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Most cycle-commuters will tell you cycling to work is the best way to get to and from work and it's probably doing you some good. However a recent major study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggests that the health benefits are staggering, slashing the risk of heart disease and cancer. FTFA:
Research has consistently shown that people who are less physically active are both more likely to develop health problems like heart disease and type 2 diabetes, and to die younger. Yet there is increasing evidence that physical activity levels are on the decline.
The problem is that when there are many demands on our time, many people find prioritising exercise difficult. One answer is to multi-task by cycling or walking to work. We've just completed the largest ever study into how this affects your health.
You can read an article here at The Conversation website and you the original research is here at the BMJ website.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @01:04PM (2 children)
Protected bike lanes make a big difference. The way Montreal does it works well: the cars park next to a stand-alone curb, or with a painted margin, and the bike lanes are between that and the sidewalk's curb. That way the parked cars constitute a metal wall between car and bike traffic, and the bikes don't infringe on pedestrian space.
Shared bike lanes don't work very well in my experience, because cars, taxis, cops, delivery vans treat the bike lane like a double-parking lane. Drivers are supposed to be ticketed for that. Last year I saw the Scofflaw Patrol's van doing the same thing.
Cycling with other bike commuters cuts down on the aggravations you experienced, however. As a group you have a lot greater visibility and the cars slow down much more. With a pack of multiple riders, taking off from red lights is never a problem because drivers won't plow through to do a right-hand turn (in the US).
Once you have sorted those matters out, cycling is really the best way to get to work. Because vehicular traffic has exploded so much, and because the actual distances the average commute cover are bike-able, the travel times are not too different. You do also lose a lot of weight and get much fitter. If you have to wear nice clothes in the office, take them in a backpack and change in the bathroom. If you're worried about arriving sweaty, don't ride so hard--it's a commute and not a race, and exercise clothes will help a lot.
When I commuted to work by bike, 17 miles each way, I had to wear a full suit in the office and managed it that way. There wasn't secure bike parking at my office or in my 3rd-floor apartment, so I got a foldable Dahon mountain bike off Craig's List and a bike bag with a shoulder strap. It would take 2-3 minutes upon arrival to fold up the bike, pop it into the bag, and ride the elevator up to my floor, where I stored the bag next to my chair at my station.
I see a lot of other people riding around now with after-market electric motors on their bikes, which seems like it would be an option for people who feel less physically able to bike. One parent at my kids' school has 5 kids and lives 1.5 miles away and he picks them up on his cargo bike, switches on the motor, and trucks them up the long hill home.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday September 08 2017, @01:13PM (1 child)
I live in a recreational city which is into having continuous green strips of parkway running along the river thru its flood plain, so 99.999% of the time when the river isn't flooding, the bicyclists commute on the dedicated bike paths along the river thru the parks. Obviously a city doesn't need a river to have a greenway of parks run thru it, it merely needs good planning (merely, LOL...). The parks are multi-use, obviously, so outside commuter hours the bike paths are mostly full of little kids, which is also good.
Just saying its possible to put bikes on roads, but putting bikes on bike paths inside multi-use parks is even better.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 08 2017, @03:01PM
Absolutely. It's a joy to be able to cycle along and not have to worry about stop signs or traffic lights or cross streets. I solved a lot of code challenges that way by tuning out on the ride to/from work and letting my mind mull over the problem. I was lucky that 2/3rds of the distance I had to ride was within the Hudson River Park and then Riverside Park on the west side of Manhattan, but the protected, on-street bike lanes were appreciated on the other 1/3 where I could get them.
Washington DC delenda est.