable form of transportation, it is nothing more than a child's toy."

I do love the looks from car-centric co-workers when I state that I feel lazy for driving.

Myth:

Because you're on a bike, you don't have to obey stoplights and other traffic laws. Man, that just pi$$es me off to no end, when I see punks just riding however they want and making law-abiding riders like me look bad.

Police.

"Steel is real." Yes, aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber are imaginary.

"Gears are for queers." Unless you're riding a velocipede or penny-farthing, all bicycles have gears.

Yet another favorite of mine is the idea that a lot of club racers have that anyone who is not a club racer is a "civilian cyclist" who drags their rusty clunker out once a month to ride in critical mess and therefore is not deserving of the same respect and comraderie they afford each other.

True enough, and I'm the same boat. So reduce the automotive costs to just maintenance and fuel incurred directly from commuting miles. Do you think that you would spend more, less, or the same for an equal amount of commuting miles on a bike?

And I think that the point still stands regarding health care costs and transportation infrastructure wear. More time on the bike instead of in the car decreases risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. More bikes on the roads instead of cars will wear less on the transportation infrastructure.

There are the occasional circumstances where I'll be forced onto the sidewalk, I think this is true of most riders. But there is something wrong with sidewalk riding, even if you live in one of those unusual areas where it's legal: it's dangerous, more so than riding on the road.

(Source: UBC Literature review, http://www.cher.ubc.ca/cyclingincities/injury.html and follow the link.)

I'm happy to admit that I spend more on cycling, both for recreation and certainly for commuting, than I need to. Given this fact, and the brevity of my route, I doubt that I derive any economic advantage at all from bike commuting. But I certainly save time. I doubt that there's any faster way to get from my house to my office -- barring flights of science-fiction fantasy.

I'm happy to agree with you about the social costs/externalities of car transport. It stands to reason that bike commuting is good for public health, although the thing about actual epidemiological studies is that on questions like this, they can be both clear as crystal and clear as mud. More cyclists and fewer cars would certainly seem to reduce stress on our transport infrastructure, although one might argue that when you look at post-WWII patterns of development (suburbanization, etc.), there are depressingly few places in the US in which the bicycle can command appeal as a viable alternative to the car -- that is, a broad-based appeal that reaches beyond a dedicated hard core of cyclists (like the members of these forums).

My gripe is about drivers who stop the flow of traffic, illegally and dangerously, to allow someone to pull out into an intersection. I'm thinking, "hey, you just rudely burned ten people behind you to politely allow one person in.

Here's another: Drivers with tinted windows who think you can see them waving you through and then get mad when you can't see them waving you through.

The ability to be transported from one locale to another, in a personal controlled climate environment with a full audio entertainment system, at speeds up to 75 mph was a flight of sci-fi fantasy at the dawn of the previous century. Be careful what you wish for.

Is the money you spend on your bike more reflective of bicycle maintenance, or bicycle ownership?

Anecdote counters anecdote: I have a moderately distanced commute at 11 miles round trip. Five days a week, plus miscellaneous mileage accrued going to the store, the movies, and eating out. Replacing these approximately 60 weekly bicycle miles with car miles would cost me just under 3 gallons of fuel a week. And car parking at the university is prohibitively expensive, as is downtown parking where I work, but is free for my bicycle. I've no doubt that bike commuting saves me money over car commuting. So would, I believe, the average commuter save.

Development is an ongoing process. Since money is going to be spent on keeping up and updating the transportation network for our present and future needs regardless of how people commute, would it not make more sense to funnel said money towards the more economically efficient forms of transport? Just because we did things incorrectly in the past is no reason to extend our mistakes into the future. If you alter the infrastructure to make cycling, walking, and public transportation more viable alternatives than personal automotive transport, more people will bike, walk, and ride the bus. In the long run, society will save money by seeing a greater return on commuter miles to transportation dollars spent. And since you and I fund this network directly through our taxes, would we not share in the savings?

Hybrid cars are eco-friendly. Especially if you fill them up with biofuel.

