Bike sales see big increase in Italy. Photo Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Last year 1.75 million bikes were sold in Italy, compared to 1.748 million motor vehicles, according to The Christian Science Monitor. Contributing to this trend are rising fuel prices and hefty costs associated with keeping a car on the road. Gas prices recently hit €2 a liter ($9.50 a gallon), and the average cost of ownership is estimated at around €7,0000 ($9,000) a year. The fact that it’s quicker to get around Rome by bike, makes it no wonder that bike sales are increasing.

Antonio Della Venezia, president of the Italian Federation of Bike Lovers, told Italian paper La Republica, “People who have only ever driven cars are changing their thinking. I don’t think Italy will go back to the levels of car sales that we saw before 2008.” In addition to new bikes being bought, an estimated 200,000 old bikes have also been restored for regular use.

Read full article here>>

“Because government is the arena where so many of society’s conflicting interests fight for influence, and because nearly every decision and action can end up in court, the public sector is more rule-bound than most organizations. The biggest political sin for administrators is making a visible mistake. So public agencies typically evolve very incrementally, and if something isn’t noticeably broken there is seldom any political advantage in fixing it – or even in improving its internal operations. Which is what gives extra credence to the cliché that the Chinese character for “crisis” also means “opportunity”. Read full post here: Crisis and Opportunity at MassDOT: Money, Internal Operations, and Political Support for Change.

Other recent posts:

>The Boston Globe Editorial on Bicycle Safety: Moving Past the Training Wheels

>The Traffic Behind the Candidates: Vote for the Appointees, Not The Person