Month: August 2009

By RICHARD RISEMBERG
It was heartening to read Ted Lux’s editorial (“Peddling a Bike-Friendly L.A.” in the Aug. 10 issue) calling for more bicycling and the infrastructure to support it here in Los Angeles. As one who has been promoting the bicycle as transportation for more than 12 years, and riding to work, shopping, to doctors’ and dentists’ offices, and what have you in Los Angeles for more than 40 years, I’d like to add a somewhat extended footnote to Lux’s excellent article.
The environmental benefits of practical cycling are well known – not only do bicycles use no fuel, they require very little space for parking and for travel. While it seems paradoxical that cycling groups are asking for infrastructure that requires yet more paving, in the long run, more cycling will lessen the demand for the far more extensive acres of asphalt that cars require, thereby saving the city money.
Likewise for health: Though many fear cycling, statistics show that it is no more dangerous than driving in the United States. (In Northern Europe, it is less dangerous than driving!) And the increase in cardiovascular and psychological health resulting from cycling (or walking, of course) reduces public (and personal) health costs.
The bicycle is the most efficient machine ever devised, losing only 2 percent of the energy input at the pedals by the time the rubber hits the road. Nothing else even comes close.
In fact, cycling is so efficient that if you want to lose weight, walking is better – cycling uses one-third the calories per mile at four to five times the speed of shoe leather. But it is precisely this combination of speed and efficiency that makes it feasible to cycle instead of drive, when you would simply be sitting on your posterior for those same miles.
You also can carry astounding quantities of stuff on a bicycle, if you’re of a consumerist bent. I recently road-tested a Swedish cargo bike on which I carried my wife and a load of groceries that included a watermelon, for a total load of 150 pounds!
But something else happens when you ride instead of drive, something of particular interest to a city’s business community: At cycling’s transportational pace of 15 miles an hour, you find yourself much more aware of the world you inhabit – the weather, the state of the road, your neighbors, your city’s architecture, and so forth. You enrich your life by seeing things you otherwise would have missed.
Continue reading “Pumping Up the Plea to Make L.A. More Bike-Friendly”

State Senator Creigh Deeds and River ‘Car Less Brit‘ Laker discuss mass transit, intermodal (roads-to-rails) and urban bike culture
By 2010, all federal and state transportation dollars will be needed to maintain our crumbling highways and closed rest areas leaving precious few funds for transportation improvements elsewhere in the Commonwealth. In fact, the Commonwealth may actually lose federal dollars because the General Assembly can’t provide required matching funds.
Both candidates for governor tout Virginia as the best place in the United States to do business and yet portions of the state’s transportation infrastructure are rapidly deteriorating and agencies lack funding necessary to attract new industry.
For example, Maersk Sealand, which just built a new container terminal on Craney Island in Portsmouth, needs help to increase road or rail capacity to serve the total build-out planned by Maersk. But Virginia cannot offer that help.
Last month, we sent 8 very specific questions regarding the sorry state of Virginia’s transportation infrastructure to both campaigns.
Until last weekend, we had not heard from either campaign; however, during a whirlwind tour through the Roanoke and New River Valleys on Saturday, State Senator Deeds gave SCH’s foreign correspondent River ‘Car Less Brit’ Laker about 10 minutes of face-time to address some of our transportation questions.
Why do conservatives loathe bikes and public transit?
Rush Limbaugh says, “Frankly, if the door opens into a bicycle rider I won’t care. I think they ought to be off the streets[.]”
The Virginia Bicycling Federation has called Congressman Eric Cantor on the carpet for his vehement opposition to bike-ped: “Cantor also added the expansion of the Smart Bike program- the first bike-sharing system of its kind in North America- as an additional example of wasteful stimulus spending” (source: LAB).
And FoxNews reports that Congressional Republicans have taken aim at funding in the Recovery Act specifically earmarked for alternative transportation, including increased bike paths as part of the Safe Routes to School program.
To his credit, and given the immense popularity of the Roanoke Valley Greenway system, Representative Bob Goodlatte has broken with Congressional conservatives to provide additional funding to complete the Roanoke River Greenway.
The League of American Bicyclists has reported that
It has been proven that dollar for dollar, bike infrastructure has a higher return on investment than road expansion. In fact, for every $1 million invested in an FHWA-approved paved bicycle or multi-use trail, the local economy gains 65 jobs. The modest expansion of the Smart Bike system will not only reduce co2 emissions by 1.5 tons every day (based on current usage rates), it will stimulate job growth. In addition to the numerous construction jobs created, the system expansion will not only create 20 new full-time jobs, they’ll also be green jobs that contribute to a healthier, more environmentally sound Washington. Another tourist-heavy area saw a 9 to 1 return on its investment in bike related infrastructure.
Deeds: Investments in our transportation infrastructure, from bike paths to intermodal (road to rail), make economic sense
Continue reading “Tough times should not stop innovation in transportation”

It’s not uncommon for bicycles to go missing on the University of Washington campus. Fancy $5,000 road bikes, busted $50 beaters—all of them end up in the hands of thieves, and usually at a faster clip during the summer months, when more people ride instead of drive and bike lifters have plentiful prey. Snipping through cable locks and snatching untended cycles, they make off with about 125 bikes annually, according to UW police.
What is incredibly uncommon is for one of these stolen bikes to be recovered—and even more uncommon is for such a bike to be recovered by a 25-year-old bioengineering grad student who has taken the law into her own hands, stalked her stolen property on Craigslist, jawboned authorities in two states into action, and even tried to set up a Wal-Mart parking-lot sting operation, all to recover a Redline Conquest Pro (a cyclo-cross bike) that she bought used last fall for $850. "I’m not one to give up easily," explained the student, Michelle McCully.
Continue reading “Cycle of Justice”

What if you could add $2.6 billion annually to your local economy? That’s what Portland has effectively done by getting its citizens to drive just 4 fewer miles a day, according to a briefing paper by our colleague Joe Cortright called Portland’s Green Dividend. What Joe found has big implications for urban leaders across the country. As a result of enacting a growth boundary, increased density, mixed land uses, and investments in public transportation, walking and biking, Portlanders are saving time and money on transportation that gets funneled back into the local economy. Critics have long characterized Portlanders as "depriving themselves in the name of saving the environment." Some have argued that "planning, policies and regulations that restrict use or access to resources impede growth and lower household income." But the new study found that assumption is simply not true. There is, in fact, a Green Dividend that accrues to cities willing to make certain choices about urban form and transportation.
Continue reading “Portland’s Green Dividend”

Some Staten Island motorists are, in fact, in favor of bike lanes–as long as they get to drive in them, too.
This morning at 9 AM, cyclist Gregory DeRespino incited road rage among his motorist peers for merely sitting at a stop light in the bike lane on Father Capodanno Boulevard, SI Advance reports. Apparently, DeRespino’s presence prevented them from using the bike lane as a turn lane to make a right on red.
Continue reading “Staten Island cyclist assaulted by motorist for being in bike lane”