George Work and Laurence Malone
Transportation: Bicycles, Development, and the Third World
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by George Work and Laurence Malone
published in Environment. Vol. 25. No. 1
January/February 1983
Excerpt from: Bicycle Reference Manual for Developing Countries.
Edited by Barbara Gruehl Kipke, April 1991.
In August 1981, the United Nations saw fit to convene its first
conference on new and renewable energy resources, held in Nairobi,
Kenya. It would be interesting to know if the event was cause for alarm
within the international automobile manufacturers' community.
Certainly the presence of environmentalist groups at the conjunctive
non-governmental organizations (NGO) conference suggested a major shift
in approach to energy resources and technological applications.
Implicit in the discussion was a fundamental re-evaluation of
development itself - a term which has enjoyed near consensus currency
with the First and Third World alike.
Yet, conspicuously muted at the UN conference was in-depth discussion
of a major aspect of energy allocation-transportation.
Government-appointed delegates to the main conference may have been too
busy reconciling energy policy which ideological position. It thus fell
upon the NGOs to confront the political, ecological, and economic
implications of transportation development.
Even the most euphemized of economic units ("we are not
underdeveloped, we are developing") cannot afford to ignore what
is written here. Energy decisions now pending will determine the shape
and structure of nations for generations to come. Whether countries
choose to rely on centralized or decentralized energy sources will
dictate, to a large degree, the social and economic nature of societies
and their position in global interactions. Nowhere within the
developing community will these choices be as basic as within the
transportation sector.
The implications of energy policy choices may vary, depending on
differences in perceived national interests, but several questions
remain. How dependent upon foreign interests will the society become?
Which economic sector will most benefit? How many jobs will be created,
and for whom? What costs will be incurred and who will pay? And who
will hold political power throughout these processes?
A subtle change in thc global economic structure is only now making
itself evident-a change having enormous impact on development
patterns. By the automobile industries' own admission, the growth
markets in the western world are nearing the saturation point and new
markets must, in the industries' view, be found. In order to avoid the
uncomfortable prospect of stagnating demand for automobiles, the
multinational auto giants are targeting Africa, Asia, and South America
for 60 to 70 percent of their growth potential in the next 20 years.(1)
With operating budgets larger than the gross national products (GNps)
of many developing nations, the auto companies have the capability to
launch the expansion necessary to offset diminishing profit and
productivity in their home countries. The present task of auto
manufacturers is to convince transportation ministries and planners
that the automobile and its attendant infrastructure is in the best
interests of developing nations.
Yet, the long term effects of such forms of development have scarcely
been considered. Whatever choices are ultimately made, it would be
unwise not to weigh with all its possible benefits the enormous social
and economic costs of such a system.
Pursuit of an automobile-based transportation system by developing
economies creates a dependence upon two highly concentrated and
powerful multinational corporate groups. In the automobile industry,
ten companies control 80 percent of world production. The "Seven
Sisters" of the petroleum industry are among the largest and
wealthiest corporations in existence.
When developing countries begin bargaining with corporations whose
yearly earnings far exceed entire GNPs, it becomes predictable where
concessions will be made. Host countries become dependent upon
technologies and capital structures of institutions which then absorb
the very same reinvestable capital they were brought in to create.
Even more evident is the effect on balance of trade triggered by
ever-increasing costs of imported fuel. Dependence upon auto-based
transport limits the amount of foreign oil available for the industrial
and agricultural sectors. This, in turn, limits the amount of internal
production possible to offset the trade deficits created by increased
oil importation.
The 1973 and 1979 petroleum price increases completely changed the
nature of future transportation development. Gone are the days of
unlimited access to fuels- an economic premise upon which the auto
industries once stood. Even the predictions of the 1979 U.S. Congress
Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) study, compiled after the 1979
petroleum price hikes., indicated a ceiling rate of $25 per barrel of
oil in the year 2000.
With the OTA board composed mainly of ranking members of the U.S.
business and government community, it might be assumed these statistics
reflect a certain level of self-interest. But despite wishful
projections of ceiling prices, the same OTA study goes on to describe a
"serious petroleum shortage" and "continuing problems of
urban air pollution if present policies continue unchanged and if
current trends in increased auto use persist."
The 1979 oil price increases, which raised the effective price of a
barrel of crude oil to ten times its pre-l973 price, have already had
severe effects on most developing economies. Many nations are forced to
increase cash-crop agricultural exports as well as the amount of
undervalued raw materials they export in order to make earnings meet
the price hikes.
Automobile development and its inherent dependencies, with its
high-technology, capital-intensive nature, creates a development trap
in which only a small minority of wealthy individuals consume a
finished product. Whether the auto is equitable and efficient in
immediate terms of performance and function is another matter,
entailing a closer look at the economic and human costs involved. And
it is here where the search for possible alternatives begins, if it did
not already occur at Nairobi.
A major consideration faced by development planners will be the extent
to which people are included in the process of national development.
For their part, auto manufacturers will have to explain how
auto-development serves the needs of large populations while
simultaneously laying off thousands of workers at home.
Governments will then be confronted with the prospect of a vast
infrastructure of costly agencies involving highway construction and
maintenance, hospitals for auto casualties, urban renewal programs, and
a general burgeoning of bureaucratic detail. Spin-off repercussions
will soak up millions of dollars from national treasuries as other
sectors falter.
The success of a transportation system rests not only upon the
employment which it may or may not generate but also upon the numbers
of people it actually serves on a day-to day basis. This implies the
necessity for transportation devices of wide and ready availability.
While the initial costs of purchasing an automobile can be prohibitive,
even greater are the yearly operating costs to the car owner and his or
her immediate family.
It has been suggested here that the automobile is not ideal in terms of
personal transportation needs. That many Third World nations choose to
ignore this reflects the internal politics and values of governments
which adopt Western development models even as they criticize the
originators of such models. It as well testifies to the seductive
quality of Western technology which few Third World nations or peoples
are willing or able to resist. What government leader spurns a ride in
a black limousine in favor of, for example, a ride on a train or a
bicycle?
Once again, acceptance of Westerndefined concepts of development
prevails. It may then be seen as ironic, or perfectly natural, when
critiques of development begin emerging from industrialized
countries. The Third World may even be suspicious of those who enjoy
the luxury of rejection, but this should not detract from what these
ecological-oriented groups are saying.
Bicycles can provide developing nations the most viable alternative to
an automobile-based transportation system. Besides its advantage of
complete point-to-point transit, the bicycle offers conservation of
energy, raw materials, and space when compared with the total costs for
a car.(2) In terms of energy efficiency, excluding
energy expended for roadbuilding, air pollution reduction, and other
related technologies, the bicycle is one hundred times more efficient
than the auto. As far as comparative cost efficiency, the bicycle
requires 2 percent of the resource capital necessary to own and operate
a car. Thus, a Chinese worker, despite a much lower salary, can acquire
his durable, self-maintainable bicycle for a fraction of the working
hours an American devotes to the purchase and operation of his
automobile and its various forms of planned obsolescence.
The cost for public utilities needed to implement bicycle
transportation versus the complex engineering requirements of
high-speed autos is proportionally greater than the price differential
of the vehicles themselves. Of urban areas in the United States, 60
percent of the space within some cities is devoted to the roads,
parking lots, repair and feeding stations for what is supposed to be
merely an accessory facilitator of everyday movement.
The absurdity of space requirements necessary for auto transit is
exemplified in most of the major cities of the world, from Cairo and
Sao Paolo to Paris and Tokyo. Los Angeles has relinquished an
incredible 65 percent of its total area to the automobile.
Moving a bicycle requires 2 percent of the square area and 10 percent
of the flow area (space needed in front and behind moving vehicles) of
an automobile. Two lanes of a given size are required to move 40,000
people across a bridge in one hour using a modern train, four lanes are
necessary to move them by bus, twelve by ear, and only one lane by
bicycle.
An automobile in motion, with its internal combustion engine, uses only
10 to 20 percent of its fuel's potential energy. The rest of the energy
is converted into waste heat and partially oxidized fuel. On the other
hand, a bicycle in good working order transfers between 80 to 98
percent of the rider's energy output, depending upon the quality of
bike, tire pressure, and rolling surface. A person on a bicycle ranks
first among traveling animals and machines in terms of the least amount
of energy consumed in moving a certain distance as a function of body
weight. The rate of energy consumption over that same distance for a
cyclist is approximately one-fifth of that for an unaided walking
person.
The most elusive elements in describing transportation systems are the "positive externalities" of a given system- the unforeseen benefits accrued by individuals and society through a particular adaptation. Just as elusive and unaccountable are the negative externalities a system creates-the cost society as a whole must bear. By way of example, the negative externalities of automobile development would include:
- Air and noise pollution;
- Loss of lives and injuries, plus attendent social costs;
- Deterioration of cities;
- Disparity in the freedom of movement for auto users and non users;
- Loss of prime agricultural land to auto-related use (80,000 acres per year in California alone);
- Cost of maintenance of feeder roads;
- Loss of wildlife and aesthetic landscape;
- Increasing disparity between wealthy and poor; and
- Costs to residential households displaced or abandoned through undesirable proximity to freeways and highways.
- Some positive externalities of bicycles would include:
- Better physical health and vitality;
- Increased access to meeting people, interaction, and intimacy which autos do not permit;
- Reductions of air and noise pollution;
- Closer contact to nature and physical environment; and
- Creation of demands and needs which can be easily satisfied.
Some development and energy theorists hold that fundamental changes or shifts in energy-use patterns must originate in those countries already industrialized. Such countries, they maintain, must "set an example" and serve as proving grounds for appropriate technologies. The rest of the world can then follow suit.
Yet the United States, whose private automobiles consume one out of every nine barrels of oil produced globally, has already demonstrated the difficulties in changing collective driving habits established over three generations. That those habits are maintained in their own self-interests is another question.
One study tallied the total hours devoted to owning, maintaining, and operating a car, including gas costs, insurance, car payments, and time spent looking for parking places. The ratio of work hours to miles traveled was five miles per hour.
There is then the collective effort made to maintain vital oil supply lines across the g1obe-a military and political concern costing taxpayers billions of dollars. Clearly, such lack of self-sufficiency, along with the military measures taken to maintain this pattern, are not only an unsuitable but an impossible model of development for most nations to follow.
The interests of giant auto manufacturers are closely tied to the interests of the American military/industrial complex. In terms of sheer human destruction, automobiles have accounted for more deaths than the combined losses of all America's wars. Whether people of the Third World want to engage in a similar experiment is now the question.
There are voices within industrialized nations that tall for major
reduction of oil consumption and sensible conversion to appropriate
technologies. These same Voices were presented at the Nairobi
conference and proved to be something of an embarrassment to the
official U.S. delegation. Many of these people have shown that a
tempered level of consumption need not result in a spartan regimen or
substantial decline in quality of life.
Perversely enough, however, many in the Third World look upon these
ecological suggestions with suspicion and resentment. Such people and
their ideas should not be seen as anathema to the interests of the
Third World. Nor should their advocacy of more human and de-centralized
technological models be regarded as utopian romanticism.
For such priviledged "Northerners" carted about in their
autos like baggage, cut off from the sensations of an outside
environment, the retreat from luxury has been a long one. It takes a
certain resistance and foresight to turn one's back on such a
celebrated form of locomotion as the automobile.
- From a speech given by Roger S. Smith, executive vice-president and chairman-elect of General Motors, to the National Foreign Trade convention. New York, October 20, 1980.
- Much of the data presented in this section was provided by Bicycle Systems Development, a European and North American-based consulting group. Composed of researchers, and technical advisors, the group seeks to design and implement alternative Transportation systems relying mainly on human-powered pedaling devices. BSD delivered a presentation on humanpowered transport before the NGO conference in Nairobi, and is now attempting to integrate pedalpower systems with other aspects of transportation development.
GEORGE WORK
lives in Denmark, is currently conducting research on pedal-powered
cargo movement systems, and is working with the Danish International
Development Agency.
LAURENCE MALONE,
a writer living in San Francisco has done consulting work and lobbying
for increased use of and facilities for bicycles, and has served as a
witness in cases involving pedaled transportation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks to Bicycle Systems Development, Arhus., Denmark for
providing data.
Mail to: Barbara Gruehl Kipke (barbara@mobility-consultant.com)
or to the Webmaster (webmaster@mobility-consultant.com).
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