Re: Gas prices knock bicycle sales, repairs into higher gear

On May 13, 1:02=A0am, Dane Buson <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In rec.bicycles.misc joseph.santanie...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On May 12, 7:39=A0pm, Dane Buson <d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> >> It does make me wonder, if a small bump in price to $4 is enough to
> >> cause changes, how much would a real price spike change? =A0What
would
> >> people do at $6? =A0At $8 a gallon?
>
> > Gas is over $10 per gallon here in Norway. I don't have the reference
> > handy, but recently I read that bikes account for less than 2% of
> > commuters in Oslo, and the numbers were on the way down. If it is only
> > 2% in Oslo, I'm sure it's way less elsewhere here.
>
> > Gas prices alone are not that im****tant for bike adoption, IMO.
>
> But don't you have real public transit there? =A0Most of the US
> is...challenged in terms of our public transit setup. =A0Do you know
what
> the relative percentage is that take the train/bus/walk vs. driving?
>

I've only used public trans****t in a handful of US cities, all of
which were much larger than Oslo (New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, SF, a
few others) and light-years better. Since Oslo has only 500,000 people
or so, it's not really a good comparison. Compared to a city of
500,000 in the US it might be pretty good. I don't recall the commuter
break-down. I'll tyr to find it. The im****tant thing for bike usage is
distances needed to be travelled and what sort of destinations. If a
super-market is a long haul, only hard-core types will ride bikes
there. If it is to pop down to a baker for some fresh bread 3 blocks
away, you'll get more takers.

Joseph