I've yet to find a college that doesn't have affordable housing nearby, or without public transportation. One or both is generally present, as a result of the college being there.

college campuses are a perfect application of bus transit. There is a huge problem with parking at Penn State as it is, if they increased the number of students with cars there would be cars circling the block all day.

Longer distance travel often affords students access to higher paying jobs and lower cost housing compared to staying close to campus. But those financial advantages are usually eclipsed by the cost of a new car. Even for a used clunker, the economics of car ownership may not makes sense for a student, although professional development and social opportunities may be compellng.

Location-efficient land use patterns that put employment centers closer to universities, combined with better transit service, can eliminate most of the motivation for car ownership among students, especially those at urban schools. While I worked my way through undergrad and grad school, I constantly re-evaluated the economics of car ownership, sometimes maintaining a car for access to internships far from campus, and other times working on campus and biking/walking for most travel. Unfortunately, none of the major employment centers in the area were transit accessible at the time.

20 years ago, depending on a bike for transportation made me look unsuccessful to most American coeds, but the foreign women didn't seem to care. There weren't many American women in my engineering classes anyway. Today, I see a lot more female American students riding bikes; I suspect the stigma of bike transportation is largely gone among that age group.

My post wasn't intended to provide solid proof of the financial superiority of cycling... that's debatable, and I'm pretty sure that there's so many variables that need to be accounted for that it's practically impossible to prove either way.

My point however was that the time difference is not as stark as you make it out to be.

First let's take my commute, since all I can go on is my experience. 19 miles each way. Takes me 1:15 on a good day, or 1:10 on a great day, or 1:20-1:30 on a bad day. On average it's pretty squarely 1:15, however. 75 minutes. When I drive it takes 40 minutes, so the bike takes 35 minutes longer per leg. It's not that I'm a speed demon on my bike- I'm not. I average 14-15mph on my commutes, and I know some cyclists can average 20mph.

So why such a difference? Traffic and lights, mostly. There's this one town I go through on my bike; I can time it so that I go through it without hitting a single light, and passing 60-80 cars in the process. The cars get bunched up at the lights, and the lights are short enough that it takes several cycles for any given car to go through. In the long run, the cars win. But the fact that my commute by bike takes less than twice the amount of time blows the "3 hours of extra cycling per day" idea out of the water in my opinion.

At most I lose 70 minutes for 38 miles of commuting (35 minutes each way). My normal routine was to exercise 5 hours a week before I started bicycle commuting (trying to lose weight), so that takes my deficit down to 10 minutes per day.

Note that none of this even takes into account those days when driving takes far longer than cycling. Which happens more often than you would think. When gridlock occurs, it can sometimes take up to 2 hours to get home, whereas on a bike I could simply zip around the traffic... and SAVE 45 minutes each way.

I would even argue the closer you live to your destinations, the more it makes cycling worthwhile financially. The IRS figures are almost certainly lowballed (because they are used for tax deductions, it's doubtful the IRS wants to lose too much money from deductions), and they're targeted towards people who do a large amount of driving regardless. The problem with a per-mile cost is that it becomes rapidly inaccurate as your mileage decreases. There's a large amount of fixed auto costs that do not depend on mileage. The cost of the car itself, the registration fees, inspection fees, insurance fees, license fees etc. So as your mileage decreases, your cost per mile increases.

Lastly, I would like to point out the fact that when you go car-free, you begin to actually think about your routing more. I find that in a car, I tend to be pretty leisurely. I don't plan out my routes based on distances; I go out, go shopping here, go across town there, etc. When I'm on my bike, I tend to have a plan of exactly where I need to go, and what is the absolute shortest/fastest route I can take between all of my destinations. In short, I tend to optimize my paths on a bike, whereas I tend to waste more time driving unnecessary routes in my car because I didn't really spend a ton of time thinking about it beforehand. As such, that shaves the time difference between driving and riding even more.


So basically, my point is this. There's really no easy way to prove that a car or a bike will be more financially/time efficient than the other, because situations for every person are unique and there's far too many variables to take into account. But unless someone drives an abnormally large amount of distance, or someone bicycles at an abnormally slow speed, there's no way an average person loses 3 hours a day by cycling instead of driving. The time differences are much closer than most people suspect.

As people have said, the ad is wrong for many reasons. Beyond the fact that I think on most campuses cycling is considered to be pretty cool, even if it is not, GM's effort to make their cars look good by making cycling look bad is just pathetic. The issue to me isn't whether or not someone needs a car. If someone does, then they can buy one. The issue is trying to put down an activity that is good in so many different ways in order to promote your own product. (Generally speaking, I think that if you have to promote your product by saying a different product stinks, your product most likely isn't particularly good. It is even worse when you are trying to put down an alternative that is unquestionably a good thing.)

