According to The Guardian, 20 years ago, four out of five Beijing residents pedaled around China’s capital in some of the world’s best bike lanes. However, this number has decreased as private car ownership has gone up. From 1995 to 2005, China’s bike fleet declined by 35 percent while private car ownership more than doubled. Beijing is currently home to four million cars. Last year, China overtook the U.S. in auto sales, with a 46 percent increase in sales over the previous year. As cities in China have grown, bike lanes have also been eliminated to accommodate more traffic lanes for cars and buses. By all indications, it’s seemed that Beijing was well on its way to usher in a new king – the automobile.
But is the city of 17 million ready for king car? Perhaps not, as Beijing’s air quality continues to be poor (last week BeijingAir’s monitoring station reported a few ‘hazardous’ air quality days). Liu Xiaoming, the director of the Municipal Communications Commission, said in a Xinhua article that the government will “revise and eliminate” regulations that discourage bicycle use and impose greater restrictions on car drivers. Beijing already has limitations to reduce the number of vehicles on the road, continuing the odd-even license plate policy after its successful implementation during the 2008 Olympics. (And read my post about Beijing’s ban on “yellow label” vehicles here.)
The government also plans to restore bicycle lanes that were torn down, as well as to build more parking lots for bicycles at bus and subway stations to encourage additional cycling.
…
Continue reading “Back to Bicycling Basics in Beijing”
Electric cars not so eco-friendly: Green groups
A latest report has claimed that an increase in electric cars is likely to lead to more electricity production from coal, gas and nuclear plants, without necessarily reducing oil demand for conventional cars
…
“We need smart electric vehicles that interact with smart electricity grids so cars can charge up on green power. Dump electric vehicles plugged into a dump electricity grid would only add demand for coal and nuclear power and drive us away from a sustainable energy future,” said Greenpeace’s Franziska Achterberg.
Continue reading “Electric cars not so eco-friendly: Green groups”
More to eat and die for…..!
"Heinz supposedly spent years developing the container–years! Their rigorous R&D even included user-testing in cars. Statistics are unclear on how many of the 100+ car deaths every day are caused by eating, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says about 80% are due to driving distracted–and that includes fry- and nugget-dunking. While it’s clearly not Heinz’s responsibility to police people who might enjoy their savory accoutrement while, say, whipping around a convoy on the New Jersey Turnpike, it does come across as a potentially controversial distraction."[1]
"’The packet has long been the bane of our consumers,’ said Dave Ciesinski, vice president of Heinz Ketchup. ‘The biggest complaint is there is no way to dip and eat it on-the-go.’
Designers found that what worked at a table didn’t work where many people use ketchup packets: in the car.
So two years ago, Heinz bought a used people carrier for the design team members so they could give their ideas a real road test.
The team studied what each passenger needed. The driver wanted something that could sit on the armrest. Passengers wanted the choice of squeezing or dunking. Mothers everywhere wanted a packet that held enough ketchup for the meal and didn’t squirt onto clothes so easily."
Continue reading “More to eat and die for…..!”
Freiker (FREquent bIKER, rhymes with biker)
by JIM BERGAMO / KVUE News
The Round Rock School District is rolling out a new way to make fitness fun. The program combines biking and computers.
Friday afternoon, the Patsy Sommer Elementary School will become the first school in Texas to join a unique bike to school to program. By then, something will sit at the top of a pole in the schoolyard that the kids will think is really cool. It’s called a RFID reader, and its "readin’, ‘ritin’ and ‘rithmetic" is designed to help cut down on the obesity epidemic.
"It is really an epidemic of inactivity, kids need an hour a day minimum and they do not get that in PE," said Leslie Luciana, the Director of Advocacy and Community relations at Bicycle Sport Shop.
Continue reading “Freiker (FREquent bIKER, rhymes with biker)”
End Hunger Bike Ride April 24, 2010 Southern Maryland
The End of the Cul-de-sac?
The cul-de-sac is perhaps the quintessential symbol of suburban America. Perhaps millions of them have paved over greenways throughout the country. Hailed for their safety (no traffic that can run over kids) and prized by developers because they allow more houses to be built into oddly shaped tracts and right up to the edges of rivers and property lines, planners and town officials are beginning to realize their downside.
