The Amazing Impact of Biking to Class and How Austin Can Be Better for Bikers
This semester I decided to start biking to class every Monday and Wednesday. My sophomore year I spent the summer studying abroad in Vienna, Austria. I kept remembering how great I felt after biking to my classes every day in Vienna, so I decided to try to replicate that in Austin. Now, Austin definitely does not have the bike infrastructure that Vienna has, but the opportunity to bike is available. I am going to discuss my experience biking in Austin thus far and the many benefits that biking provides, while pointing out some problems in Austin’s biking system that could be fixed.
Biking in Austin is accessible, but not super easy. I began biking in August and it was a pretty grueling experience in weather above 100 degrees. More recently, I have been biking in about 50-degree weather with rain, which is not ideal either. When I surveyed students that did not bike, approximately 15% of the students referenced something having to do with the weather including it being too hot, cold, humid, rainy, etc. Even though one might think that climate is a main factor in determining biking, a study by Pucher and Buehler in 2006 found that Canadians actually bike much more than Americans despite their much colder and harsher climate. They found that many factors affect this decision for Canadians to bike more including city layout, trip length, affordability of cars, bicycle infrastructure, and safety (Pucher and Buehler 2006). Austin also has a lot of hills which can discourage biking. For me personally, biking down to campus involves biking uphill for a total of about 50 feet, and biking downhill around 151 feet, making it a very easy, enjoyable ride. However, the bike ride back is the opposite, making for a much more tiring uphill climb. On average, however, Austin does have a fairly good climate for biking, and the new technology of electric assist on many bikes should be enough to enable people of all walks of life to be able to handle trekking up Austin’s small hills.
The biggest benefit from biking that the biker experiences is increased exercise. Active transport has amazing health benefits. After biking I feel even more energized during the day, but I also get tired easier at night, leading to better sleeping habits. After any physical exercise, people feel happier, healthier, and more accomplished, so it appears to be a no-brainer to get the exercise out of the way on my commute to campus that I have to do anyways. There are also many unseen benefits to biking. The 2010 paper by De Hartog et. al. analyzed other benefits of switching from car transport to bike transport including decreased air pollution, decreased traffic, and fewer accidents. They found that, “estimated health benefits of cycling were substantially larger than the risks of cycling relative to car driving” (De Hartog et. al. 2010). I live approximately three miles from campus, which is much further than most students, and biking has still been an amazing experience. Using the Road Bike app, I measure how far I ride every ride and it gives an estimate of calories burned and many other interesting facts. I have been able to do the math in how much I am saving and reducing emissions.
It is amazing to analyze these numbers in the table, because just biking for two days a week to school would save approximately $30. Although this may not seem significant, if I switched solely to biking to class I would save $150 in gas but also would not need to pay the $400 per semester for a parking pass. On top of all that I would be burning significantly more calories and reducing my own footprint in emissions. Using omnicalculator for riding my bike on this 3-mile commute for a 15 week semester, I would add 0.5 days to my life expectancy, reduce 82.07 lbs. of Co2 emissions, reduce 0.04 lbs. of NOx emissions, for a grand equivalent of planting 6 trees. This is an amazing impact for only biking TWO days each week for ONE semester of school!
One of the coolest things I realized was that it actually takes me less time to ride my bike to class. I have a parking pass in Brazos Garage, which is actually a fairly long walk from my classes, so although it only takes me about 14 minutes to drive to campus, it also takes me about 10 minutes to walk to class after I park. On the other hand, when I ride my bike it takes me 19 minutes in total to ride my bike to my class, lock it, and walk into class. This is a great example of the sustainable option being the easiest, cheapest, and most efficient option, which needs to occur in order for masses to start switching to the sustainable option voluntarily.
The biggest issue I had when I began biking was safety. Along my biking route down Duval, there are at least two times that the biking lane ends, and I have to merge with traffic until another bike lane comes along. This provides a lot of discomfort and discouragement for bikers to bike. In the study by Lott, it was found that, “the frequency of all accident types combined was reduced by 31% on bike lanes, demonstrating a positive effect of bike lanes on safety” (Lott 1976). Not only are bike lanes proven as safe by the numbers, but it has also been found that, “A disproportionate share of the bicycling occurs on streets with bike lanes, indicating their value to bicyclists” (Dill 2009). In Vienna, the bike infrastructure is phenomenal, with bike lanes completely separated by traffic in numerous areas by various dividers, the most common being trees and green space. Pedestrian areas in Vienna feel safe and secure as bikers are protected by “green sidewalks” and can bike and walk with ease. Contrastingly, Austin does not do a great job of this. Only recently have I seen a protected bike area down Rio Grande Street, while most bike lanes I have rode on are discontinuous like my route down Duval Street shown in the pictures above. These discontinuous lanes might be “protected” at one moment by nothing more than a painted line signifying the bike lane, and then all of sudden this line of protection can disappear at a stoplight and does not reappear for about 200 feet, forcing the biker to merge with unfriendly car traffic.
The key for Austin is to make biking the better option. According to research, “as long as car use remains cheap and transportation policy remains dominated by motorized modes, bicycles will continue to be used primarily for recreation and not for daily urban travel in the United States” (Akar and Clifton 2009). If Austin and the rest of the United States wants to shift public preference towards biking, then it will have to implement a few different policies. One of the most important, as evidenced by many European countries, would be to increase regulations, taxes, and inconveniences on driving cars (Pucher and Buehler 2008). While policies and bike infrastructure attempt to catch up to the age-old bias towards cars as the primary mode of transportation in the U.S., everyone can do their part in improving their health and the environment by choosing to ride their bike instead of drive.
References:
Akar, G., Clifton, K. (2009). Influence of Individual Perceptions and Bicycle Infrastructure on Decision to Bike. Transportation Research Record 2140, 165–172. https://doi.org/10.3141/2140-18
De Hartog, J. J., Boogaard, H., Nijland, H., & Hoek, G. (2010). Do the Health Benefits of Cycling Outweigh the Risks? Environmental Health Perspectives, 118(8), 1109–1116. http://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901747
Dill, J. J Public Health Pol (2009) 30(Suppl 1): S95. https://doi.org/10.1057/jphp.2008.56
Lott, D. F., & Lott, D. Y. (1976). Effect of bike lanes on ten classes of bicycle-automobile accidents in Davis, California. Journal of Safety Research, 8(4), 171–179.
Pucher, J., Buehler, R. (2006). Why Canadians Cycle More Than Americans: A Comparative Analysis of Bicycling Trends and Policies. Transport Policy 13, 265–279. Retrieved from http://vtpi.org/pucher_canbike.pdf
Pucher, J., Buehler, R. (2008). Making Cycling Irresistible: Lessons from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany. Transport Reviews 28 (4), 1–57. Retrieved from http://www.cycle-helmets.com/irresistible.pdf
