I took this snap recently for a project I’m working on. When I got home I saw this picture and it really stood out. Not so much aesthetically, but it made me wonder what would the roads look like if more people commuted by bike? One thing that is immediately obvious is just the number of people the roads would accommodate on bike vs. say…giant SUV.
For another great illustration of this, check out this entry from BikeHacks.com.
Popularity: 7% [?]
If we all commuted by bike, I doubt we would all look like that. I ride to work in my everyday work clothes, usually on a vintage folding bike. I sure don’t look like that! It would be nice to see more bicycle commuters out there, though.
No matter what they look like.
That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But hopefully there wouldn’t be quite so much Lycra!
If all these cyclists are turning right, why don’t they just go?
They are turning right aren’t they? They wouldn’t go straight from a right turn lane, would they?
If this is what “more people bike commuting” looks like, we’ve got problems.
I think this is a good photo to just look at for a while. At first all the lycra turned me off, but yeah, slowly it dawns on you that one car is taking up nearly the same space as what, 11 people? Then I notice just how lonely that driver looks in his empty SUV. Then I notice smiles versus non-smiles. There’s a lot in that picture.
Point taken…too much lycra…
I don’t commute with lycra myself…what struck me about the photo was the surface area per person…
vespinner good point…they were going straight…i don’t remember if that was a right-turn only pocket, but if it was, then they were sporting bad form…
another reason that more “experienced” roadies, should take the Road 1 course that the League of American Bicyclists offers….
Hey, if you commute more than a few miles in high humidity and/or hills bike-specific clothing is almost a must-have! You californians are so spoiled when it comes to climate and geography.
I kinda doubt any of those guys are headed to work- even if the one guy is looking at his watch.
Sadly, it seems as those are choices are often limited to “wear lycra and look like a racer” or “dress normal and appear to have lost your license.”
We need more options!
I wear Lycra. I hate loose fabric flapping in the wind. Live and let ride I say.
Don’t like lycra? Smartwool t-shirt, nylon shorts. Perfect for hot rides – can’t speak for humidity. Doesn’t flap in the breeze. I’m rocking this look in this photo:
http://www.venturacountystar.com/photos/2008/jul/25/45476/
I sure hope there isint as much Lycra floating around when more people start riding their bikes to work.
I am sure bicycle clothing will be widely influenced by people’s interests in sports (as is in other daily activities…track suits, ball caps etc), but they will never rival the convenience of riding in work clothes while living close to work.
Who cares if they are or are not commuting in that picture? The point is how little space they consume as compared to the SUV driver. Unnatural fear of lycra can be addressed by a surprising small amount of therapy as well. I love the picture. I think it makes its point very well.
Not to throw aspersions on what’s going on in the picture, but that wouldn’t be legal here in FL. Our rule is : Persons riding bicycles upon a roadway may not ride more than two abreast except on paths or parts of roadways set aside for the exclusive use of bicycles. Persons riding two abreast may not impede traffic when traveling at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions then existing and shall ride within a single lane.
We are traffic, true, but they are traffic that outweighs us by a factor of 20 or more. This is why parallel routes and smart planning are a good thing.
“Persons riding” I pretty sure the FL cops wouldn’t get mad at them for stopping more than two deep.
Man people never seem to get the point yes they are all wearing lycra, no they are obviously not riding to work. The Lord is aggravated with his people, I need to go get ready for my commute.
I buy my bike-clothes at WalMart. It’s very humid id FL and you need something to quickly dry (rem0ve) sweat. I buy the shirts (sleeveless) and shorts you’d see on a basketball court. Sure I look like I’m from the hood (a tiny bit) but man I sure am comfortable! BTW I am fortunate to have a gym and shower at my work. (My life rocks!)
I’m only three miles from work, and usually wear tan slacks and a collared shirt. I pedal in before dawn at a reasonable pace (ok, slow) and generally manage to get to work without working up a sweat, even in central Florida in August. Going home I can pick up the pace a bit, as it doesn’t matter if I sweat my socks off heading back to the barn. For me, it’s all about pace.
Or the lack thereof.
Russ,
Your correct it would be awesome if more people bike commuted vs. rec rides. However I’m tired of this crapy comparison photo floating around. I mean if were going to compare lest make it legit. Now, this is the 4th time on 4 different blogs I’ve had to call attention to the crappy, untruthfull nature of the comparison. so I’ve decided to cut and past my response to the bike hack post.
Time for me to slam this bogus picture again. While yes bikes or a bus is better than all the cars. The photo is BOGUS! take a close look, you will find that the photo with the cars has been cropped at the top to “make it look” as though the street was full. when in fact there is probably another 50 yards behind the last car that is not shown, including a whole freaking building. Also look at the bus compared to the car photo. The back bumper of the bus is approximately at the location of the FRONT bumper of the first car. How can I tell? count the arches on the left of each photo. in the Bus photo you could fit about 8-12 more cars at the front and another 30 or more at the back.
So while the theory that biking and a bus is better than all the cars is sound, the blatant LIES in the photo that make it look better than it really is. and I find it disgusting and offensive to the average persons (my) intelligence.
