The Pandemic Bike Growth Survives—in Cities That Stepped Up

In 18 years working in bicycles, Eric Bjorling had by no means seen something like April 2020. With no finish to the pandemic in sight, individuals had been determined for issues to do. “That they had time on their palms, that they had youngsters, they wanted to bodily go exterior and do one thing,” says Bjorling, head of brand name advertising and marketing at Trek Bicycles, one of many largest bike producers on the earth.

So started the pandemic bicycle growth. US bike gross sales greater than doubled in 2020 in comparison with the 12 months earlier than, in accordance with analysis agency NPD Group, reaching $5.4 billion. Bike mechanics obtained overloaded as individuals dragged uncared for bikes out of garages and basements. And native governments responded to after which fueled the shift, by adapting city environments with unprecedented pace, limiting automobile site visitors on some streets and constructing momentary bike lanes on others. “Throughout the pandemic, many issues had been attainable, policy-wise, that earlier than we didn’t assume attainable, particularly at that tempo,” says Ralph Buehler, a professor of city affairs and planning at Virginia Tech.

Virtually three years later, the legacy of the bike growth, and the accompanying adjustments to city infrastructure, is murky. In lots of locations, it has been onerous to lastingly convert residents to biking, particularly for the form of journeys which may in any other case be taken by automobile: to work, to high school, or to the grocery retailer. Bike gross sales have slowed from their frantic pandemic-era excessive: NPD Group information exhibits the worth of gross sales dropped 11 % this 12 months in comparison with 2021, although they’re nonetheless nicely above 2019 ranges.

And although clear information on these quick turnaround transportation initiatives is difficult to seek out, observers say some air has gone out of the tires. It takes quite a lot of fast tweaks to flee the pull of car-centric pondering baked into many US city environments.

PeopleForBikes, a biking advocacy nonprofit, tracked some 200 US cities that made adjustments to their streets throughout the pandemic, and “for probably the most half, lots of them have gone again,” says Patrick Hogan, the group’s analysis supervisor. His crew’s information suggests that folks driving for recreation fairly than utility usually tend to have caught with pandemic-era bike habits, indicating that many individuals nonetheless don’t see biking as a simple or secure approach to get round.

A survey of People performed by researchers at Arizona State College earlier than, throughout and after the pandemic discovered that, regardless of governments’ work to advertise biking throughout the pandemic, the share of individuals biking has not modified. It’s a story as outdated as time—persons are optimistic about turning into higher variations of themselves, after which life will get in the way in which.

“Individuals had been enthusiastic, and so they reported that they anticipated they had been going to stroll and bike extra as a result of they had been actually having fun with it,” says Deborah Salon, a professor of city planning at Arizona State College, who labored on the survey. “Sadly, we don’t discover any proof of that truly occurring.”

That is not nice information for cities and their residents, even those that did not be a part of the pandemic peloton. For one factor, biking is a pleasant approach to get individuals up and shifting, which is sweet for each bodily and psychological well being. Bicycles would possibly get residents out of automobiles and off of congested roads, which could forestall site visitors deaths and make individuals happier.