Interesting.

My take on things is colored by my world view and maybe a little of seeing what I want to see.

What I've been noticing though, at least in this urban area, is that getting around by bike is becoming more and more main stream, - especially among younger people.

We have several recent college grads that work in our office who choose to ride to work. They're not part of some counter-culture movement. One was a cheerleader for cripes sake. They all appear to be relatively fashion conscious. If I had to guess, I'd say that their take on bikes is that they're cool. There are local bars that have tons of bikes crowded around them at night. Yeah, I realize that those are probably hipsters but you'd never have seen anything like that when I was that age.

So I'm wondering if GM has noticed this too and is a little worried, hence the add portraying bikes as dorky.

I think it's a little misguided and probably not very effective. I realize that for some students having a car is close to a necessity, but for a lot of kids having a car on campus is a huge PITA. Parking is generally scarce and the last thing most students need is a car payment anyway.

When I was in college, that ad would have totally appealed to me.

I had a bike as my primary transportation all through college. When I graduated I bought a new car and dumped the bike. I got married an moved to L.A. We couldn't afford a second car, so I ended up buying a new bike that first year. But even then I viewed it in utilitarian terms; it was a stopgap measure until we could get a second car. Once we got that car a couple years later, the bike hung from hooks in the garage for 20+ years.

I'm glad I'm riding again, but when you ride out of necessity because you can't afford a car, the allure of car ownership is strong. I frankly see nothing wrong with the ad.

Yep. I also sent an email. My car is over 10 years old, and I'm considering replacing it with a new one. The desirability of GM models has just dropped in my mind a notch or two.

Maybe that's the other reason the ad doesn't bother me.... I've never been a GM person anyway. I've owned Fords, Chryslers and a Hyundai.

Totally autocentric mentality, one's status is judged on the type and dollar amount of the vehicle they own, talk about evoking peer pressure.

Our society is, in fact, autocentric. Bicycle riders are considered to be eccentric. And why would GM want to change anything about that autocentric way of thinking? Even if they piss off every bicycle rider, they'd never notice it in their bottom line.

Looks like GM is backpedaling due to strong backlash from the cycling community. Check out their Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/#!/GM

Nothing but apologies for the past day.

As previously posted, looks like GM is listening to cyclists. Here's a short excerpt from a news article.

“We have gotten feedback and we are listening and there are changes underway. They will be taking the bicycle ad out of the rotation…. We respect bikers and many of us here are cyclists,”

Pretty much the worst thing from GM since my Dad's '80 Olds Delta 88 diesel. Which is saying something. Way to go, GM. You've pretty much guaranteed I'll never consider one of your products.

I have to say, in college, I would have identified with the ad. I rode my bike as my means of transportation and one of the reasons I didn't ask girls out was that I didn't have a car to take them on a date with and was too embarrassed about having to take public transit or ask if they had a car. Now I'm married in a house with two incomes and we don't have a car and I couldn't care less what anyone thinks. Life goes on and age changes your perspective on things.

This is what my tax dollars got me? Sheesh.

Guilty of destruction of public transit, by streetcar, they like it as it is,
privatized transportation.

see :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_A...eetcar_scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_for_a_Ride_(film)

GM is backing down pretty hard according to thier twitter. They were taking a lot of crap from this.
https://twitter.com/#!/GM
"Wanted 2 let you know we are making changes to the campaign from this feedback. We didn't mean any offense--our apologies."
"Thanks for recognizing the change! Sorry again for any offense."
"wanted to make sure people knew we were listening! Grateful for social media for the conversation."
over and over and over.

It kills me how often I hear things like "many of us here are cyclists" in response to complaints from the cycling community. I swear everyone I've ever talked to in the local government has claimed to be a cyclist. I don't doubt that they own a bike and maybe even ride it a couple of times a year, but this response really strikes me as being in the same vein as the people who tell you that they have many gay friends while you're pointing out their homophobia.

GM loves to trash mass transit. Remember the "Creeps and Weirdos" ad?

Or the old "but I have black friends, so I can't be a racist" as an excuse when they're caught using the n-word.

I think the ad is fine, if not about as sleazy as some of the cigarette ads that were made to appeal to the young.

I do have a problem with the thought that we used tax money to save this company. I mean, really.

Ironic Justice would have required them, to go into Light Rail Production, to get the bailout,

then Keeping the controlling majority stock ownership Public.

It may not be considered sleazy, but it still smacks of peer pressure in my book, especially towards young males who tend to be more affected by it.

Another twitter back pedal link https://www.gelatobaby.com/2011/10/12...-anti-bike-ad/ it's an article with SS's from the feed, and you know for such anti bike company they sure seem to be good at back pedaling like a fixie fan...