The world embraces bicycles, electric bicycles and bike sharing

As humans, we thrive on social interaction. Be it to meet our friends for a pint of beer or head to the movies. But the past few months have required a change in our daily lives and social distancing has become the new normal. With a restriction to getting outdoors, my sister and I long for our weekly ride to the grocery store on our electric bicycles!

These changes in many ways have taken me back to the basics. At home, I am revisiting my hobbies and spending some quality time with family. I prefer cooking my own meals over takeouts, and I’m not complaining about doing the dishes that follow.

On these rides to the grocery store, I noticed more people than usual, riding their bicycles or electric bicycles and using the bike sharing facility, for essential travel. This was probably owing to the lack of public transport. Due to this increase, most governments around the world have already started to make infrastructural changes to accommodate these bicycles. The World Health Organisation has also encouraged their use. And it got me thinking how bicycles have historically proved to be a great solution to global issues, be it traffic woes or rising pollution. They have now also proved useful in the face of challenging times.

An alternate to public transport

“On your bike you are exercising and practicing social distancing.”

Nathan Ziino Co-Manager of South Melbourne’s bikeNOW.

Cycling has become an important alternative to public transport in most parts of the world. This is due to the lack of control over cleanliness in public transport. Many cities are adding additional emergency bicycle lanes and re-mapping their cities to make them more bicycle friendly. Despite transportation bans implemented during the pandemic, front line workers are using bicycles to commute. 

Many developed countries have actively encouraged cycling during the Covid-19 crisis. The population of bicycles and electric bicycles on the roads has significantly increased. In the past few weeks, Austria and Germany declared bicycle shops as essential services. Countries including China, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States have embraced cycling. Denmark and Netherlands have kept bicycle shops open throughout the pandemic. In Philadelphia, cycling has increased by more than 150% during the Covid-19 outbreak. Even in India, the police commissioner in my city Bangalore, has permitted and encouraged cyclists.

Social distancing might last a while

In a country like India, which has a significant percentage of patients with diabetes, COPD, hypertension and coronary diseases, social distancing becomes ever so important. An interview with the Financial Express, PHFI’s Dr K Srinath says to meaningfully combat the virus, social distancing will need to be in force for a year in India to protect these vulnerable groups. This is owing to the challenges in identifying asymptomatic individuals and lack of large scale testing. 

This lock-down is highly unlikely to end at 4.0.and mass gatherings like theaters and places of worship would continue to be shut for the near future. Corporates will encourage their employees to work from home. But what about those sectors of society who do not have the privilege to work from the comfort of their homes?

Unlike a handful of us who have access to other modes of transport, a large population in our country is heavily dependent on public transport for their daily commute. With Social distancing being the need of the hour, can we assume that the public transportation sector will be inactive for the foreseeable future?

A call to reset our cities?

“A lot of cities and even countries have been defined by how they’ve responded to historical forces, whether it’s political, social, or physical reconstruction,”

Janette Sadik-Khan, a former transportation commissioner for New York City

Sadhik-Khan, is currently working with cities including Bogota and Milan on their transport recovery program. She believes we have received a once in a lifetime opportunity to adopt cleaner modes of transport. And I couldn’t agree more!

The opportunity

Our dependence on automobiles has shaped and designed the infrastructure of our cities today. This pandemic will only deepen the need to use private modes of transport to ensure social distancing. Covid-19 or not, this one-car-per-person privilege has burdened our current infrastructure. It has resulted in congestion, traffic woes, parking problems, rise in pollution and a sedentary lifestyle that has taken a big toll on our health. 

During the last couple of months the need to change our way of life has been ever so prominent than before. While this time has been healing our planet, once the lock-down is lifted, will we go back to our old ways and undo all the good? Will we exploit our resources further for all the time we have lost in the past few weeks? Or will we finally rethink our choices and realize that this is an opportunity to press the reset button?