De Clercq, Geert. “France experiments with paying people to cycle to work.” planetark.org. Planet Ark, 3 June 2014. Web. 9 June 2014. http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/71641
France has started a six month trial period of paying select employees (roughly 10,000 people) to bike to work. The employees are paid 25 euro cents (34 US cents) per kilometer biked to work. The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Britain also have similar bike-to-work schemes. I think this idea is great not only for the environment but for health reasons as well. The money incentive is great, but I don’t think this would work in the US because of how far the average commuter travels on a daily basis to get to work. In Florida specifically, the distance between two locations would probably be too far for anyone to bike and the weather would also play a part in people’s aversion to bike to work despite being paid for it. Also, Florida has a horrible highway fatality rate and there really isn’t a safe or efficient way to bike anywhere in Florida. Overall, Americans tend to be too lazy to go for anything like this. There’s a few exceptions: New York City, Portland, and parts of California, but overall I don’t see this working in America.