Really? And where do you think the electricity to charge your battery comes from? How about the amount of energy required to harvest and process biofuels? Or the amount of clean water to grow the crops for biofuels, and the chemical fertilizers synthesized for those same crops? Or the toxic runoff from the unabsorbed fertilizers for those crops?

Sure, hybrids are more efficient than straight combustion, but that hardly qualifies them as "eco-friendly". And bio-fuels are a wash, just a false-green placebo to keep society from considering the true problem of it's wasteful energy consumption while doing nothing to reduce pollution. Shifting your toxins from the air to the water is in no way a solution, especially since it requires almost as much energy to produce biofuels as they can be utilized for.

Edit: Damn it, I'm an idiot. I forgot what the thread was. :(

This may be true; but we want to start with a realistic conception of the "average" commuter, one that would screen out many elderly members of the workforce, for instance. That's easy; the questions get trickier. Should our notion of the "average" commuter screen out every person who is physically capable of bike commuting and for whom it would not impose undue burdens (e.g., resides close enough to work, and has the option of following a safe route, and lives in a sufficiently hospitable climate), but who still finds the prospect unappealing? Should it screen out people like me, who choose to bike commute but who live in an urban area in which one can live a lifestyle that depends neither on a car nor on a bike? These questions help define the "natural constituency" for pro-bike policies.

Anyway, I'm all for cycling advocacy, having put my time and money where my mouth was as a member of Transportation Alternatives when I lived in Manhattan. It's great to hope, and indeed to demand, that Americans reconsider their commitment to the car. I doubt we disagree about that. Still, the American landscape as we have it is by and large suburbanized. When we want to talk about policy steps worth pushing for, path dependence cannot be ignored or wished away.

:D Thanks for the excellent points, though.

Also, a hydrogen fuel cell car wouldn't need gas at all, and would release nothing but pure water! And electric cars are emissions-free! Griddlecakes, care to refute?

We were discussing the average savings of bicycle commuters by biking over driving. As such, only people who commute by bike should be calculated, and only compared to the same routes if done by car. I still think that people who've already made the decision to commute by bike see financial savings, on average. Those who don't commute very far but spend lavishly on their bikes will be at the losing end of the bell curve, and those who ride cheap bikes 20 miles each way will see the most benefit. The rest of us will fall somewhere in the middle.

So you're right that comparing the costs of the average auto commuter to that of the average bike commuter is disingenuous as bicycling as a transportation alternative is available only to a minority of commuters. Heck, that's a major reason that I live in the city, because I can bike everywhere. Advocacy of any stripe is doing itself no favors by espousing as fact information than can easily be proven false by a little reasoning and common sense. Thanks for the heads up, I was blindly agreeing with what I wanted to be true.

And here I thought that arguing on the internet never changed anyone's mind. I had believed it was just a forum for trading sarcastic barbs over unyielding positions. And for viewing bike porn. :)

BMX bikes are strictly for kids.

This, along with people forgetting that there are BMX bikes that aren't for freestyle, annoys me greatly. Every good BMX frame maker makes frames sized for adults.

No argument here. Everyone knows that electric cars run entirely on power generated from clean, emissions-free coal plants, waste-free nuclear plants, and Greenie goodwill. And produce only rainbows and unicorn farts, which heal the ozone layer!

Myth: BF participants spend more time riding their bikes than on this forum. :P

Myth: Everyones bicycle needs more gears, more gears, more gears...

Myth: Everyone on BF will agree that riding on the sidewalk is OK in some rare circumstances.

Thanks my iPhone and an awesome 3G network, I can do both at the same time!

Hold on, someone's honking at me.

Myth: bicycle clothing doesn't look gay.

Just saying. I'll take baggy and stylish anyday over spandex. ;)

my personal myth:

my amazing and astounding commuter powers--

-- beating cars across town, or even from town to town, flying up hills with a huge messenger bag full of lunch, water, coffee thermos, the New York Times, multitool and tubes or patchkit, a stack of graded papers (on the way in), and beer (on the way home)-- or for that matter just surviving--

-- would translate into incredible speed and skill in a paceline in a local roadie training ride...

I'm tempted to try and find this out, but I fear that I know the answer....

:deadhorse2: