Is bike sharing reducing carbon emissions?
A feature from the archives: rent-a-bikes show some promise of reducing climate change
For this week, we dip into our archive, back to February, 2019, for an article published originally in Down to Earth on the greenhouse gas savings offered by bicycle sharing. At the time, electric bicycles had yet to really become part of the mix; so I imagine that they may be bringing about additional changes to bike sharing.
They can seem to be everywhere. The brightly colored bicycles can be found parked along urban streets, clustered in city parks, or just about anywhere in cities around the world.
They are known as shared bicycles. Using a mobile phone, a rider can access a bicycle, ride to a destination, then leave the bike at a designated station or just park the bike anywhere along a bike lane or street, depending on the type of bike share being used. The bikes might be thought of as two-wheeled taxis, where the rider provides the pedaling. This type of bike sharing was first introduced in 1996, with the industry having a slow start. In 2004 there were just 13 bike sharing systems in the entire world. By 2015 that number grew to 855, with a quarter of the systems in China. Marketing research completed in 2016 estimated that China had a ridership of 20.3 million bike share users.
Proponents of bike sharing systems tout their environmental benefits, saying that they reduce the use of fossil fuels and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Using big data analysis, Yongping Zhang of Nankai University and Zhifu Mi of University College London found evidence to back up this claim. In 2016 they found that bike sharing in Shanghai reduced the consumption of gasoline by 8358 tons. Greenhouse gas reductions came out to be 64 tons of nitrogen oxide and 25,240 tons of CO2.
Does the data from Shanghai translate to other parts of the world? The answer is a qualified perhaps. A number of research projects and literature reviews in the last five years have found that North Americans who use shared bikestend to be people who already use more sustainable modes of transportation. These individuals have already lowered their emissions; so, in effect, there is no petrol reduction and no greenhouse gas reduction from their bike share use.
The bike sharing systems thrive in some U.S. cities, while they languish in others. Bicycle promoters say the reason for this difference is the lack of proper bicycle infrastructure, such as protected lanes for bikes. Many would-be riders perceive cycling to be dangerous without the protected lanes. And there are communities evicting the bicycles, complaining that the bikes create hazards for pedestrians by cluttering city streets. Phil Mershon, a writer, grew tired of finding shared bikes left on his Scottsdale, Arizona property. “Two or three times a week I would find those bikes abandoned in my yard,” he says.
Cycling to work has gone down in the U.S., despite the construction of bike lanes in many cities, bike sharing programs, and greater awareness of the climate disruption of more carbon intensive transportation. The percentage of Americans who say that they use a bike to get to work fell by 3.2 percent from 2016 to 2017 to an average of 836,569 commuters.
Bike sharing exists throughout India, but, as has been noted by Rutul Joshi of the Center for Environmental Planning and Technology University and Yogi Joseph of Concordia University in Montreal Canada, there are fewer and fewer urban cyclists throughout India. They see this trend developing because of the emergence of the automobile, rising incomes, and the belief that cycling runs counter to ideas of modernity. They claim as well a social bias against utilitarian cycling, leading to its neglect in urban policies and public projects. Despite the goals of sustainability in the 2006 National Urban Transportation Policy, as well as initiatives to promote cycling, the infrastructure to enable and encourage cycling is not being built in India.
Elliot Fishman, director of the Australia based Institute for Sensible Transport looked at large bicycle sharing systems from all over the world. He found that no matter where in the world the systems are, the biggest factor driving use of bike sharing is convenience. A frequent shared bike user, Daniel Walsh of San Diego, California can attest to this. He says that, though he has a bicycle of his own, he often uses a shared bike to go short distances around his neighborhood or run errands. “It’s convenient. I don’t have the hassle of getting my bike out of storage or locking it up once I get to where I’m going,” he says.
As the research indicates, shared bicycles can be part of a more sustainable world. To realize that possibility, however, ridership needs to expand beyond those who are already committed to a green lifestyle. The marketing of the bicycle sharing companies can emphasise their biggest selling point, which is convenience. Countries and cities can promote cycling in general by creating or enhancing infrastructure such as bike lanes. They can also counter biases against cycling and include cycling as part of urban policy and public projects.
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