Beijing currently has about two million autos and more than eight million bikes. This will change in the near future as more and more people have the income to buy cars there. Shanghai' s auto production and purchase are major contributors both to the economy and problems in tenus of providing better and better transportation access. In Yangzhou, where I have lived while teaching in China, there must be millions of bikes. As people have the funds to obtain better means of transportation, with better roads, and stronger public transportation systems, reliance on bikes and motorcycles may decrease. Most autos are taxis, but this too will change in a short time as more people can buy their own cars. Yangzhou is a university city, so it is likely that the thousands of university students there will continue to ride bikes. However, as they become employed adults, the economy appears to improve steadily, and they will be beneficiaries of increased income. This will lead more and more of them to move up to motorcycles, or even to car ownership. I believe, however, that bikes will continue to be a very important part of Chinese life for many years to come. There are some problems for bike riders in China. The greatest of these appear to be the sometimes careless attention to their presence by taxi drivers and the drivers of private cars. A second problem seems to be the lack of awareness of the bike riders themselves to the dangers posed by approaching cars and motorcycles. Finally, it is a surprise to me that all bikes are not equipped with a light and front and back red reflectors for greater safety for the riders.
In contrast, in very large cities in the United States, it is often very impractical and dangerous to be a bike rider. Public transportation systems often solve the problem of easy access which bicycles might serve in China. America is a car culture, except in the very largest cities where parking is prohibitively expensive. With many families having two or three autos in most medium sized cities and the suburbs, children, some teenagers, and a smaller number of health conscious adults ride bikes. Most American teenagers can gain their driving license when they are sixteen, after which their bikes become less and less important parts of their lives. University students who do not have cars at the campuses where they study may ride bikes. The general population does not ride bikes, as we go almost everywhere in our cars.
We Americans all might be healthier and have much less weight if we rode bikes regularly like many Chinese still do. I admire the lean, healthy look of the young Chinese bike riders, which I believe comes in large part by the vigorous exercise which bike riding provides them. For me, though I do not ride a bike in China, bikes seems to me a very attractive feature of Chinese life which I would not like to see destroyed.