Month: September 2011

[B’ Spokes: I’ve been having a time argument with my Mom for my 13 mile (one way) commute. Mom:”But it takes you (almost) an hour to bike there and it would only take you a half hour by car (doing 60 mph most of the way.)” Yet my Mom spends an hour in a gym every day so to do the equivalent there would be no time savings what so ever!

It comes down to a choice of doing only one hour of gym time and then have to zoom around like you are crazy or two hours of fun relaxed bike time. Just because you are doing 60+mph does not mean you are saving any time at all. And I’ll note I have done the trip in 40 minutes by bike and because of rush hour traffic the trip has taken 40 minutes by car. The time gap is closing.]

Are Cars Really Our Greatest Mistake?

By mike Filed in $ The True Cost of Cars Tagged with accidents, economics, neighbourhoods, waste

Definitely.

But let me to qualify that just a little. I don’t mean Man’s greatest mistake ever. And I don’t count human foibles or innate weaknesses as mistakes.

What I am talking about is our ongoing rational choice, right now, to spend our physical resources, time and creative energy doing one thing rather than another.

A mistake, by this definition, must also be an opportunity. A chance to do things differently. And yes, in these terms, the increasingly universal spread of the private motor car is undoubtedly Man’s greatest mistake. And our greatest opportunity.

People drive to shopping malls for a car-free experience.

Oddly, part of the problem in making the case against the car is that the arguments are so numerous and diverse that they become confusing, overwhelming.

20 million deaths from road accidents in 15 years, for example; that’s more than were killed in World War One. And don’t forget the 200 million people seriously injured. The majority of them our children and youngsters. It is a truly, truly horrific mass slaughter. And entirely avoidable.

Or our lost sense of community; the constant noise and the danger from cars stops kids playing and parents chatting. Cars physically prevent communication between people. They are by far the most conspicuous symbol of wealth and so are deeply divisive.

Or the fact that these hugely expensive, high-tech assets spend 96% of the time idle and cluttering up the place. We live in rich societies, but it doesn’t feel like it because our wealth sits around, depreciating in car parks, front gardens and at the side of the road.

Or the land use – look around what used to be a green and pleasant land and you’ll see mainly tarmac.

Or the inflationary pressure on all our main commodities, including food.

Or the health impact of the obesity crisis.

Or the deaths from air pollution.

Or the oil wars.

Do you see what I mean? The car is so dominant in our economics and in our public space that we are faced with a many headed beast. It is the combination of these massive detriments that adds up to what is by far our our biggest mistake.

And other crimes could be added to the charge sheet, but the one that really sums it up for me is this: the cost to our time.

Time is our most precious personal resource. Given time, anyone can achieve anything. Cars are meant to make life faster and allow us to do more, to get more out of life. It is deeply ironic then, that cars actually suck up vast amounts of people’s time, apparently without us noticing.

It takes time to research, purchase, insure, tax, maintain, clean, fill with petrol, plan routes, drive ourselves around, find parking spaces, deal with breakdowns, accidents and tickets and generally worry about our cars. People don’t keep tabs on all this time and compare it to journey time saved, we don’t tend to think that way.

But even if we did keep careful notes and tot it up, we would still be ignoring the car’s biggest drain on our time. Because we’ve got to pay for our cars somehow and for most people that means working to earn the money. On average we spend around a quarter of our income on running a car. So we spend about 1 to 1.5 days every week working for the car. As we earn more we simply ‘upgrade’ the car. It’s amazing really, the power of marketing and peer pressure.

Now if you are a real car enthusiast, a hobbyist, it’s kind of understandable that you should devote so much of your life to your car. As for the rest of us, wouldn’t we rather save the time and work 3.5 days instead of 5? Imagine what we could do with that time. At very least, shouldn’t our society and infrastructure be arranged to give us that genuine choice?

So, by a whisker, and out of several strong contenders, that’s my personal favourite reason that the car is Man’s greatest mistake. What’s yours?

Continue reading “Man’s Greatest Mistake CARS ARE BRILLIANT, BUT THEY ARE A BRILLIANT MISTAKE, AND DEEP DOWN, WE ALL KNOW IT…”

From The Economist
DYING while cycling is three to five times more likely in America than in Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands. To understand why, consider the death of Michael Wang. He was pedalling home from work in Seattle on a sunny weekday afternoon in late July when, witnesses say, a brown SUV made a left turn, crunched into Wang and sped away.
The road where the 44-year-old father of two was hit is the busiest cycling corridor in Seattle, and it has clearly marked bicycle lanes. But the lanes are protected from motor vehicles by a line of white paint—a largely metaphorical barrier that many drivers ignore and police do not vigorously enforce. A few feet from the cycling lane traffic moves at speeds of between 30 miles per hour, the speed limit for arterials in Seattle, and 40 miles per hour, the speed at which many cars actually travel. This kind of speed kills. A pedestrian hit by a car moving at 30mph has a 45% chance of dying; at 40mph, the chance of death is 85%, according to Britain’s Department of Transport.
Had Mr Wang been commuting on a busy bike route in Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Berlin, his unprotected exposure to instruments of death—namely, any vehicle moving at 20mph or more—would be nearly nil. These cities have knitted together networks for everyday travel by bike. To start with, motor vehicles allowed near cyclists are subject to “traffic calming”. They must slow down to about 19mph, a speed that, in case of collision, kills less than 5%. Police strictly enforce these speed limits with hefty fines. Repeat offenders lose their licences.
Calmer traffic is just the beginning. In much of northern Europe, cyclists commute on lanes that are protected from cars by concrete buffers, rows of trees or parked cars. At busy crossroads, bicycle-activated traffic lights let cyclists cross first. Traffic laws discriminate in favour of people on bikes. A few American cities have taken European-style steps to make streets safer for cycling, most notably Portland, Oregon, which has used most of the above ideas. The result: more bikes and fewer deaths. Nearly 6% of commuters bike to work in Portland, the highest proportion in America. But in five out of the past ten years there have been no cycling deaths there. In the nearby Seattle area, where cycling is popular but traffic calming is not, three cyclists, have been killed in the past few weeks.
Continue reading “With a very few exceptions, America is no place for cyclists”

From The League of American Bicyclists

https://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=53440771

This year, around $700 million of Federal transportation funds, which in reality is less than 2 percent of total transportation dollars, will be spent on bicycling and walking.  In 2012 that figure might be a big fat zero.

In the next few days, Senator Coburn and Representative Cantor will ask Congress to eliminate the federal Transportation Enhancements program – the primary funding source 
for the past 20 years for bike lanes, trails, bike racks on buses, bike education etc.  This isn’t safe or smart; it’s not good for the economy or the environment; this is bad health policy and bad transportation policy. But they are going to try because they don’t think bicycling matters.

Even though bicycling projects create more jobs per dollar 
than highway-only projects and cutting enhancements won’t impact the deficit – the money just won’t be spent 
on bicycling – some Members of Congress want to  force us backwards to a 1950s highway-only mindset: as if oil embargoes, congestion, smog, the obesity epidemic and climate change never happened.

Now is the time to Save Cycling.  As we expect the Senate to move first, we are asking you to contact your Senator and urge them to support continued funding for biking and walking. Don’t let them take away this vital investment program for smart, sustainable, safe transportation choices.

Please Take Action today.

Thank You.

https://capwiz.com/lab/issues/alert/?alertid=53440771