Today’s Detroit News has an article on road users switching modes from cars and trucks to cycles — both motorized and not.

Local shops say customers also are dusting off the bikes and cycles they own, fueling a significant increase in demand for tune-ups and repairs.

“We’re seeing bikes that haven’t seen the light of day in years,” said Liz Szewczyk, an employee at Continental Bicycle Shop in Hazel Park. Not only is the maintenance and repair business booming, she said, but also the sale of commuter bikes — those that come with fenders, lights and other safety features for longer commutes.

“When gas was $3.50 (a gallon), customers started trickling in,” Szewczyk said. “Then it hit $4 and (business) went poof.”

The Detroit Free Press also ran a similar piece yesterday.  It includes an interview with Andy Staub from Beat the Train:

Andy Staub, 42, also relies more on his bike, but for commuting 12 miles from his Dearborn Heights home to his job as a slitter operator at Olympic Steel in Detroit.

He used to bike mainly for sport a couple of days a week. But due to gas prices, he’s added a third day and is considering a fourth.

The commute takes him about 50 minutes by bike, compared with 25 minutes when he drives his 1998 Jeep Cherokee.

As we noted earlier, American’s drove less in January. While February showed a modest increase, March dropped sharply. In fact it was the sharpest monthly drop in 66 years of reporting.

High gas prices and this continued downward trend (which began in 2006) only reinforces the fact that we need to provide more transportation options for Americans, including public transit and bicycling facilities.

Here is the complete press release from the Federal Highway Administation: (more…)

American’s and especially Michiganders are driving their cars and trucks less.

This trend isn’t all that recent. As the most recent Federal Highway Administration graph shows, the mileage has flattened during the past couple years and is now on the decline.

Comparing January 2008 to January 2007, the nation drove 1.7% less. Michiganders drove 4% less, a reduction of 350 million miles for one month. Comparing December 2006 to December 2007, Michigan drove 6.2% less or 525 million miles.

Given the recent gas price increases, this downward trend should only grow.

This is good news for bike shops and bike advocates. Why should we spend more money on expanding roads while the vehicle use is declining? Now is the time to invest in alternatives such as on-road bike facilities.

These trends are also good for SMART. Their April ridership numbers continued to climb and are now setting records.

The Suburban Mobility for Regional Transportation (SMART) is posting the highest ridership since its formation in 1967. SMART carried more than 44,000 passengers daily for the month of April. Weekend service on SMART is also at its peak. Overall, ridership on the Fixed Route system has increased more than 6.5% from this time last year.

Unfortunately there is a significant drawback to Americans driving less. Transportation funding relies heavily on fuel taxes. The less people drive (or the higher MPGs their cars get) the less money flows into the system to fund transit, roads, and trails. The funding mechanism is clearly broken.

The Governor created a Transportation Funding Task Force which is looking at alternatives. MTGA, TRU, and other groups are working with this group to ensure biking and transit funding is adequately funded, especially as more Michiganders switch to these modes.

A recent report from the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association shows more Americans are road biking.

According to the report, more than 39 million people participated in some sort of road biking at least once in 2006, an increase of more than 9 percent over 2005. Out of the more than 39 million people who rode at least once, almost 14 million were frequent riders. This group is defined as those that go on 25 or more rides a year.