I’d tell the Germans to take the photo and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Thanks for the opportunity to rip, and call the advertisement out for the trash it is again. That was fun! a little truth in advertising please.
so please stop spreading the lies by using this photo.
There appears to be 60 cars in the left-hand photo. Maybe 61. So yes, if there was just one person in each car, they might all fit on a big bus. They might also car pool and get that number down to 15 cars real quick. I would have liked to have seen a photo progression with the 60 cars, then 15 cars (carpooling), then perhaps two rows of 30 cyclists each, one on either side of the road (it’s obviously a one-way road) and then maybe a shot with just the one bus. I also think all the people milling around on and off the street ruins the overall effect, but that’s just me.
Maybe it’s time to reshoot this photo locally and get it right.
Mark, I see your point about a skewed pictures, but looking through that, the message is the same. More people in less space and congestion.
Here is different set of photographs done in Tampa. The photos do not appear to be as skewed.
http://tampabayonline.net/bguard/home.htm
What if more people commuted (wearing whatever)? There would be a bad ratio point where there were too many bikers for narrow bike lanes or signal timings, yet still too many auto’s to allow bikers to safely use more of the roadway. More bike commuters MIGHT mean more congestion until the bike facilities caught up with the added number of riders.
Clancy, those Tampa photos look much better. Thank you for posting them! As for LJ’s comment about having too many cyclists for the bike lanes, we should be so lucky. Just keep in mind that I’m the guy who says:
“When the oil runs out, they’re ALL bike lanes!”
I wish I could find a reference to a web site I saw a couple years back where the author had taken aerial images of Boulder, CO and calculated the amount of paved area that was dedicated to auto movement and simple parking (a lot).
There were also illustrations of how different areas would look if the space for auto’s were reduced to a single, one way lane for delivery vehicles and trolley like transport.
If anyone has that URL it would be worth taking a look.
Clancy,
Yes thank you for the link, that one looks much better. They did adjust the camera btw shoots but it doesn’t looked cropped or zoomed at different levels like the Germany photo. And your right I have no problem with the point it is trying to get across, I have a problem with the deceptive nature the Germany picture embodies with the image cropped and zoomed at different levels.
“blatant LIES in the photo that make it look better than it really is”
Wow Mark… lol even if they are cropped, bikes don’t take up as much room as a suv!? that’s just common sense. You guys are some anal commuters lol.
And Christ said let there be bicycles and there were, and they were good.
The trick isn’t in the photoraphy- the trick is getting people to ride bikes.
I’m working on it.
Whatever lane I am in is a bike lane.
deceptive – both the bikes AND the cars are packed much more densely than is possible when they are actually moving in traffic. but in my opinion the ratio of packing is more skewed in favor of the bikes in these photos. there are accurate stats on road capacities elsewhere.
Hello,
My name is Enzo, I am a 5th grade student in Los Angeles.
I am on a team competing in FIRST LEGO League, which promotes science and technology for kids. This year’s theme is Climate Connections, and our team chose to study the connections between rising temperatures and car emissions in Los Angeles. Did you know that these two things both affect each other?
Our team needed to think of a creative solution for our topic. We found that a lot of car emissions come from people who drive a long distance to work every day, such as from Palmdale or Riverside to the downtown area. These areas have commuter trains called MetroLink, and our idea is to add a rail car for bikes only. This would encourage more people to leave the car at home, and get to work with bike and train.
We were surprised to learn that MetroLink has room for only 2 bikes per train car. The other LA train system is a subway called Metro that travels shorter distances. Metro is adding bike lockers at some stations, but this means you have to buy two bikes if you really want to stop driving the car to work.
In LA and other cities, train companies do not want to remove more seats to make room for bikes, because it would reduce their income. Passenger train cars are expensive and take a long time to get. So our idea is to take older rail cars that were used for something else, and make some changes to allow bike racks and ramps to get on and off. After parking your bike in this rail car you just go sit down in a regular passenger car. Adding these simple rail cars to the commuter train would not reduce income, and might even sell more tickets from all the people that could now take their bike to work.
We made several designs of rail cars that could hold between 34 and 80 bikes. We estimate that each bikes-only rail car could reduce 408 to 960 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, if these commuters stopped driving 60 miles each way. This is based on 0.8 pounds of CO2 per mile driven.
We also researched to see if other parts of the world have tried this idea. Some cities in the US are adding more room for bikes by taking out seats, but this is going slow. Some cities in Europe have taken out most or all of the seats, with people standing next to the bikes, but this was on subways and different than our topic of long distance commuters.
If you have read all this, thank you very much, because another one of our assignments was to share our project with people who might be interested. Internet blogs are a good way for our team to try and share our work with a lot of people. Hopefully you like our idea, and please wish us luck in our competition.
Enzo
Enzo, if you and your classmates are coming up with ideas like this in 5th grade, there IS hope for the world! I wish you the best of luck!
If you have time, see if you can track down a copy of a book called Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly (Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2008). They talk a lot about how automotive emissions and the various regulations created to fight their effects…a losing battle in the pollution-challenged Los Angeles Basin.
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