Where, you ask, are the highest levels of cycling in North America?
According to John Pucher’s latest research, look up, look way up:
In “Bicycling Renaissance in North America?” – a journal article in Transportation Research A – Pucher reports that the highest levels of daily work commuting by bicycle are in the Yukon (2.6 percent) and the Northwest Territories (2.1 percent). The lowest level in the USA, interestingly, was in Alabama (0.1 percent).
So when it comes to weather, what do we conclude?
Not on the weather topic, but interestingly enough the populations up north tend to live in very compact communities – either small villages or, in the case of about two-thirds of the population of Northwest Territories, in Yellowknife, which impressed me in how compact it was. There’s not the same level of suburbia, obviously, but also no large swaths of rural areas or sprawling towns. I can see why biking wouldn’t be too difficult, and when it takes less time to drive to work than it does to warm up the car, maybe worth getting a little chilly over, too.
You wouldn’t bike much either if it were 90 degrees and you got honked at daily.
I try, but it’s so hard…
Patrick
Birmingham, Alabama
I wonder if the YT and NWT figures are driven by seasonal activity of some kind?
Why YT and NWT but not Nunavut? True Canadians will need to speculate.
Rampant speculation from a part-time resident of Canada (sorry Jarrett, not a True Canadian)… it’s almost entirely climate, land cover, small sample size, and culture. YT and parts of NWT are still boreal taiga, with at least some soil cover amenable to biking and road building, whereas Nunavut is almost exclusively rocky tundra and much harsher in general. Yellowknife is sort of a backroads-hip place for government jobs bringing imported educated labor (and their bikes?). I suspect tourism is the most important factor for the Yukon. And I suspect there’s no cultural precedent for cycling among the Inuit out in Iqualit.
Climate, culture, and population?
Whitehorse, Yukon’s capital, is much warmer than Iqaluit, Nunavut’s capital. My impression is that Whitehorse is less like a dusty outpost and more like a usual city than most places in the north, all of Nunavut included. In addition, Nunavut is mostly populated by Inuit people, who may not have a tradition of cycling.
My guess is that with the bulk of the two territorial populations residing in Whitehorse and Yellowknife respectively, that all of the cycling there is happening in these two relatively small towns.
I just arrived here in Repulse Bay, Nunavut and have been amazed at the number of kids and a few adults cycling. But in this small hamlet – it is their main form of transportation around the community when they are not being whisked about by their parents on their ‘Hondas’…not exactly a cycling culture as we are used to in the south but the Inuit do ride for the record…out of necessity for some and for others, the same sheer joy that the rest of ride for. What I’ve noticed is that due to lack of parts…the primary way to stop a bike is done by wrapping a leg around to the back and running the foot along the rear wheel to bring the bike to a halt. Whatever works ; D