Cycling: The Way Ahead for Towns & Cities

A European Commission report called Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities published in 1999 reveals some interesting statistics about cycling and driving. In the introduction, the report states:

The mobility that we associate with the private car has merged with apocalyptic images of towns that have come to a complete standstill... The car is the victim of its own success.

30% of trips in cars cover distances of less than 3km.

The level of pollution inside a car is invariably higher than the ambient air pollution level.

We are in danger of creating generations of obese people with fragile bones if we do not instil the habit of physical exercise in young people.

Cyclists enjoy better physical and mental health than non-cyclists.

And that's just the introduction!

It goes on to illustrate the potential benefits of ditching the car and taking up the bicycle, benefits that I'm sure we are all now aware of: economic benefits, health benefits, ecological benefits...

But the benefits of bicycling needn't stop there. There are deeper benefits that are associated with the simple act of cycling. Metaphysical benefits...or, let's say, spiritual fringe benefits.

One's openness to the outside, for instance, and one's own auto-mobility affords bicycling the power to reconnect us to our more deeply-rooted selves, by re-injecting us into the world, and by exposing us once again to its elements and energy.

Cycling is thus not just the way ahead for towns and cities but, and at a fundamental level, it is the way ahead for a more deeply ecologically invested self.