There is a simple tool sitting in the garage that can save the average family $10,000 per year

PORTLAND, Ore., Dec. 6, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- It can reduce the rates of chronic diseases and the cost of healthcare, and it can help build community. Author Elly Blue's Bikenomics provides an urgently needed new perspective on how Americans get around, how the bicycle can be a driver of positive economic change, and how bicycles are already hard at work addressing our economic problems.

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The first book of its kind, Bikenomics makes a compelling case for increasing our personal and civic wealth by investing in bicycle transportation. It tells the story of the role our transportation system has played in the last decade's boom and bust, and shares the success stories of people who are making lasting and meaningful change in their lives and their communities.

Bicycling saves money for families. The average family spends over $10,000 a year on car transportation—that's more than they spend on food. (US Consumer Expenditures Survey, http://www.bls.gov/cex/, Table 1400)

Bicycling creates wealth and saves money for taxpayers. Driving is even more heavily subsidized than public transportation. Bicycling is the only mode of transportation with a positive return on investment, where users pay more than their fair share. (http://www.vtpi.org/whoserd.pdf)

Bicycling is fun and popular. 71% of Americans say they want to ride bicycles more often than they do. (2008 National Survey of Bicyclist and Pedestrian Attitudes and Behavior, NHTSA)

Over 82% have a positive attitude towards bicycling (2013 Equity Report, League of American Bicyclists, http://bikeleague.org).

Author Elly Blue uses a combination of stories, statistics, personal anecdotes, and professional experience to give you an insider's knowledge of transportation issues in the U.S. today—and to show you that the way we get around is one of the most compelling economic issues of our day, one that will shape our future and provide a solution to society's myriad woes, including health, happiness and the economy.

About the author:
Elly Blue is a nationally recognized writer and activist on the topic of bicycle transportation. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Grist, Momentum, Bitch, BikePortland, the Portland Mercury, and elsewhere. Her previous book is Everyday Bicycling: How to Ride a Bike for Transportation (Whatever Your Lifestyle) (Microcosm, 2012). She manages a blog and a small press at takingthelane.com. She lives carfree in Portland, Oregon.

Advance praise for Bikenomics:
"Elly Blue has written the Common Sense for the bicycling revolution. Like Tom Paine, Blue set out to show how truths we were raised to believe—streets are for cars, bicycling is an intrusion, cars predominate because they make economic good sense—are really assumptions that defy common sense. Bikenomics is fact-based but personal, serious but fun, well-researched but readable. It gives cycling advocates the talking points they need to show that the bicycle revolution is just common sense in action." –Peter Norton, author of Fighting Traffic

"Blue has organized years of observations about the economic benefits of biking into a 194-page book of deeply rational arguments that's poised to make a splash." –Michael Andersen, BikePortland.org

"A thorough dissection of assumptions about cycling that has much to say about what streets are and who they're for." –J.H. Crawford, author of Carfree Cities

Media Contact: Tim Wheeler, Microcosm Publishing, 503-232-3666, [email protected]

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SOURCE Microcosm Publishing