A cyclist can do 1,000 miles on the food energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, which will move a car only some 15 to 30 miles. Facts and figures be as they may, utilising a 300 horsepower, 3,000 pound behemoth to move one single 150-pound person a few miles is like using an atomic bomb to kill a canary.
- Richard Ballantyne, in Richard's Bicycle Book (1979).

There is a veritable and unplumbed ocean of reasons why no one should ever use one of these antiquated deathtraps for getting around, but the fact remains, when you're blind drunk, they make a deal of sense. For a kick-off, you can't lose your driving licence; but, more importantly, you can't do much damage when you accidentally run into something.
In fact, for drunkards, the bicycle is bettered by only two other forms of transport: the pram and the sedan chair.
- Jeremy Clarkson (presenter of the Top Gear TV program), in Clarkson on Cars

Western Sydney's cycleways are really starting to look good and make the rest of Sydney look a little underdone...
- Robert Hamilton (president of Bicycle New South Wales), in Australian Cyclist. Nov-Dec 2005.

In 1860, a small contraption that could radically increase the ratio of energy input to output had been invented: the bicycle. This compact simple machine could make human motion almost four times more powerful, catapulting an hour's exertion from a three-mile slog into a twelve-mile sojourn. It required little maintenance and its humble requirements could repay their energy investment handily. Unlike the train, which relied on mountains of coal, and the carriages, exploiting animal metabolism, the bicycle was small-scale, human-powered and efficient.
- Soniah Shah, in Crude: the story of oil

A certain amount of craziness, if not possessed already, can be acquired trying to walk in Cairo. The city is well supplied with sidewalks, but they just take you around the block. You can't step off them because of the traffic. The locals manage to cross streets. I began thinking that Cairenes employ some chapter of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I missed when I was a hippie, that tells them how to keep going after they've been squashed between two trucks.
- P J O'Rourke, in Peace Kills

The Segway Human Transporter, a self-balancing two-wheeled 20 kilometre per hour electric vehicle which the rider stands up on, has been banned from the sidewalks off supposedly tech-friendly San Francisco. Other Californian cities may follow suit.
- news report in New Scientist, 1 February 2003

More than 100 million bicycles were made in 2000, nearly 2.5 times the number of cars. In the mid-1960's, production of the green machine almost fell behind the car. But since then, bike output has risen fivefold while car output has only doubled, says Washington-based think tank the Earth Policy Institute. The Chinese buy most, with the European Union next. Sweating a long way behind are the Americans, who buy fewer than 2 million bikes a year.
- news report in New Scientist, 27 July 2002

Most Australians who choose to travel to work on a bicycle are to be found in the flat inner city, near a university, or near a bike path. Otherwise Australia's leading bike commuters choose to live next to an air force base on the edge of town.
- Bernard Salt, reflecting on journey to work data from the 1996 Census in The Big Shift

If parents drive their children everywhere, they are reinforcing unsustainable transport habits in children, which are then likely to lead to car-dependent social values in adulthood. However, if the concept of sustainability is developed within children, and is put into practice by allowing children independent access to their local environment, then those same children may well appreciate the value of walking and cycling as adults.
- Paul Tranter, writing in Australian Cyclist Feb/March 2001("Freedoms Lost")

It is strange now to learn of the alarm with which many greeted the bicycle. Cycling was said to be bad for the health. It was pointedly noted that the cyclist, although using the road, "was usually not even a ratepayer". Cyclists were damned as "cads on castors", and were said to have scared horses and pedestrians, raised dust, scattered mud, and travelled at excessive speeds of up to 20 km/h. They were frequently, and not accidentally, struck by coach drivers' whips. An 1888 British regulation required all cyclists to carry a bell that would tinkle continuously while the cycle was in motion. Cyclists were not legally permitted on the streets of New York until 1887.
- Max Lay, in Ways of the World

Pedestrians have sometimes been disadvantaged by their intrinsic flexibility. The size and geometric limitations of the motor vehicle demand a degree of control and conformity to rules and strict channels of movement. These characteristics also lead to demands for minimum physical standards of grades, lane widths, curve radii, surface treatments and a proliferation of statutory signage and control devices. Pedestrians, by contrast, can squeeze into very small spaces, turn on the spot and climb relatively steep stairs. Ironically, the needs of other wheeled traffic, people using wheelchairs, required the introduction of equivalent minimum standards for pedestrian spaces.
- Ian Napier, in The State of Play (2000), stage 1 of the "Sustainable Transport in Sustainable Cities" Project, Warren Centre, University of Sydney.

If World War Three should come and civilisation be shattered, the survivors could still pick a bike up from the rubble, inflate its tyres with a hand pump, and ride to the grove by the spring in the forgotten hills.
- Richard Risemberg website

My bicycle was stolen by a cold, heartless person from the handrails at the top of the west ramp entrance of Chatswood Station Interchange between noon and 12.30pm on Thursday March 7. I am now very sad for the loss of my bike because I was once able to do many things such as go riding with my friends, go swimming, go to the library and do jobs for my mum. I am writing this letter in the hope that my bike will be found because my mum cannot afford to buy me another one.
(then describes bike ...)
- Letter from 12-year-old Stephen Kovacs to North Shore Times

[Pedestrians] are extremely vulnerable to impact by vehicles, although they will trade off this risk against increased journey length : it is not unusual to see people clambering over or through barriers designed to force them to cross roads away from junctions.
- Rodney Tolley, in The Greening of Urban Transport

In all, it does not seem to be far from the truth that the freedom with which a person can walk about and look around is a very useful guide to the civilised quality of an urban area.
- Colin Buchanan, Traffic in Towns

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