The bicycle helped spark the manufacturing revolution in the United States. The bicycle was the genesis of the aerospace industry; I mean, the Wright brothers were a couple of bike mechanics, for heaven's sakes! And it has been key in terms of the development of the transportation infrastructure generally. ... It's time to take this on directly, and to re-establish manufacturing in the bicycle sector in the United States.
Blumenauer traces America's biking bust to the 1970s and '80s, when U.S. manufacturers looked overseas to cut costs when demand for biking fell in the face of rising car dependency. ... those manufacturers too often came to rely on foreign companies whose 'competitive advantage is its willingness to build dirty products with the support of government subsidies, while paying workers the equivalent of two dollars an hour,' as Jeff Ferry of the Coalition for a Prosperous America once told Streetsblog.
#bike-manufacturing-industry #domestic-production #economic-impact #government-incentives #biking-culture
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