Biking is transportation, not merely a toy | Reacting to Nassim Taleb

Fortune Magazine reports that prominent business economist Nassim Taleb argues that the decline in the US is partly measured by the rise in planning and implementing bicycle lanes, which he calls a lifestyle rather than an economic endeavor ("'Black Swan' author Nassim Taleb says your city's new bike lane is the reason the economy sucks").  From the article:

Taleb argued well-intentioned “lifestyle improvements” like new bike lanes, while popular among city planners and politicians, reveal a deeper problem silently afflicting Western economies: the illusion of growth in societies that have reached their limits of prosperity. “Many are discovering,” he said, “that lifestyle improvements, such as bicycling paths and pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly cities, may not produce economic growth.”

Taleb’s key message in his latest speech could be considered counterintuitive and unnerving for champions of urban progressivism: symbols of modernity—such as city bike lanes—are evidence of economic stagnation, not success. 

Denmark cycle superhighway.

Evening rush hour traffic funnels to one lane traveling south on 19th St, NW because of illegal parking at curbside.  Washington Post photo by Gerald Martineau.

Referencing his 2012 book Antifragile, in which he applied the idea of the “S-curve” from biology in an economic context, Taleb explained that most systems—including national economies—undergo an initial phase of rapid growth as needs are met and utility rises. Eventually, however, they hit a ceiling: once everyone owns a car, buys a home, and enjoys basic comforts, the returns on further investment slow dramatically. He said his research shows that in both biology and economics, “entities grow in a convex way, then slow as they saturate — growth may be unbounded, but remains sub-logarithmic.” For instance, you may grow your house to include a two-car garage, but that doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily graduate to a five-car garage. The incentive diminishes after a certain stage of growth and the curve takes on an S shape.

By contrast, look at Copenhagen.  From the LA Times:

Copenhagen’s city government reported in early July that 62% of its residents are now commuting to work or school by bike — an increase from 52% in 2015 and 36% in 2012, when the City Council launched a 14-year-plan to improve the quality, safety and comfort of cycling. Those bikers pedal an estimated total of 800,000 miles a day. According to local reports, there are more bikes (675,000) than people in Copenhagen, and five times as many bicycles as cars. 

Catchment area of public transit stops for pedestrians and cyclists.  From the VeloQuebec publication, Planning and Design for Pedestrians and Cyclists: A Technical Guide, p. 135.  First edition.

Biking increases access to destinations for an affordable cost.  Taleb couldn't be more wrong, unable to see beyond his blinders that bicycling is a toy.  Bicycles, like other modes of transportation, is about facilitating exchange more efficiently.  

In the "Walking" (1800-1890) and "Transit" (1890-1920) City design eras ("Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis," Peter Muller), biking is faster than walking and combined with transit, allows people to reach a wide array of destinations--work, school, home, and other--relatively quickly.

In cities designed for transit/biking, with the right density and street network, cyclists can travel a 5 mile radius = about 75 square miles, in 25 minutes or less.

Research by Newman and Kenworthy find that metropolitan areas with strong transit systems have higher average incomes than those reliant on the car ("Patterns of automobile dependence in cities: an international overview of key physical and economic dimensions with some implications for urban policy," Transportation Research Part A, 1999).

From the Los Angeles Times:

“I had a Mercedes but it sat in the garage all the time because it was so much easier to get everywhere by bike,” said Jensen, a 51-year-old who works in a downtown investment bank. He got rid of the car, which was costing him about $500 a month, after moving from the suburbs to the city and finding that he didn’t need it anymore.

Space requirements for different modes in facilitating exchange can have deleterious economic effects.  Cities were created to maximize exchange--not just transactionally, but of ideas, innovation, experiences, etc.  Facilitating the automobile requires a lot more space than for biking/walking/transit.  This ends up having significant negative effects when the majority of mobility space is devoted to the car.  It reduces people's ability to engage in exchange.  

The more traffic, the less interaction (Appleyard).

Also, as John Norquist, former mayor of Milwaukee has pointed out, when you tear down houses and commercial enterprises to build or widen roads, you do reduce economic activity and local tax revenue.

See for example the work of Donald Appleyard (Livable Streets) and David Engwicht (Reclaiming our cities and towns: better living through less traffic).

Reductions in household costs for transportation.  The Center for Neighborhood Technology's Housing + Transportation Affordability Index household costs studies finds that about 20% of the average household budget, generally consumed by car(s).

According to the American Automobile Association cost of maintaining a new car is very expensive ("AAA: New Vehicle Costs Drop to $11577" ) is spent on transportation.  

