We have made the corner grocery store, the pedestrian, the public town square, the bicycle commuter, and the blue sky all endangered species. We have forgotten how to move people. The bicycle is the ultimate vehicle of liberation, of sustainability, of efficiency, of community, and of social equity. The environmental benefits of bicycling are unquestionable. Bicycles are inexpensive to manufacture and are affordable to families even on the most meager budgets.
Bicycles require very little space compared to other vehicles.
In tandem with mass transit, bicycles permit a city to keep itself confined to less area, keeping wild lands and open space unpaved, intact, and nearby. Bicycles fit perfectly in a human-scaled city. Bicycling fosters an ethos of living locally-supporting local business, being nourished by local agriculture, appreciating local ecosystems. Community, cultural activity, artistic exploration, and political discourse need physical and public places to foment and grow, they require entropy and human contact. Public squares, neighborhood parks, sidewalks, marketplaces-these are the places where people mingle, ideas grow, and culture and community germinate.