The bicycle market is booming.
A total of around five million bicycles and e-bikes were sold in 2020, the sales figures rose by around 17 percent compared to the previous year, and sales even by 61 percent.
This is reported by the two-wheel industry association.
What is the use of the bicycle boom for our environment and society?
An answer can be found by converting the consequences of choosing a vehicle into money.
A report published by the Federal Environment Agency in March 2021 shows that bicycles are a more cost-effective alternative to cars for short journeys for society. Based on data from 2017, this examines how much society has to pay for driving a car. To do this, the report converts the car's energy consumption, greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, and noise emissions into money. Nadja Richter from the Federal Environment Agency explains how it works: The environmental consequences of driving have a negative impact on health, because the noise, for example, can lead to stress or tinnitus in residents. In addition, the emissions cause damage to buildings and materials, crop failures and loss of biodiversity. If the climate changes, however, measures must be taken tothat adapt the infrastructure to the changed weather.
But that's not all: The costs from production to maintenance and disposal of the car are also included.
And since a car doesn't drive by itself, fuel and electricity, as well as their production, must also be calculated.
In addition, drivers need roads to drive on, places to park in, and signs that tell them where to go.
So if you put all of that together, you get the sum of 5.66 cents.
This is how much society pays per kilometer driven by car, according to the Federal Environment Agency's calculation.
In comparison: a bicycle kilometer only costs 0.36 cents.
This amount mainly results from the manufacture of the bike.
Bicycle funding required
The demand for more bike-friendly cities is not new. The Federal Association for the Future of Bicycle, the Cycling Association Changing Cities and the Association for Service and Bicycle recently expressed them in a report. They hope that more people will get on the saddle through bike-friendly traffic structures. The organizations see benefits not only for the environment, but also for health and ultimately society as a whole. They are based on a study by Stefan Gössling, Professor of Tourism and Human Ecology at Lund University in Sweden.
In the 2018 paper, he also calculates environmental costs. In contrast to the Federal Environment Agency, however, it also includes health effects from vehicle use and the expenses that arise from accidents. Gössling calculates the latter by looking at how likely it is to injure or even die while cycling or driving a car. He then relates this percentage to the value that is set for a human life. How much that is, he explains in an interview on the phone: Economists came to almost two million euros, which is mainly composed of insurance and wage costs. “However, you have to keep in mind that emotional values and secondary factors such as grief or costs for possible psychotherapy after accidental trauma are excluded.Therefore, the value is more likely to be underestimated than overestimated, ”notes the professor.