More locals are traveling on two wheels, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic:
Coupled with the effects of a warming planet, Covid-19 has produced little good news this year. Yet the two crises did pave the way for one positive social shift: a bike boom, including in some unlikely places. New data from Strava, the fitness tracking app used by 68 million global users, shows that several U.S. cities saw significant year-over-year growth in both bike trips and cyclists in much of 2020.
Among the six U.S. cities for which Strava provided data, Houston and Los Angeles, two sprawling metropolises where just .5% and 1% of the respective populations biked to work in pre-pandemic times, stand out. In Houston, the total volume of cycling trips in Houston was 138% higher in May 2020 than in May 2019. In Los Angeles, the jump was 93%. Unlike their peers, these two places also saw cycling increases in April, the first full month of widespread stay-at-home order and economic shutdowns.
Given that riding a bicycle is a socially-distanced, outdoor activity, it should come as no surprise that Houstonians tired of being locked into their homes began to hop aboard their bikes. Activity on the Houston BCycle bike share system saw dramatic increases shortly after the pandemic began, and people wanting bicycles of their own wiped out the inventories of places like Academy and Bike Barn.
Cycling experts on the ground confirmed that the new Strava numbers are consistent with data from local bike-counters and bike-share systems. In Houston, one popular trail has seen a 162% increase in trips from January to August of this year, said Susan Jaworski*, an active transportation planner for the Houston-Galveston Area Council, a consortium of regional cities that helps coordinate bike networks.
“I think it was the pandemic’s stay-home, stay-safe orders, where people who were remote-working had a chance to discover their bikes,” she said. “When congestion disappeared overnight, I think more folks felt comfortable exploring to get fresh air.”
The big question is if automobile-oriented cities such as Houston will be able to keep people on their bikes even after the pandemic ends and regular commuting and exercising activity resumes. Houston has aggressively been trying to expand its investment in bike-friendly infrastructure, but the city's long-standing affinity for the automobile, as well as its harsh summertime climate, remain to be overcome.
Bicycling is a healthy, inexpensive, ecologically-friendly way to travel and recreate. If anything good comes out of this pandemic, it's that more Houstonians discovered this for themselves.
* Full disclosure: Susan Jaworski is a co-worker of mine at H-GAC.
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