Portland’s bike lanes will cut the city’s health costs

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The advantages of biking are manifold: bikes don’t pollute, they keep you in shape and during rush hour traffic, they often go faster than cars. Now, researchers in Portland say that the city’s bike paths will cut its population’s health costs.

Portland has spent an estimated $57 million on its biking infrastructure so far, and the city has one of the country’s highest biking rates (a little more than 6 percent of the city’s residents commute by bike).

The study published last week in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health has found that during the next 30 years, Portland’s residents could save as much as $594 million in health care costs because of an investment into biking culture. Essentially, the money that is spent on biking infrastructure, is money that is eventually saved on health care costs, the study says.

Swiss epidemiologist Thomas Gotschi, who, led the study, put together the cost/benefit analysis on biking in a U.S. city by adding Portland’s past and planned expenditures on biking, and comparing it with health care cost savings. The savings are based on the amount of health care dollars that would be spared if Portland’s citizens got more regular exercise from biking, and thus incurring fewer chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and osteoporosis.

The study is also timely since the city recently approved a plan to spend another $600 million more dollars to improve bike infrastructure over the next 20 years. Of course, Gotschi’s study is slightly flawed, because there is no guaranteed proof that if more bike lanes are built, bikers will necessarily come.

Also, there’s no way to know if the same correlation will be found in other cities, but the study definitely proves that health care costs go down, if people bike.

Carolyn Voorhees, professor in behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told the Portland Tribune that heart disease costs the country about $351 billion a year, and obesity about $117 billion a year.

Imagine if some of those costs cuts were achievable just by buying a bike.

Via Portland Tribune

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

i've seen this somewhere before

[Obama 2012 1,714]

you forget to add all the new injuries/costs from cars that hit said bikes.

[Zero Sum 305]

Good for Portland! Hope more cities follow suit. Can you say... less obese people and cleaner air?

I'm sure some people will try to peg this on a conspiracy by cities and bike companies to profit share like they did with the climate change scientists, 'green' entrepreneurs, and Al Gore. Ignorant capitalists foaming at the mouth over other capitalists ventures?

[James and Cynthia 70]

The advantages of biking are manifold: bikes don’t pollute, they keep you in shape and during rush hour traffic, they often go faster than cars. Now, researchers in Portland say that the city’s bike paths will cut its population’s health costs.

Portland has spent an estimated $57 million on its biking infrastructure so far, and the city has one of the country’s highest biking rates (a little more than 6 percent of the city’s residents commute by bike).

The study published last week in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health has found that during the next 30 years, Portland’s residents could save as much as $594 million in health care costs because of an investment into biking culture. Essentially, the money that is spent on biking infrastructure, is money that is eventually saved on health care costs, the study says.

Swiss epidemiologist Thomas Gotschi, who, led the study, put together the cost/benefit analysis on biking in a U.S. city by adding Portland’s past and planned expenditures on biking, and comparing it with health care cost savings. The savings are based on the amount of health care dollars that would be spared if Portland’s citizens got more regular exercise from biking, and thus incurring fewer chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and osteoporosis.

The study is also timely since the city recently approved a plan to spend another $600 million more dollars to improve bike infrastructure over the next 20 years. Of course, Gotschi’s study is slightly flawed, because there is no guaranteed proof that if more bike lanes are built, bikers will necessarily come.

Also, there’s no way to know if the same correlation will be found in other cities, but the study definitely proves that health care costs go down, if people bike.

Carolyn Voorhees, professor in behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, told the Portland Tribune that heart disease costs the country about $351 billion a year, and obesity about $117 billion a year.

Imagine if some of those costs cuts were achievable just by buying a bike.

Via Portland Tribune

Will this stop them from riding on the white line even when there is a bike lane to the right? I swear, one of these days the mirror on my big F350 is going to hit one of them. Until then, I just honk to scare them and then wait for the finger. It's worth it.

-James

[mawilson 2,133]

Bikes are gay.

This is America, get a fuckin car.

[James and Cynthia 70]

Bikes are gay.

So are the clothes they wear.

[sandinista! 1,816]

I like my bike, and like riding around my neighborhood on my bike, but riding in heavy traffic scares the hell out of me. Compounded with the fact that this city has such awful weather 8 or 9 months out of the year, that people can't drive in with other cars, much less harder to see bikes, means I will not be giving up my car any time soon.

The city jacked up people's sewer and water rates to pay for this ####### too. Yet every time it rains in this city, raw sewage is dumped into the willamette river. The river's a superfund site, bit yippee, we have bike lanes. And everyone has to pay for it though, even though the bike

lanes only serve a small segment of the population. No

one I know anyways can drop their kids off at daycare on

their bike, and then pedal across the burnside bridge in a

torrential downpour, and arrive at work looking like a

drowned rat with helmet hair.

I'm glad I moved to clackamas county.

[Zero Sum 305]

More bike commuters means less car commuters.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

More bike commuters means less car commuters.

There aren't any commuters in Kansas - just tractors and pickups.

[Zero Sum 305]

I remember the smelly professor I had in college that would ride almost every day, a total commute of about 40 miles. The guy was ripped.

But he stank.

Cities should open up public baths for bike commuters to freshen up so they don't take "French baths."

[^_^ 5,021]

Cities should open up public baths for bike commuters to freshen up so they don't take "French baths."

Good luck keeping vagrants out of those public baths.

[mawilson 2,133]

Good luck keeping vagrants out of those public baths.

Why would you keep them out? Don't you want vagrants to smell nice?

[^_^ 5,021]

Why would you keep them out? Don't you want vagrants to smell nice?

Do you want those baths to become unusable for everyone else?

Precisely which hoity toity corner of NYC do you run in, anyway, to seem as unfamiliar as you do of the effects of homeless people?

[Ban Hammer 13,352]

There aren't any commuters in Kansas - just tractors and pickups.

we're not talking about kansas

and if you did know what you were talking about, you'd know there's plenty of cars here.