Half a billion bicycles

Press, 17 October 1987, Page 20

Half a billion bicycles

Roughly 500 million bicycles are being ridden in various parts of the world, allowing for a juncture or two. Some 90 million bikes are made each year. "V; Such figures please those conwith the environment, Kcaifr i»fct other luxuries. The SwSi niav yet be saved from its ■ -CtcMKa while half a billion wr the most efficient y wter devised. ’ FnSF’wat on it. All but a ideSL Wycle-owners would •y car - The exce P* in advanced have a car will tell will i for the

From ‘The Economist,’ London

energy equivalent of a gallon of petrol. Such useless information is unlikely to be offered by the Chinese, who, with around 200 million cyclists, are likely to be the world’s most saddle-sore nation. Most will not even have the benefit of the lightweight machine with which Europeans and Americans zoom past the traffic-lights. The most useful bike in a developing country is a heavy machine of the type used by policemen in Britain 30 or 40 years ago. When it is not transporting Dad to work it can move a couple of bags of rice along an earth track. The bicycle is not going to :

disappear suddenly, China has fewer than 100 private cars. But the bike may have peaked in numbers. , Malaysia’s Friends of the Earth pointed out in a survey this month that town-planners in the Third World provide for motorised traffic, not the bicycle. Kuala Lumpur at rush hour can be as dangerous for the cyclist as Piccadilly Circus. A developing country feels.lt is entering the modern world if it makes cars. Bicycles, by contrast, are lowly, and have a selfish habit of jamming up the road. (Copyright — The Economist)