Biking for transportation is more than riding to work
A recent post on the Copenhagenize blog brought up an important topic for us at peopleforbikes.org. Mikael Colville-Andersen wrote, “The act of riding a bicycle for transport often only gets mentioned as a way to get from home to work and back again in North America, Australasia and Britain.” He’s right: in the U.S., biking for transportation is essentially synonymous with bike commuting. When we talk about making trips by bike, riding to work comes to mind first for most people. National Bike to Work Day is a sizable event in many U.S. cities and is the introduction to utility biking for American adults. There’s even some confusion about what the term “bike commuting” means—New York City describes all bicycle traffic as “commuter cycling” in its annual screenline counts.
At PFB we think that bicycling for transportation involves much more than getting to work by bike. Just over a quarter of all trips made in the U.S. are work commute-related. If we only bike to work, then we ignore all of the other trips we could make on two wheels. Also, with the average U.S. commute at 14 miles one-way, the trip to work is too daunting to bike for many Americans. But, 50% of the trips we make are three miles or less. The grocery store, church or doctor’s office tend to be shorter trips, which are more feasible for ordinary people, especially those new to bicycling.
Bicycling to the office is still a very, very good thing. There are many benefits: lower absenteeism, increased productivity, reduced rush-hour congestion, and health care savings for employers. The trip to work is probably the most consistent travel we make, so once we start biking it, it’s easy to make it a habit. But if you can’t bike to work, don’t get discouraged—it’s not the only trip that counts. As Ted Rogers from the BikinginLA blog wrote, “Biking for transportation means riding anytime, not just bike commuting.”
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