Henk Swarttouw: Car is an extremely ineffective means of transport in cities

At the Velo-city summit in Leipzig Daniel Mes from the office of Frans Timmermans, First Vice-President of the European Commission, said the EU would see a “tectonic shift” in the approach to bicycles. A bicycle is supposed to be seen as a rightful means of transport. Is it a real alternative to a car?

Of course, especially in cities. There are several reasons to believe it. More than a half of car rides is less than 5 km. We see it everywhere: in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand. What’s more, around 30 percent of car rides is under 3 km. In most cases, there is just one person without much luggage in the car. A straight majority of the drivers is physically capable of covering such distance on a bicycle. As for that, it’s worth emphasizing that there are more people unable to drive a car than to ride a bike. Replacing a part of the short-distance car traffic with bicycle traffic fosters an effective use of metropolitan space, has a positive influence on road and environmental safety, and reduces emissions and noise. In more crowded cities a bicycle is simply a faster means of transport than a car.