Bikes Are Coming to Town

Susannah Sayler

Jul 17, 2008 04:28 pm

We love riding bikes and have started a little video series to express this. Bikes are fun and a healthy way to get around. They also are a great solution to our oil and energy crises.

Some quick research on the web uncovered the following facts about CO2 emissions from transportation:

-- Worldwide, carbon emissions from fossil fuel use in the transport sector are increasing faster than carbon emissions from any other sector. (From a 2007 report published by the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at The University in Wellington in New Zealand.)

-- Transportation is one of the biggest culprits in human production of carbon dioxide—the source of about one-fifth of global-warming emissions worldwide. In the United States, two-thirds of the oil consumed goes toward powering vehicles. Passenger cars alone are responsible for 25 percent of the greenhouse gases we produce.(see: Slate)

So clearly, transportation alternatives that don't need fossil fuels, are what we need more of...

Many cities are starting to provide bicycles to the public for free or low cost. I was really excited to see this happening in Seville. When I visited here 2 years ago, almost no one was riding. Now there are bikes for public use all over the city and many bike lanes. We paid 5 euro (about $7.50) for a one week pass then it's about 1 euro per hour. There are bike stations all over the city. The idea is that you use the bike to get where you're going then return it. That way, in general you do not need it for more than an hour and you don't have to worry about locking up the bike.

Barcelona started a similar system in March 2007 but it is not designed for tourists. (Probably because Barcelona has such huge numbers of tourists, it would overwhelm the bike system.)

In Barcelona there are 6000 bikes for public use, almost 400 stations, each bike gets used on average 10 times a day and does around 10,000 km per year! Amazing.