Most of the news we currently hear about the viral epidemic is gloomy. But there are some positive signs - cleaner water, purer air, less noise pollution. One of the drivers for this has been an uptick in the numbers of people using bicycles for exercise, transport, and work. Jeremy Torr reports.
Rome is becoming much more cycling friendly. Courtesy Capovelo.
Tasmania, May 2020. Bad and depressing news reports flood the airwaves. But there are a few chinks of positive light in the gloom. One of them that doesn’t involve Zoom or being a digital worker is making a real difference in urban areas across the world. It involves bicycles.
"What we’re seeing … is a move for cities like Helsinki, New York, Milan, Melbourne, Vienna and more to remove the old, obsolete care infrastructure and actually make (city) infrastructure for all of us," said Morten Kabell, spokeperson for the European Cyclists' Federation (ECF) in a recent interview.
Kabell has put his finger on a relatively unreported side effect of the urban shutdowns and distancing regulations: bicycles answer all the movement, safety and exercise restrictions in one neat go.
“It seems lots more people will take up cycling, walking or scooting to work, mostly to avoid public transport. Some cities are now insisting on lower speed limits and more bicycle lanes being imposed,” says political journalist Darren McCaffrey. “This is pretty obvious - the UK reported the lowest April car sales in 74 years, and with restaurants, pubs and theatres likely to remain partially closed for many months to come, we can’t help but spend less money.” Bicycles are cheap both to buy and run – and they can help provide work too.
The ECF is bullish about the future of cycling in cities. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Delivery companies are increasingly using cycle couriers. Takeaway companies, says McCaffrey, are delivering increasing numbers of not just cheap pizza and burgers but actual three-course meals. “Millions of people are now having groceries delivered for the first time or buying other essential items online. It’s a new habit many will keep,” he asserts.
For those still in employment the benefits of cycling to work are obvious. No parking fees – handy if your work hours have been reduced; no problems maintaining physical distance compared to walking crowded footpaths; cleaner air both due to less cars on the road and more physical space, and lastly the ability to move fast along improved cycle lanes.
Partly due to demand, and partly due to local authorities recognizing the benefits of clean air and healthy riders, many cities including London, Brighton, New York and Tokyo are setting up hundreds of kilometres of new or widened existing cycle paths. Paris has actually banned cars from the famous Rue de Rivoli, near the Louvre Museum, to allow bikes to reign supreme. And a few city authorities in New Zealand and California are even offering rebates on bike repairs and electric bike purchases to promote cycle usage.
In the UK Brighton has already closed off major roads to allow pedestrians and cyclists to carry out social distancing. New York has plans for over 100km of new joint (non-car) use “streets for people.”
Traditionally resistant authorities are also getting on board in the face of the obvious advantages of cycle transport. Pre-COVID, relatively few Romans rode bicycles, and the city had almost no cycle lanes. Now there are 150 kilometres of them. As a very old established and cramped city, Rome found it hard to displace cars for cycle lanes. "But now, just with paint on the road, we have already very important bike lanes,” said one rider. And the transport minister has promised the new lanes will remain in place indefinitely. "We are very happy,” said Enzina Fasano, president of Italy’s 'Save the Cyclists' association. “We have been asking for them for years."
London’s cycle lanes are still relatively empty - but it’s skies are much clearer. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Barcelona, already well known for its extensive bike use, is widening existing lanes to allow better distancing and greater rider numbers, and introducing new routes too. All this is helping keep transmission down, maintaining jobs and keeping personal expenses limited.
Even better, it is making urban areas more pleasant and healthier to live in. In Delhi, you can actually see the Himalayas now – unheard of for years due to pollution and smog. Restrictions in Hubei, China helped push a 25% drop in the country’s carbon dioxide emissions beginning in late January, compared to the same time last year. “Industrial operations were reduced by 15% to 40% in some sectors and coal consumption at power plants fell by 36%,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air in Finland. All good news for ongoing health.
Which all points to cycling as a great way to get exercise on the way to work, when delivering goods, or even collecting the kids while limiting air pollution. As the ECF’s Kabell says, the moves for more urban practical cycling are all positive – but they need ongoing support from urban planners.
"We need to have safe, permanent infrastructure in all our cities. Most (accidents) happen because the infrastructure is not ready for the huge amount of bicycles that we’ll see in the future," he said. "But with lots of separate, safe bicycle lanes – as you see in Copenhagen or the Netherlands – then we will avoid a lot of these accidents. And so it could actually be for all our cities."