Bikes Make Second Rate Commuter Transport

The DFW Clean Air Coalition “Commuter Challenge” put the ability of bikes to reduce oil consumption into perspective against other private options. I picked the options to keep the math simple.

Consider the following options:

• Car, getting 20mpg, making a 20 mile round trip commute
• Four day work week (compressed schedule), same car as baseline
• Hybrid car getting 40mpg, making the same commute
• Telecommute – commuter travels to work in person once a week
• Bike, making the same 20 mile commute – ignore any extra oil used to generate the ride calories
• Carpool, with 3 people, getting that same 20mpg and making the same commute
• Vanpool, with 10 people, getting 10mpg and making that commute

Compared to the car, each saved the following fuel per baseline commute:

• Car – Baseline
• Compressed Schedule – 0.2 gallon
• Hybrid – 0.5 gallon
• Telecommute – 0.8 gallon
• Bike – 1 gallon
• Carpool – 2 gallons (took 2 extra people off the road)
• Vanpool – 8 gallons (took 9 extra people off the road)

Lesson?
For the clean air community, vanpools rock! Bikes are only good in comparison with other single occupancy vehicles. Public options, of course, depend on ridership and how people get to & from the public option. So cyclists, let’s not get all enamored about how wonderful we are. It’s a lot easier to get ten people signed up for a vanpool than to get 8 people to abandon their cars and cycle commute. Personally, however, I don’t think vanpools are as much fun – and those vanpools aren’t very practical for getting shopping done, nor for getting a hot coffee, savored at Sundance Square, not long after dawn on a sunny fall Saturday morning. THAT, my friends, is well worth being second rate…