People who live in close proximity between work and home can bike or use transit (or walk) for significantly less money.  The journal article "Transport transitions in Copenhagen: Comparing the cost of cars and bicycles,"(Ecological Economics) reports that it costs 6x more to use a car than a bicycle.  Money not spent on a car can be spent on other things.

Even cheaper if your workplace offers discounted transit passes, like the federal government.

When we lived in DC, not owning a car supported about $100,000 of a mortgage.  These are economic effects of great significance.

I consider it a great privilege to have lived in Washington, DC, and to some extent, Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the walking-transit city form allowed me a great deal of mobility without having to rely on a car.

Electric bicycles offer scalar change in biking economics and take up.  Electric bikes can be a game changer in terms of shifting trips from the car to a bicycle, with significant impacts as well.  A study from the e bike manufacturer Upway, "How Much Can You Save Riding an E-Bike vs. Driving?," finds that it can be up to 68x cheaper to ride an electric bicycle compared to a car.  

E bikes allow people to travel further distances faster, making bike commuting more appealing to larger numbers of people (" Is An Electric Bicycle Good for Commuting in Denver?," AddMotor).

Although the industry is in its early stages (like how automobiles were at one time) and there are issues with manufacturing quality and maintenance, especially the need for frequent brake adjustment ("Molly’s Last Ride: Twelve-year-old Molly Steinsapir crashed onto the pavement from a Rad Power e-bike and never woke up. With a poorly regulated e-bike industry, who is responsible when a child dies?," Bicycling Magazine).

-- "Overwhelmed by E-Bike Options? We Tested Dozens—These 16 Are Actually Worth It," Bicycling Magazine

Parents are buying electric cargo bicycles to ferry kids to and from school ("How to Bike Commute With Your Kids," Wired).  This reduces traffic congestion during rush hour periods, which is a positive economic effect.  

E-bikes also make it easier for people to continue to bicycle as they age. 

And, they may make bicycling for transportation more practical and appealing in the suburbs, which tend to have less good bicycle infrastructure--e-bikes are made to ride on streets.

My attitude about e-bicycles has changed significantly over time ("(Still) tired of mis-understanding of the potential for e-bikes," 2015).

Economic benefits from better health.  Then there are the health effects.  I am a good example.  I took up biking for transportation at the age of 30, because my father and other close male relatives all died of heart disease at the age of 54 or younger.  And I knew I didn't want to pay for nor did I think I could routinize actually using a gym membership.  From the LA Times:

“I don’t miss it at all,” the 6-foot-7 Jensen added before setting off on the ride home on a warm summer evening. He said he’d been looking forward to it all afternoon. “The hour on the bike is time I don’t have to spend in a gym. I got healthier and look forward every day to all that fresh air. Life’s good.”

It turns out that I wasn't able to ward off heart disease.  I have it, bad, at the onset of 63.  But so far I've outlived my male relatives by at least 11 years, and it turns out the health benefits from biking all that time made me physically resilient--I've survived two cancers, the heart disease, and a deathly bout with covid (among others) that would have killed others (I'm called the miracle patient by many of my doctors).

From the Bloomberg article, "What England’s New National Cycling Network Needs to Get Rolling":

Investments in cycling infrastructure also make financial sense, outstripping the benefits of investment in roads by a country mile. According to Sustrans, the 30-year return on investment of some parts of the existing National Cycling Network was £8 per £1 spent, most of that in health benefits. The 3,500 miles of planned improvements will help get 1.6 million people more active, England’s transport minister, Simon Lightwood, said at July’s Active City conference.

Urban resilience.  Ironically, Taleb has written extensively about urban resilience.  Bicycling for transportation can be a significant contributor because it reduces dependence on automobiles and gasoline.

The oil crises of the 1970s led the Netherlands and Denmark to shift mobility policy toward transit and biking, to reduce dependence on gasoline ("Copenhagen has taken bicycle commuting to a whole new level," Los Angeles Times, "America, The Netherlands, and the Oil Crisis: 50 Years Later," ITDP). 

This is especially true in the face of disasters, when gasoline supply systems can be disrupted and road networks broken ("Gas shortages caused by Hurricane Milton will take days to address, experts say," ABC-TV).

Conclusion.   Yes, the economic return from bike lanes ("Study Finds Bike Lanes Can Provide Positive Economic Impact in Cities," Portland State University) isn't as high as from the Interstate highway system ("When Interstates Paved the Way The construction of the Interstate Highway System helped to develop the U.S. economy," Richmond Federal Reserve).  

Island Press publishes Resilient Cities: Overcoming Fossil Fuel Dependence.

But the marginal economic return from new additions to the highway network don't necessarily have the same value as the development of the initial network.

And the economic return from biking at the scale of the individual household can be quite significant.

The economic return on reducing the impact on climate change by switching to bicycles/electric bicycles can also be significant.