Walking and Cycling US

This document contains preliminary numbers for economic data for US walking and cycling.

Bold font rows are the final datapoints.

The values are good approximations, but they may still be subject to change. Some cost data points have a timestamp whilst others don’t. If it does it will always be converted to 2023 dollar and if not we have assumed that the uncertainty in the data itself balances out potential inflation effects on the cost

Asset Metrics

Table 1

	name	value	unit
0	Average miles traveled by bike per year [1]	1,000	mi
1	Average life span of a bike [2]	30	yr
2	Average km traveled by bike per year [1]* †	1,609	km

*Converted from miles to kilometer
†Rounded to the nearest whole

References

[1]: News, reviews and forum website about biking 
 https://road.cc/content/news/average-cyclist-male-40s-rides-6-times-week-276213
[2]: Cycling clothing webstore 
 https://discerningcyclist.com/how-long-a-bicycle-last/

CAPEX

Table 2

	name	value	unit
0	Lower end price of a road bike [1]	350	USD
1	Lower end price of a road bike [1]	700	USD
2	Price of a mountain bike [1]	1,000	USD
3	Average price of a road bike†	525	USD
4	Average price of a bike‡	762.5	USD
5	Change rate of price for a bike*	0	%

* Assumption

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle †\text{Average of } (0), (1)$

$\displaystyle ‡\text{Average of } (2), (3)$

References

[1]: Bicycling-focused website 
 https://bicycleuniverse.com/how-much-does-a-bike-cost/

OPEX

Table 3

	name	value	unit
0	Lower end cost of a major Tune-up for a bike per year [1]	119	USD
1	Higer end cost of a major Tune-up for a bike per year [1]	150	USD
2	Average km traveled by bike per year [2]‡	1,609	km
3	Average cost of a major Tune-up for a bike per year*	134.5	USD
4	Maintenance cost for a bike per km† §	0.084	USD / km

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle *\text{Average of } (0), (1)$

$\displaystyle †(3) / (2)$

‡Rounded to the nearest whole
§Rounded to the nearest thousandth

References

[1]: Bicycling blog 
 https://hobbybiker.com/average-cost-of-a-bike-tune-up/
[2]: See Table 1

Externalities

The cost benefit of active travel is the approximate societal costs avoided thanks to walking and cycling.

The accident cost of active travel is the societal costs (health care etc.) due to pedestrian or bike single accidents, i.e. those that do not involve cars or other motorised vehicles. Accidents between car and bike are accounted on the car side.

Table 4

	name	value	unit
0	Cycling Health Benefits per mile 2008 dollar [1]	1.6	USD
1	Walking Health Benefits per mile 2008 dollar [1]	3	USD
2	Number of bicycle riders [2]	52,000,000
3	Total accident cost from pedestrian/bike single accidents per year [3]	23,000,000,000	USD
4	Average km traveled by bike per year [4]§	1,609	km
5	Active travel health cost benefits per mile* †	2.3	USD
6	Accident cost of active travel‡ ¶	0.27	USD / km

* Assume that the uncertainty in the data makes up for potential change in purchasing power of money

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle †\text{Average of } (0), (1)$

$\displaystyle ‡\frac{(3)}{(2) \times (4)}$

§Rounded to the nearest whole
¶Rounded to the nearest houndredth

References

[1]: Evaluating Active Transport Benefits and Costs, table 6 
 https://www.vtpi.org/nmt-tdm.pdf
[2]: 28 Bicycle Industry Statistics [2023]: Market Size, Share, Growth, And Trends 
 https://www.zippia.com/advice/bicycle-industry-statistics/
[3]: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
 https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/bicycle/index.html
[4]: See Table 1