A colleague and I both needed to get to a meeting across campus. We both left with only five minutes to spare. He grabbed a golf cart. I hopped on my bike. We took different routes across campus and up hill but arrived at the same time. He parked the cart and met me at the door.
After the meeting I was able to get down the hill and put away my bike about a minute faster than he was -- due to the
governor that limits the speed of our golf carts.
The competition was just for fun. But having a bicycle available in a dense urban environment can be vastly better than having a car for short-radius trips. This is particularly true where there is heavy traffic or there are constraints about routes cars are allowed to use and where they can park.
When living and working in Philly, back in the '80s, it took less time to hop on my bike, zip across town, and lock it outside my office or a store than to walk from home to wherever I'd parked my car, drive across town in city traffic, find and pay for parking, and then walk to the office or store.
In Princeton it's much faster to grab the bike and ride across campus and into town and back for small errands at lunch than it would be to walk down to the parking lot, drive all the way around the campus, go find parking, walk to the store, and reverse that to get back.
For me the radius where a bike is faster than a car is between one and three miles. Beyond that, cars usually get there faster. ...but then you need to factor in JOY!
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