Cars Vs Bikes

Fredrik Gertten is a Swedish documentary-maker who has just made a documentary about what he sees as the ongoing tension between the efforts to make our streets safe for cyclists and powerful car, oil and construction interests who favour the status quo where we are increasingly dependent on cars to get us around. It was shown at the recent Festival Of Curiosity in Dublin. Here are some stats from the film: Facts from the film • 20 million people live in Sao Paolo, where 7 million cars are on the road • 1 cyclist is killed in Sao Paulo every week • Once LA had the best public transportation in the world. Today 70% of the area is dedicated to roads and parking • Today Copenhagen has 1000 km of bikelanes. 4 out of 5 own a bike • More people commute by bike in Copenhagen than all of USA • 0.8% commute by bike in Los Angeles County • In Toronto a pedestrian is hit by a car every 3 hours. A cyclist is hit by a car every 7 hours • In São Paolo commuters spend nearly 3 hours in traffic every day • 1 billion cars on the planet in 2012. 2 billion in 2020 • Americans spend 55 workdays in traffic every year • In Europe 30 million people suffer from stress related illnesses due to traffic noise In Ireland, according to a recent study, 75pc of all journeys are made by car, while bus accounts for 3.8pc and rail/Dart/Luas represents another 1.5pc. Walking accounts for 15.4pc of all journeys, while cycling stands at 1.3pc. According to the study, from the Department of Transport, there has been a big decrease in the number of secondary school pupils using the bike. "Reliance on the car for travel is stronger in areas outside Dublin (77pc) than in Dublin (61pc), with public transport and sustainable modes utilised more in the capital," it says. "Some 75pc of all journeys in 2013 were taken by car. This is a slight increase on 2009 and there has also been a shift from car passenger trips to car driver trips, indicating a potential increase in sole car use.