ECONOTES : Pedaling Into the Future

The bicycle has gained ground as the leading means of personal transportation worldwide in the last 20 years, a new Worldwatch Institute report says.

Although worldwide automobile production has remained roughly level since the 1970s at between 30 million and 35 million units a year, bicycle production has accelerated more than 100% to 100 million produced annually, according to data gathered for Worldwatch’s Vital Signs Brief No. 6.

“It may stretch credulity that we seriously compare autos and bikes and say there’s increased bicycle production,” says Ed Ayres, Worldwatch senior editor, “but we consider them in the same league because the overwhelming majority of bicycles are used for carrying grain from fields to villages and to get to work.”

The trend suggests a significant shift away from the assumption that as the world industrialized and affluence spread, so would the American ideal of a car in every garage, says the report.

While the dream of owning a car may exist all over the world, realities such as the oil-price shocks of the 1970s, air pollution and the high costs of buying and maintaining cars have limited that dream, Worldwatch President Lester Brown says. “The future isn’t going to be a Super Bowl contest between cars and bikes.”