Year of the Bicycle?
Mar 4th, 2008 | By Mark Dieterich | Category: AdvocacyThe people over at DailyPress.com posted an article about whether high oil prices will make 2008 the year of the bicycle.
Oil costs are surpassing $100 a barrel, global warming alarm calls are mounting, polluting autos and trucks increasingly clog city streets, and health concerns about a sedentary and fattening society are mounting.
All of these reasons convince me to keep cycling, but are they enough to sway the general populous and governments to make real change? I look around me every day and see the majority of autos with only a driver. Worse yet, most of the autos seem to be SUVs or trucks. I hear plenty of people complaining about the gas prices, but when I inquire, hardly any of them are even considering a change to their daily behavior. How expensive will gas need to get before we actually see change? I’m guessing somewhere in the $5-$6/gal range.
The National Bike Summit started today. It will be interesting to see if they manage to make any political headway this year. Only time will tell.
