Small mode transport—cycling, walking, using a wheelchair, and riding e-bikes—is “undercounted and undervalued”, even though a kilometre walked or biked can eliminate five to 10 kilometres covered by car, a transport policy expert says.
Planners greatly underestimate the actual share of trips made by small, active modes like bicycling and micro-modes like e-scooters, writes Todd Litman, executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute. They evaluate travel demands using census commute-mode share data, which show that only 3.6% of trips are made by small modes of transport. But surveys that cover all trips find that active modes serve 12 to 15% of trips, three times to four times more than the official data indicate.
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“For example, if you bike for 10 minutes to a bus stop or train station, ride public transit for 10 minutes, and walk 10 minutes to your destination, that trip is categorized as a transit trip although you’ve spent twice as much time travelling by active modes,” Litman explains.
The assumption that “each mile walked or biked can only replace, at best, one vehicle-mile” further dismisses the place of small modes in a community’s transport mix, he adds. “In fact, walking and bicycling improvements can leverage much larger vehicle travel reductions, so each additional kilometre walked or biked reduces five to ten vehicle miles travelled (VMT).”
For instance, walking and bicycling can reduce chauffeuring trips to transport a non-driver, explains Litman. Such trips usually generate empty return trips, doubling VMT, and therefore doubling the vehicle miles reduced when non-drivers travel independently.
“Small modes also support public transit travel, encourage more compact development, and help households reduce their vehicle ownership, all of which helps leverage large vehicle travel reductions,” he adds.
Urban planners must also embrace the side benefits of small mode transit. “Improving and increasing active and micro modes reduces household costs, road and parking infrastructure costs, traffic congestion and crashes, and sprawl-related costs, in addition to reducing pollution emissions,” Litman says. “It also improves public fitness and health.”
Those factors make vehicle travel reduction strategies a truly “no-regrets strategy”, with costs that enter the negative digits once all impacts are considered, he adds. The same cannot be said for the “relatively high costs of clean vehicles,” with their demands for resources and specialized infrastructure.
All of which means that the astute choice for municipalities looking to cut emissions and ensure better, healthier lives for their citizens is to encourage families to buy “a fleet of pedal and e-bikes”, he concludes, rather than chasing the limited benefits of subsidizing electric vehicles.
