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  #11  
Old September 29th 04, 07:51 PM
Pat Lamb
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Sheldon Brown wrote:
I'm thinking there is a number that might be useful to cycling
advocates, but I don't have the data to calculate it or even to make
a reasonable estimate...but maybe someone on the list does.

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?

Anybody have a reasonable estimate?


It's really only tangentially related, but I've noticed that I use 1/2
to 2/3 as much gas when I'm commuting by bike semi-regularly. That
comes out to saving 1/3 - 1/2 gallons of gas per day, or 120-180 gallons
per year.

Pat "Obviously YMMV" Lamb
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  #12  
Old September 29th 04, 08:05 PM
Frank Miles
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In article ,
Sheldon Brown wrote:
I'm thinking there is a number that might be useful to cycling
advocates, but I don't have the data to calculate it or even to make
a reasonable estimate...but maybe someone on the list does.

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?

Anybody have a reasonable estimate?


Probably not. And it's even messier -- at least in areas where auto
traffic exceeds the rated carrying capacity of the roads. If all those
bike commuting/shopping trips were replaced by car trips, there would
probably be even more extensive & prolonged traffic tie-ups on roads.
Even with the present cost of gas, the waste of people's time -- along
with the attendant blood pressure increase -- would probably be more
costly to many drivers. Especially to (current) bike riders!

It would also cost 'way more to those who would have to buy, insure, and
maintain another motor vehicle.

So it would be an interesting and partially useful statistic to have,
but it would be incomplete.

-frank
--
  #13  
Old September 29th 04, 08:14 PM
Zoot Katz
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29 Sep 2004 13:35:07 -0500, ,
Jim Smith wrote:

In my case, my gas consumption would go down. I live in a lousy
location for biking, and have to drive if I want a decent ride.


What about it makes it unsuitable for biking?


I suspect it's a loose bladder or weak sphincter.
Any ride is decent compared to being caged.
--
zk
  #14  
Old September 29th 04, 08:59 PM
Terry Morse
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Sheldon Brown wrote:

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?

Anybody have a reasonable estimate?


I have an estimate, reasonable or not. For the USA:

- Estimated annual cycling distance: 15-21 billion/year
- Estimated vehicle fuel consumption: 20.5 miles/vehicle-gallon
- Estimated vehicle occupancy: 1.6 (passengers/vehicle)

So high estimate for gallons of gasoline required to replace cycling:

(21 billion miles/year) / [ (20.5 mph) * (1.6 passengers) ]

640 million gallons per year

--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/
  #15  
Old September 29th 04, 09:14 PM
Peter Cole
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"Sheldon Brown" wrote in message
...
I'm thinking there is a number that might be useful to cycling
advocates, but I don't have the data to calculate it or even to make
a reasonable estimate...but maybe someone on the list does.

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?

Anybody have a reasonable estimate?


http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/survey/commuter.htm
http://www.ti.org/commutingnumbers.html
http://www.bicyclecoalition.org/pres...thenumbers.ppt
http://www.bikeleague.org/educenter/hr1265.htm
http://www.reddirtpedalers.com/Wheel...int.asp?id=182
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/c2kbr-33.pdf

The 2000 census estimates about half a million bike commuters (.4%), they
don't give distance, only commute time. If you take their numbers, and
estimate 5 miles each way, that's 5M mi/day, at say 18 mpg, you'd have a
little less than 300K gal/day. The US consumes around 400M gal/day.

Auto commuters probably travel perhaps twice the distance, with about 100M
commuting vehicles/day, so that's 2B mi/day, which says commuting burns
about 1/4 the total gasoline consumption, which agrees pretty well with the
bike non-consumption estimate. The net is, that if all bike commuters
started driving, gas consumption would go up 0.1% perhaps.


  #16  
Old September 29th 04, 11:07 PM
qtq
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Sheldon Brown wrote in news:415AD8A2.2050200
@sheldonbrown.com:

I'm thinking there is a number that might be useful to cycling
advocates, but I don't have the data to calculate it or even to make
a reasonable estimate...but maybe someone on the list does.

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?


do cyclists drive SUVs, or would they be riding motorbikes (I'm thinking of
a certain lugged stem-builder here) instead?

--
to email me, run my email address through /usr/bin/caesar
(or rotate by -4)

  #17  
Old September 29th 04, 11:18 PM
John Forrest Tomlinson
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On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:45:38 -0400, Sheldon Brown
wrote:


Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?


Why do you hate America so much?

JT

PS - I'm joking.

****************************
Remove "remove" to reply
Visit http://www.jt10000.com
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  #18  
Old September 29th 04, 11:29 PM
Ted
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In article ,
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:45:38 -0400, Sheldon Brown
wrote:


Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?


Why do you hate America so much?

JT

PS - I'm joking.



No you're not, you Neanderthal. (:
  #19  
Old September 30th 04, 12:00 AM
Mark Heiple
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In article ,
Jim Smith wrote:

Mark Heiple writes:

In article ,
Sheldon Brown wrote:

I'm thinking there is a number that might be useful to cycling
advocates, but I don't have the data to calculate it or even to make
a reasonable estimate...but maybe someone on the list does.

Suppose that bicycles were totally banned, and that every mile of
bicycle travel was then replaced by an automobile trip.

How many additional gallons of gasoline per day or per year would
then be consumed?

Anybody have a reasonable estimate?

Sheldon "Numbers" Brown
+----------------------------------------+
| Cyclists fare best when they act and |
| are treated as drivers of vehicles. |
| -- John Forester |
| http://www.johnforester.com/ |
+----------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com


In my case, my gas consumption would go down. I live in a lousy
location for biking, and have to drive if I want a decent ride.


What about it makes it unsuitable for biking?


Lousy, urban, narrow, broken up roads, with heavy traffic.

  #20  
Old September 30th 04, 12:30 AM
Zoot Katz
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Wed, 29 Sep 2004 19:00:07 -0400,
,
Mark Heiple wrote:

In my case, my gas consumption would go down. I live in a lousy
location for biking, and have to drive if I want a decent ride.


What about it makes it unsuitable for biking?


Lousy, urban, narrow, broken up roads, with heavy traffic.


Urban riding generally implies that there are equally practical
alternate routes available that will have less traffic.

Broken road surfaces means you need heavier tires and more solidly
built wheels for a "decent" ride.

The hardest thing about city cycling is learning to stop thinking like
a car driver. Use the inherent superiority of bicycles to expand your
vistas.
--
zk
 




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