BIKE: Cars versus bikes

[Roger Baker]

See the spread sheet link and text at bottom.

The problem with using these numbers in a place like Austin is that in 
Austin, which is the fourth most car-addicted city in the world, it 
probably isn't possible to substitute a bike for a car in most cases, 
due to both that fact and poor bike safety because of bike-hostile road 
design. In Texas, to begin with,  it is illegal to sue the governmental 
entity that built the road (commonly TxDOT) for building a dangerous 
road.

Do you know that the roads built by TxDOT include a calculation for the 
value of the life of a motorist (maybe a million dollars or something) 
as a calculated tradeoff against spending their money on a safer road?

The corresponding worth-of-life design factor used for bike riders when 
TxDOT claims that they are building wide shoulders for the safety of 
bikes must exist on paper somewhere. They must calculate a trade-off of 
some kind. I don't think TxDOT would be very willing to reveal this 
information, since I think their calculation for the biker's life value 
would be shockingly low if there were any bike use at all.

The reality is probably that TxDOT builds wide shoulders for improved 
safety for cars and then claims improved bike safety as a freebie. 
TxDOT would probably try to claim that they have no numbers of the 
modal split for bikes.  But I think CAMPO does have such numbers, as 
estimates anyhow.

I suspect TxDOT doesn't much want bikes on their roads.  I think the 
bike safety design-tradeoff numbers would show that just by marking the 
outer lanes of their roads for bikes would show appreciably greater 
safety for the mere cost of the paint used to mark outer bike lanes.  
Also, I think a few signs to inform motorists that they should share 
the roads for alternative users would probably have a large safety 
impact, and would tend to encourage more bike use. I suspect this would 
be bad news for the road contracting lobby, especially when high gas 
prices are encouraging greater bike use.

Anyone care to ask TxDOT for their road design tradeoff calculations 
associated with the calculated value of the lives of their bike riders? 
-- Roger


                        ************************************


	From: 	  larso
	Subject: 	[RunningOnEmpty2] The car is not faster than the bike
	Date: 	November 12, 2004 4:04:37 AM CST
	To: 	  RunningOnEmpty2
	Reply-To: 	  RunningOnEmpty2



I read a note in one of my Human Ecology university books, that a car
isn't faster than a bike, if you take all time spent earning the money
to spend on the car, fuel costs, parking, maintainance etc into
account.

So I did my own calculation. The Excel spreadsheet is available at
http://www.olofzone.se/RoE2/Car_vs_bike_speed.xls Please don't spread
it further, since this is a preliminary calculation.

I took three examples, my (somewhat expensive) bike, my car (Citroen
Xsara Picasso) and a Volvo XC90 2.5T (not being a patriot). I assumed
that the owner of the bike had lower wages, average wage for "my" car,
and above average for a XC90 SUV.

It turns out that "my" car is slightly faster than a bike, 18 km/h,
while both the XC90 and the bike ended up at around 14 km/h.

The purchase cost of the car is the most significant factor, and I made
the assumption that you took a loan to pay for the car, except for a
10% deposit.

Also if you happen to be an athlete and be able to keep an average
speed on you bike of 20 km/h instead of the assumed 15 km/h, then the
bike will be the fastest vehicle.

Otherwise, the good news is - you can travel as far on a bike each
year, as you can on a car, just work less, bike more. In the end you
will have just as much money left at the end of the month.

But, lo and behold, what would happen with the economy if people
started riding bikes, not buying cars and worked 25% less?

People would be healthier, possibly happier, but the economy would
suffer a lot.

Does anyone have any references to similar conclusions?

--
Lars Olofsson, Härryda, Härryda, Sweden, 57d43.58' N, 12d16.08'E
larso +46-301-31160 +46-708-996439
GPG/PGP key available

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 4792 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.bicycleaustin.info/private.cgi/forum-bicycleaustin.info/attachments/20041112/88614461/attachment.bin