#BikeToWorkDay2016

Robin W. Coleman is our Acquisitions Editor for Public Health and Health Policy. He also regularly bikes to the office. In honor of #BikeToWorkDay2016, he shares his thoughts on biking and public health.

There’s an old line that goes, “My car runs on money and makes me fat, but my bike runs on fat and saves me money.” I repeat it to myself like a mantra as I huff and puff up the very moderate hills that complicate my commute. And of course it’s true. If you care to, you can find plenty of evidence that swapping out biking for driving has health benefits. In a country where public health crises take the form of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, wouldn’t it be cool if your commute could safeguard you against those?

Well, the Bike Walk Alliance puts out a benchmarking report that shows “states with higher levels of biking and walking generally show lower levels of diabetes, hypertension and obesity.” Music to my ears, but it gets better as it goes! As any public health professional will tell you, “dramatic health disparities persist in low-income and communities of color, increasing the urgency of equity of access to healthy transportation options.” If those health benefits aren’t enough for you, read some of the recent New York Times coverage of the benefits of exercise for reducing cancer risk. Yep, cancer. You can start here with Gretchen Reynolds.

Another piece on Grist, by Jay Walljasper, describes “a study by Portland State University professor Jennifer Dill in the Journal of Public Health Policy” showing that the majority of bike commuters in Portland (which is a bike-friendly city) “ride for at least 150 minutes per week.” Does that sound like a lot? It’s the recommended weekly activity level for adults. How much time do you spend in your car? I used to avoid thinking about that particular math problem in the same way I avoided my relatives until I finally sat down and wrote thank-you notes after my wedding.

There’s one obvious question to ask before starting a bike commute—is it safe? Let’s look at New York City, which is bigger than Baltimore, has a bike-share system, and has well-publicized studies of rider safety on the system. A New York Observer article describes the success of the program as a result of safety in numbers. Biking advocates have always pointed to the fact that more bikers make it safer to bike. The article is called Still No Deaths on Citi Bike, 2.5 Years In (is it just me, or does that sound a little like a disappointed spectator wrote the headline?). So please, grab your bike and join me on the street! If I see you, I’ll give you the bicycle-commuter salute. It’s like the cool motorcyclist hand motion, but more dorky. However you get around, you have to take your own safety seriously. There’s a good primer on bike safety in various situations at http://bicyclesafe.com/ and I encourage you to check it out.

Of course, all roads are not created equal, and there are ways to make bike commutes safer and faster. Smash cut back to the Dill article (via Journal of Public Health Policy—this is a University Press blog, after all). Dill writes that “a disproportionate share of the bicycling occurred on streets with bicycle lanes, separate paths, or bicycle boulevards” — confirming the importance of bike infrastructure improvements to public health. It’s hard to get cities to invest in infrastructure (right Flint, MI?), but “cities have seen economic development benefits from their investment in biking...” 8 of 10 cities involved in a Complete Streets project found that property values around areas with improved biking infrastructure increased, as reported by the Bike Walk Alliance.

My bike commute in Baltimore has gotten easier since I first started it, and I take that as a hopeful sign that I’m reaping some of the health benefits that came up earlier. Even so, the other day as I made my way home, I got passed by another cyclist who had to be 25 years older than me. Passed me like I was standing still. He has a nicer bike I told myself. Probably had some momentum coming into the hill. But I finally swallowed my pride. I hope I’m that fit when I’m his age.