Early last year the state of Virginia became the first state to severely limit cul-de-sacs from future development. Similar actions have been taken in Portland Oregon, Austin, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina. What they are beginning to realize is that the cul-de-sac street grid uses land inefficiently, discourages walking and biking, and causes an almost complete dependence on driving, with attendant pollution and energy use. Furthermore, town officials are beginning to realize that unconnected streets cost more money to provide services to and force traffic onto increasingly crowded arterial roads, which then, in many cases, need to be widened (more tax money).
Plainclothes Police Enforcing Safety
NU’UANU — Police officers were out in force yesterday morning at Pali Highway and Dowsett Avenue, primarily ticketing drivers who failed to exercise due care in the presence of pedestrians.
The "pedestrians" in this case were police officers assigned to HPD’s Traffic Division. They wore civilian plainclothes and took turns venturing across the six-lane highway in a marked crosswalk at an intersection where there is no stoplight.
It is the same intersection where Hideno Matsumoto, 81, of Nu’uanu, was fatally injured Jan. 12 while trying to cross the busy thoroughfare .
"We try to do this once or twice a month," said Capt. Keith Lima of HPD’s Traffic Division . "We had four pedestrian fatalities (on O’ahu) last month alone. That’s four too many." [Note: Maryland averages over 9 pedestrian fatalities a month and maybe an enforcement once a year.]
…
Continue reading “Plainclothes Police Enforcing Safety”
How clueless can the state be?
FISCAL AND POLICY NOTE House Bill 140 Bicycles, Mopeds, and Motor Scooters – Minors – Protective Headgear
"State Effect: Potential significant general and federal fund savings beginning in FY 2011 for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH) to the extent the bill reduces debilitating injuries from bicycle and motor scooter accidents.
…
There is insufficient data at this time to estimate the number of traumatic head injuries that could be avoided and the resulting potential savings to the Medicaid program.
…"
Ya, right. We all know fat lazy people make less demands on general and federal funds then healthy active people. And it is far more cost effective to harass cyclists off the road then to actually make the roads safer for them to ride. [/sarcasm]
See "Robert Hurst on Maryland’s Proposed Mandatory Helmet Law " https://www.baltimorespokes.org/article.php?story=20100205083216676 for more info.
Crab mentality
I have a theory that people tend to take on a significant aspect of their environment and for Maryland crabs do seem to be a significant cultural icon. So I wounder does the following description fit?
Crab mentality, sometimes referred to as crabs in the bucket, describes a way of thinking best described by the phrase "if I can’t have it, neither can you." The metaphor refers to a pot of crabs. Singly, the crabs could easily escape from the pot, but instead, they grab at each other in a useless "king of the hill" competition which prevents any from escaping and ensures their collective demise. The analogy in human behavior is that of a group that will attempt to "pull down" (negate or diminish the importance of) any member who achieves success beyond the others, out of jealousy or competitive feelings.
This term is broadly associated with short-sighted, non-constructive thinking rather than a unified, long-term, constructive mentality. It is also often used colloquially in reference to individuals or communities attempting to "escape" a so-called "underprivileged life", but kept from doing so by others attempting to ride upon their coat-tails or those who simply resent their success.
It describes a desperate lust to pull other people down, denigrating them rather than letting them get ahead or pursue their dreams. It is an unwillingness to allow someone to get out of dire or bad life situations, often being foiled by friends and family members who keep sucking them back in. This trait can strike at several levels of life, like in office environments, particularly on promotion. It is a reflection of the famous saying “we all like to see our friends get ahead, but not too far ahead.”
Continue reading “Crab mentality”
No sooner had Yale University posted a news release saying it had earned platinum-level LEED certification
No sooner had Yale University posted a news release saying it had earned platinum-level LEED certification for its new forestry building, Kroon Hall, than the Yale Daily News uncovered a dirty little secret about two other LEED-certified buildings at Yale: They were built with showers and changing rooms for bike commuters, which helped them earn their LEED certification, but bike commuters had never been given access to them. Nor had anyone else.
Continue reading “No sooner had Yale University posted a news release saying it had earned platinum-level LEED certification”