Cycling Activity vs. National Gas Prices

Thanks to Design New Haven  and Mark Abraham for this post!

Looks like the number of posts per day on the ElmCityCycling listserv, a forum for making New Haven more accommodating to bicyclists and pedestrians, is highly correlated with the national price of unleaded gasoline (click on chart to enlarge). Who would have thought?

With gasoline predicted to hit $6-10 per gallon as soon as a few months from now, the number of nonmotorized trips to work in New Haven is only likely to continue to increase. As a relatively flat and compact city, Downtown New Haven is already perfect for bicycling and walking, as evidenced by the fact that the city has one of the highest percentages of bicycle commuters in the United States (1.8%, versus 1.2% in Boston, 0.9% in Providence, 0.6% in New York City, 0.4% in Hartford, 0.1% in Bridgeport and 0.0% in Waterbury, according to the Census Bureau's 2006 ACS). During rush hour, there are already occasional bicycle "traffic jams" on the popular Orange Street bicycle lane. New Haven was also recently named one of the 20 most walkable cities in the United States.

However, improvements to the city's bicycle-friendliness are needed before the average area resident will choose to ride to work, or even use his or her bicycle for short trips (e.g., a 4-block run to the corner store). Considering that bicycles are already widely-owned (and very inexpensive), the most frequently given reasons why Connecticut residents don't bicycle more often - infrastructure and safety - are fairly easy to solve. According to numerous studies, infrastructure such as bicycle parking, bike-friendly street design, multi-use greenways like the Farmington Canal Trail and accessibility at train stations raise land values by an amount much greater than the investment put into them (in part because they tend to calm traffic). Reckless and high-speed driving and driver education can be addressed through community-wide efforts and traffic enforcement, and through measures such as anti-dooring ordinances like those found in Chicago.

With the average American family devoting 20% or more of their annual spending towards automobile expenses - more than on health care, education, or food, farmers switching from tractors to pack mules, gasoline prices continuing to skyrocket, and of course, global warming (if everyone who lives within 5 miles of their workplace were to cycle to work just one day a week, nearly 5 million tons of global warming pollution would be saved every year, the equivalent of taking about a million cars off the road, not to mention that the energy required to manufacture a new car is 100+ times that of a new bicycle), American cities will likely need to start taking a Copenhagen-like approach as soon as possible. New York City is already heading that direction, with the hiring of Jan Gehl, Copenhagen's world-renowned planner and urbanist. By conservative estimates, the number of bicycle trips in New York has already increased by 50-75% in the past 10 years, even without major infrastructure improvements. Transit ridership is increasing rapidly as well, on systems all across the United States including those that serve Downtown New Haven.

In Connecticut, promoting bicycling and walking will most likely require a shift in funding priorities. According to the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, more than 60% of 2007-2010 highway funding is currently used to expand and build new highways (even as existing ones crumble), whereas less than 1% of the overall transportation budget is spent on bicycle and pedestrian projects (see PDF report here). If Connecticut's 169 cities and town centers are to compete in the 21st century, that equation needs to flip.