To the Editor:

In your generally pessimistic assessment of ways the United States could lower its dependence on oil for energy needs (Business Day, Sept. 24), you discuss increased use of bicycles for transportation, especially commuting to work. The prospects for increased use, you conclude, are dim without ''a dramatic change in personal habits and how people are required to dress for work.''

Yet none of the other proposed strategies have so many subsidiary benefits. Bicycling is inexpensive, enjoyable and healthy. Besides saving oil, increased use of bicycles will save urban space and help solve traffic congestion.

In American cities almost half the urban space goes to accommodate the automobile; traffic congestion often makes automobile transportation slower than bicycling. Bicycling is booming in the United States. This may be why it is more seriously considered as a partial solution to the oil problem today than during the oil crises of the 1970's.

Such cities as Palo Alto, Calif., where enlightened policies that require bicycle parking facilities and that assure a proper place for bicycles on the roads have encouraged commuting by bicycle. People who commute by bicycle have found ways to solve the problem of the required dress for work.

For increased bicycling to be an important part of our energy policy, a dramatic change in personal habits is not required. What is required are governmental and employer policies that ease the use of bicycles for commuting. When the artificial impediments to their use are lessened, their many benefits will lead to increased use. We will probably never have thousands of bicyclists clogging the road as in Beijing, but one of the best options for lowering our dependence upon petroleum will be much more popular.


Eastern Regional Director

League of American Wheelmen

Baltimore, Sept. 26, 1990