I enjoyed reading this article a lot because I enjoy biking when I am back on long island where the roads are less polluted with crazy drivers. Ive always wanted to bring my bike to the city but never felt confident enough that there was a safe place to ride. Reading this article was enjoyable because it was nice to see that there is other people out there who believe that there should be more accessible places to bike in major cities as it is truly the best means of transportation. Riding a bike benefits so many things from your health to our planet’s health, there is no reason why it shouldn’t be pushed on people of the US more.
One statistic in this article that I found to be fascinating was that only 0.5% of people in the US ride bikes regularly and a staggering 27% of trips are made by bike in the Netherlands. I agree with the article in that this may be caused by the lack of safe riding tracks that people in major cities, where biking would be the most logical form of transport. Even though a couple avenues and lost of streets have bike lanes, they are basically inside and taken over by the streets and I believe them to be useless. I have been cut off riding my penny board on these lanes by taxis and other vehicles like moving trucks more times than I can count and believe that if NYC was covered in paved and protected biking lanes, like along the west side highway, then there would be a staggering increase in bikers in NYC alone. However, after reading this article and seeing that there is an extremely low rate of crashes, 2.7%, I am considering bringing in my bike for the remaining time it is bearable to ride in this cold weather and for the spring and summer seasons to come.
