Home › News ›

Bike Commuting: Point-Counterpoint

Posted by: Nate Berg

11 January 2008 - 7:00am

As part of a week-long series, Randal O'Toole and blogger Will Campbell discuss and debate bike commuting and what cities should or shouldn't do to encourage it.

Randal O'Toole writes: "Increasing bike commuting from, say, 0.4% to 2.6%, or even 3.5% on a good day, will not do much to relieve Los Angeles congestion. Should cities encourage bike commuting? Certainly. Should they spend gobs of money trying to encourage that commuting? Probably not."

"Far more people telecommute than cycle to work: 3.6% nationwide, and more than 6% in cities such as San Francisco and Seattle. Telecommuting is growing faster than cycling or transit riding, so if cities could do only one thing to promote less driving, telecommuting would be a better bet than cycling."

Blogger and cyclist Will Campbell counterpoints: "The questions shouldn't be whether cities should spend gobs of money building an impractical two-wheeled transit grid to encourage bike commuting, or whether we should choose a telecommuting program over one focused on bicycling; it's whether our elected officials should actively advance alternative transportation on a more personal, local level."

Full Story: Abandon thy car?
Source: The Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2008
»

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

O'Toole strawmen

Submitted by Andy Hamilton on Mon, 01/14/2008 - 10:59.

This is another example of Randall O'Toole setting up a strawman argument and then shooting it down. I would welcome an honest debate from the other side.

Portland OR has so many bike riders, transit riders, and walkers, that it is reportedly the only U.S. city that has DECREASED both vehicle-miles-travelled and greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. It's a lot of work and coordination to make this happen, but the payback is huge in areas from pollution to healthcare costs, to traffic congestion to quality of life. I don't see any real debate here. If you want something, then invest in it (making smart choices along the way, of course.)

BTW, I live in San Diego, and telecommuting has been unsuccessful here despite extensive attempts. Home-based businesses have reduced commuting on a level comparable with transit, however, despite zoning that outlaws them, for the most part.

O'Toole Injustice

Submitted by Charles Siegel on Mon, 01/14/2008 - 13:02.

Also, note the injustice of just thinking about how much investing in bicycling can do to reduce automobile use and not thinking about protecting the safety of existing bike commuters. Bicyclists are treated as a means to an end.

O'Toole is willing to spend whatever it takes to accommodate each automobile user. He should be willing to spend an equal amount on accomodating each bicyclist.

Currently, far less is spent on each bicyclist than on each driver (even ignoring the money spent on freeways, which comes out of gas taxes), since bicyclists do not use on-street parking spaces, use less street space, do not use the free parking provided by employers and businesses, do not require spending in hospital emergency rooms to patch up the people they run down, etc.

I expect that if we spent an on each bicyclist equal to what we spend on each driver, we could actually have fairly safe streets to bicycle on.

Charles Siegel

Bookmark and Share
“
One of the keys to regional and local prosperity is the ability to attract and retain high-skilled people. ... Many people can, and do, choose where they want to live based on factors beyond their ability to make a living.
”