In late 2012, though, I bought a used bicycle (a Montague folder mountain bike that’s been morphing into a pretty nice street ride) and have pleasantly surprised myself as to how much I missed by being almost totally car dependent for over a quarter century up till then. A year ago, I didn’t even know how often I would be riding. But it has now allowed me to park my car for weeks at a time. I not only get some well-needed exercise by doing a 6 mile round trip work commute most days (never a bad thing for a 55 year old,) I actually save time by not making a short car drive and then having to walk the last mile (parking a car on the University of Arizona Campus, where I’m employed, is both expensive and inconvenient.) The other upside, of course, is that I’m putting just that much less carbon dioxide and particulates into the air by cycling instead of driving.

So, my story is one tiny part of the 26th place national ranking I see that Tucson has gotten as a bike use city and part of that significant upward trend overall witnessed here in the past decade. Fortunately, most of Tucson is flat and the year round weather is fabulous (save for summers that are always too hot for comfort.) Until I can afford to replace my very old gas guzzler with an EV, I might consider an e-bike for the hottest days. Even after I get my electric car, though, I anticipate that I’ll still choose to bicycle whenever I can.

http://iqc.ou.edu/2013/10/22/the-latest-bike-walk-and-transit-usage-data/

After the above page opens, scroll down to the bottom and drag your mouse over that version of the graph for a rather impressive interactive effect.