Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Cycling and the economy





Let's look down the list of the top ten nations.








Kevin Love said...

Interesting graph. I see Canada is at #14, right next to Sweden.

Until the current economic crises hit, Canada had run budget surpluses for the last nine years. Former finance minister Paul Martin talked about completely paying off Canada's national debt by 2023.

Toronto's financial district is called Bay Street, as that is the name of the street at its centre. Bay Street has, of course, a reserved dual-use bus/bicycle lane.

Jayadeep(JDP) said...

Great observation David - while it may not be obvious, I do believe it reflect the country's attitude towards life and economy by looking at the cycling population.

spiderleggreen said...

Thanks! More Ammo.

When I think about infrastructure costs, I think about those big trucks that pound our roads into potholes. They are the biggest offender, but cars aren't that light either. But compare that weight to a bike and you see why the costs of maintaining bike infrastructure is so much less.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, but I think you're jumping to conclusions here. What we have are two sets of data ('Current Account Balance' and an amalgam of 'no. of people cycling' & 'No. of bikes'.

You show that there seems to be a positive correlation between the two, but you haven't shown the link. These two sets of data could both be symptoms of a third set of numbers (e.g. density of towns & cities, or policies promoting social equality, or whatever.) Or they could even be completely unrelated sets of numbers - similar to a pair like 'a population's average height' and 'their country's mean height above sea level'. This could show that taller nations live closer to (or in one case, below) sea level, leading one to conclude that altitude stunts the growth.

The facts that are without doubt to me are that:
o People who ride to work take fewer sick days.
o Riding a bike = exercise = endorphins = happy people
o Infrastructure that encourages children to ride, and adults to allow them to do so unsupervised makes for more independent, but more responsible children
o 0.6% is a pitiful proportion of a transport budget to allocate to cycling, and even worse when you see that this 0.6% also includes footpaths and other routes to schools. When you factor in that cycling could be 40% of all trips, it's bordering on scandalous, showing where the real transport, environmental, and social policies lie in the UK.

though of course, I have no data to back any of this up! ;-)

cocosolis said...

China's cycling rate may be dropping... but from a very high base! I wonder though if that relative drop goes to show that cycling is more sustainable in a democracy (ie China's very high rate of cycling comes from a time when people had, literally, no choice). I know some cycling 'campaigners' who would not say no to totalitarianism if it meant more cycling. And yet the Netherlands manage to do it democratically.

David Hembrow said...

Jayadeep: I see the cycling rate, and the behaviour of cyclists, as exactly that kind of indicator.

Karl: Correlation is not the same thing as causation. Sometimes it is impossible to find a link which proves that things are related.

However, I think it helps to look at it in reverse. What you then see is that providing decently for cyclists does not in itself cause financial hardship for a country. Indeed, the four countries doing best for cycling are amongst those countries which are doing best economically, so cycling clearly isn't causing them a huge problem.

It's not just cycling. There are a wide range of social policies which are well planned and well funded in these four countries. None of them are causing these countries to under-perform economically. I think there is a good reason why: A happy and stable society is a productive society.

I can't recall how many times I was told in the UK that proper provision for cyclists was "too expensive". Even campaigners in the country don't ask for the best, because they think it unrealistic. Everyone's so worried about spending (perhaps "wasting") a tiny amount of money on cycling.

It brings to mind the expression "penny wise, pound foolish."

David Hembrow said...

Coco: I think it's quite simple. The Chinese haven't been able to have cars, so now that they're available they are attractive. Unfortunately they seem to be (to some extent, at least) following the same headlong path towards motoring as the entire western world, including the Netherlands, did in the 1950s.

The Dutch approach to get people onto bikes has simply been to make it a very attractive thing to do. No totalitarianism is needed, no-one is forced to do it, and people smile as they cycle.

Nick said...

Nice try David, but the correlations you make simply don't stand up. I fully agree with your premise that cycling=good and should be encouraged, but I think you're stretching it a bit by using these particular sets of 'statistics' to try to give your argument a solid foundation.

David Hembrow said...

Nick, I don't think it is that solid. I don't claim there is a direct correlation. That's not the point. However, having been told so many times when in the UK that doing any little thing for cycling was "too expensive", I think it is interesting to note that creating a really decent environment for cycling has not destroyed the economy of this nation. Nor has doing many other things which are desperately underfunded in the UK. Rather, it's those countries which have not done these things which would appear to be suffering more.