It's excellent to see momentum building like this. Cycling:
- Has lower cost-of-entry in terms of purchase/rental
- Keeps you healthier, which can also contribute to remaining active and mobile in older age
- Provides easier self-maintenance for most common faults
- Requires less fuel (particularly combustible/fossil)
- Can be just as fast, or faster, for transit from A to B in urban environments (especially with e-bikes)
- Is more social and human - cyclists can chat to each other while commuting or in transit, rather than being isolated in glass bubbles (which sometimes leads to misunderstanding and road rage when a simple conversation - even if a little confrontational - might resolve things)
- Requires less physical space - which eventually will make it easier to park cars, once we reclaim this inefficient use of our environments
- Pollutes less
- Is more easily portable within other modes of transport (trains, aircraft, or cars)
- Is, in the presence of good bicycle infrastructure, simply a much more pleasant, enjoyable, and self-directed way to travel
One remaining issue perhaps is large load-carrying; and that's certainly somewhere where cargo bikes and cargo e-bikes are innovating. And also a situation where the physical distribution of goods is changing (for example, via on-demand delivery services, some of which themselves use bicycle couriers).
It's really time to get people shifting towards bicycles in a big way. The arguments against it broadly do not stand, especially in the presence of e-bikes. Cars aren't going to go away, but they're way overused currently.
- Has lower cost-of-entry in terms of purchase/rental
- Keeps you healthier, which can also contribute to remaining active and mobile in older age
- Provides easier self-maintenance for most common faults
- Requires less fuel (particularly combustible/fossil)
- Can be just as fast, or faster, for transit from A to B in urban environments (especially with e-bikes)
- Is more social and human - cyclists can chat to each other while commuting or in transit, rather than being isolated in glass bubbles (which sometimes leads to misunderstanding and road rage when a simple conversation - even if a little confrontational - might resolve things)
- Requires less physical space - which eventually will make it easier to park cars, once we reclaim this inefficient use of our environments
- Pollutes less
- Is more easily portable within other modes of transport (trains, aircraft, or cars)
- Is, in the presence of good bicycle infrastructure, simply a much more pleasant, enjoyable, and self-directed way to travel
One remaining issue perhaps is large load-carrying; and that's certainly somewhere where cargo bikes and cargo e-bikes are innovating. And also a situation where the physical distribution of goods is changing (for example, via on-demand delivery services, some of which themselves use bicycle couriers).
It's really time to get people shifting towards bicycles in a big way. The arguments against it broadly do not stand, especially in the presence of e-bikes. Cars aren't going to go away, but they're way overused currently.