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Cihan Erçetin

3. Why Cycling?

Concerns about climate change, unstable fuel prices and the energy crisis
once again reveal the importance of sustainable types of transport. Many policy-
makers around the world take into account and analyse the technologies for
improving new urban transport modes, vehicles using clean energy, strategies
for the necessity of more sustainable transportation including urban policy
planning and applications which integrate transportation demand management
and land use with transportation planning (Shaheen Lipman, 2007).
Between 1950s and 1960s in many Western European countries, urban and
regional transport which had increasingly focused on motor vehicles, growing
urbanization and related urban expansion, and regional management policies
mainly based on the usage of private cars in urban areas, led to a significant
decrease on the rate of using cycling as a transport means which was also one
of the most sustainable urban transport modes at those times (Pucher and
Buehler, 2012). During this period, especially many European cities directed
their central and local government policies to the expansion of roads, the
planning of new roads and the provision of increasing number of parking lots,
and the requirement for cycling was obviously ignored (Hass-Klau, 1993). The
increase in automobile use causes environmental pollution, traffic congestion,
injuries and deaths. For this reason, one of the critical issues in the decisions of
policy makers is to restrict the use of cars while providing public transportation,
walking and cycling - especially in urban mobility - and to apply some deterrent
measures against the use of private vehicles (Pucher and Buehler, 2012).
One of the basic factors that adversely contribute to the climate change
as a result of greenhouse gas emissions is the vehicles used in urban
transportation. On the other hand, cycling stands out as a zero-emission mode
of transportation in order to reduce the emissions from the urban passenger
transportation sector (Garrad, Rissel and Bauman, 2012). Cycling does not
cause any environmental or noise pollution, so it is a type of transport that has
become popular and internationally accepted as an environmentally friendly
urban mode of transport. The use of bicycles instead of cars in urban areas
serves to reduce energy consumption and traffic congestion. The increase
in the use of bicycles is an encouraging alternative to reducing greenhouse
gases and other emissions (European Conference of Ministers of Transport,
2004). Moreover, compared to the other transportation modes such as buses,
air and rail transport; cycling emerges as the most suitable option in terms of
effective use of natural resources and environmental protection, as is seen in
Table 2 below. When considered in terms of energy consumption, emission of
harmful emissions and accident risk, it is clearly seen that cycling is the least
harmful and the safest type of transportation for the environment compared
to automobile, bus, air and railway transportation.

256 Journal of Environment, Urbanization and Climate