Thursday Thoughts: Revolution

Wheels turn.  They revolve.  Each turn of the wheel is a revolution.  The word has other meanings too.

Way back in time, if you wanted to get anywhere, at least anywhere not in your immediate vicinity, you had to walk, ride a horse, or hitch a wagon to a horse or an ox.

Horses were expensive.  The harnessing, feed, and parking space cost a lot.  And it took time to care for them.  Horses need to be groomed, curried, blanketed in the cold, stabled, exercised, doctored.  Their hooves require the special expertise of a farrier.  One could either devote that time or hire the work done.  Regardless, horses were expensive.  That mean that the majority of people (especially women) just could not afford them.

So travel was expensive.

Along came the Industrial Revolution.  (There’s that word again.)  After about a hundred year, or so, of increasing mechanization, and the establishment of the factory system, someone invented the bicycle.  (This was around about the last quarter of the 1800s.)  They were all the rage in Europe, and they caught on here pretty well too.

But roads were, to say the least, rough, so those early “high wheelers” were the answer.  Rough roads are hard on horses and wagons too.  By then a lot of commercial traffic was traveling on the roads.  So folks started investing in better paving.  Cobble replaced the old corduroy log roads.  In cities, brick was used for paving.  Then asphalt revolutionized paving.  Better roads meant that the high wheelers weren’t necessary, and the introduction of the “safety bicycle” occurred.  “Safeties” looked pretty much like our modern bikes.  The front and rear wheels are the same size. 

With the advances in manufacturing technique, these things were within the reach of a lot more people.  Suddenly transportation to places farther away than an hour’s walk fell within the reach of a majority of people.  Transportation, mobility, and independence, this was a real revolution.

You know what happened next.  The automobile came along.

We have become addicted to automobiles.  You all know what that means.  But think about this.

If only 10% of our automotive trips were done by bicycle, our nation would save about 10 billion gallons of gasoline per year.  That’s something like forty billion dollars that would go to something else in the economy.

Further, if 10% of our trips were by bike, we’d reduce traffic by about 10%.  Don’t think that’s significant?  Consider this.  Isn’t it nice commuting to work on days when school is not in session?  That’s because about 10% of commuting hour traffic is school traffic.  Imagine reducing traffic volume by that much on a daily basis!

“Not possible!” you say?  One last statistic.  The typical trip in this country is five miles, with a single passenger, and five pounds of cargo.  Brothers and sisters, that can be done on a bike!  Would that qualify as a revolution?

It’s a thought.