Bike Commuting: Point-Counterpoint

As part of a week-long series, Randal O'Toole and blogger Will Campbell discuss and debate bike commuting and what cities should or shouldn't do to encourage it.

1 minute read

January 11, 2008, 7:00 AM PST

By Nate Berg


Randal O'Toole writes: "Increasing bike commuting from, say, 0.4% to 2.6%, or even 3.5% on a good day, will not do much to relieve Los Angeles congestion. Should cities encourage bike commuting? Certainly. Should they spend gobs of money trying to encourage that commuting? Probably not."

"Far more people telecommute than cycle to work: 3.6% nationwide, and more than 6% in cities such as San Francisco and Seattle. Telecommuting is growing faster than cycling or transit riding, so if cities could do only one thing to promote less driving, telecommuting would be a better bet than cycling."

Blogger and cyclist Will Campbell counterpoints: "The questions shouldn't be whether cities should spend gobs of money building an impractical two-wheeled transit grid to encourage bike commuting, or whether we should choose a telecommuting program over one focused on bicycling; it's whether our elected officials should actively advance alternative transportation on a more personal, local level."

Thursday, January 10, 2008 in The Los Angeles Times

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