Ready for our theme on low carbon transport over June, we went to see a screening of Bike V Cars – an award-winning documentary – hosted by the Brighton Bike Hub in the Circus Street Market.
The screening was part of the Big Bike Revival fortnight (23 May – 7 June) and showed how the humble bicycle, is an amazing tool for change. The director Fredrik Gertten, looks into and investigates the daily global drama in traffic around the world.
From bike activists in Sao Paulo and Los Angeles, fighting for safe bike lanes, to the City of Copenhagen, where forty percent commute by bike daily, Bikes vs Cars looks at both the struggle for bicyclists in a society dominated by cars, and the revolutionary changes that could take place if more cities moved away from car-centric models to ones of better pedestrinisation, safe cycle lanes and better use of open and green spaces. Today there are one billion cars in the world, by 2020 at current trends, that number will double, which means more oil, more metal and more pollution.
For us city dwellers, do we really need a car that is probably only used for 1-2 hours a day? The annual cost for an average car owner is between £1,556 for a small car with low annual mileage, to £4,471 for a large car with high annual mileage. Lifestyle wise it can be hard to come away from car ownership, especially for people with small families or long commutes. But for those who just need a car for basic running about, schemes such as City Car Club, means you can easily hire vehicles for city travel and save yourself the hassle of a finding a parking space.
And the rest of the time you could be out and about on your bike.
You can watch the trailer, or see more information about the film or have a look at the Facebook page.
Tags: global, Low Carbon, transport, travel