For those living in cities, the most common form of transportation is the car, and in today’s world, the only vehicles which are more appealing than cars are the sustainable ones. Electric bikes in particular.
To start with, the electric bike, along with its battery, requires a lot fewer resources to manufacture than a car, specially attributed to their small size. Between energy consumption and pollution, cars are responsible for 1/10 of the total amount of CO2 and other pollutants detected in the atmosphere. These numbers fall down dramatically, and virtually to zero, in the case of electric bikes.
Moreover, possibly more than 50 per cent of daily car rides are entirely unnecessary, as most of these distances are very short, and therefore can be done quickly by e-bike. In a broader sense, an electric bike can make commutes (to school and to work) and visits to the supermarket quite a pleasant journey, and without sweating. Yes, there will be hills on the way, but nothing that an e-bike cannot override. Currently, the available space in cities is becoming more and more limited, making electric bikes the perfect vehicle to park due to their small size, when compared to cars and SUVs.
Electric bikes also mean considerably less space on the roads and therefore less traffic. To aid the “less traffic” argument, many urban areas around the world are equipped with bike lanes, side-by-side with car lanes, and the differences are astonishing. Even in cities as densely populate
d with bikes, such as Amsterdam, the bike traffic runs fluidly, as opposed to cars that are idly stuck in transit.
Another aspect which brings electric bikes as the preferred choice to use in cities is noise pollution. Life quality is much determined by the noise pollution levels, and cities are noisy, thanks to the motor vehicle traffic (cars, motorcycles, buses).
Quoting the World Health Organisation: “There is also general agreement that exposure for more than eight hours to sound levels in excess of 85 dB is potentially hazardous; to place this in context, 85 dB is roughly equivalent to the noise of heavy traffic on a busy road.”. From the sound of engines to never-ending car horns, all these aspects contribute to the background city noise, when the solution passes by using silent vehicles to improve quality of life.
The shift from cars to electric bikes is not to be made overnight or imposed, but they stand out as being unarguably the best way of assisted transportation. Already a reality in many cities, electric bikes help alleviate big cities’ transportation and pollution issues.
Electric bikes are an all-in-one option: fewer traffic jams, less pollution, and a lot less noise.