{"id":137670830,"date":"2009-05-13T09:53:50","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T09:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=137670830"},"modified":"2009-05-13T09:53:50","modified_gmt":"2009-05-13T09:53:50","slug":"bicycles-why-cant-johnny-ride-05-12-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=137670830","title":{"rendered":"BICYCLES: Why can’t Johnny ride? (05\/12\/2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"

BICYCLES: Why can’t Johnny ride? (05\/12\/2009)<\/b>
\n
Evan Lehmann, E&E reporter<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.eenews.net\/climatewire\/2009\/05\/12\/2<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Schoolchildren are being reintroduced to an old concept.
\nIt is called “active transportation.”<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Students in a handful of cities involved in this experiment
\nprobably don’t think much about the carbon emissions they are preventing
\nas they navigate their bicycles toward beeping devices that count their
\nrides to school.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Nor do they likely realize that their playful pedaling
\nhas stopped a spark in the family car’s combustion car engine; or that
\ntheir bike rides chip a little piece off the mountain of miles that U.S.
\nschool buses travel each year — 4 billion.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

But a growing number of teachers and parents see a variety
\nof benefits from putting kids back on the wheels that earlier generations
\ntook for granted. Getting kids to ride now, they say, will build momentum
\nfor cycling habits they can carry into adulthood.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“It’s all about habit,” said Ned Levine, principal
\nof Crest View Elementary School in Boulder, Colo., where about 130 students
\n— or 25 percent — ride to school every day.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Kids, it seems, needed only a little push and a tiny blip
\nof help from software.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

That is what Robert Nagler discovered a few years ago when
\nhe was trying — unsuccessfully — to convince his children to mount up
\nfor the short ride to Crest View. So he began offering cheap prizes that
\nhe bought at the China Trading Co. — not just to his kids but any that
\nrode over and over again.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“It was pretty exciting,” Nagler recalled. “You
\nknow, you come to school every Friday with a bag full of prizes. It was
\nlike Christmas.”<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hitting the saddle when it’s zero degrees<\/b><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

But that brought on the daily job of counting bikes as
\nthe children cruised chaotically into the schoolyard. Nagler and a friend
\ntried to automate it by using punch cards. Later they adopted portable
\nelectronic scanners, the type used by retail stores. That meant Nagler
\ncould scan bar codes adhered on parked bikes at any point during the day.
\nBut the devices were cheap and failed before long.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

So in the summer of 2006, Nagler, who runs a small software
\ncompany, built an automatic counter that uses radio signals to detect a
\nsmall chip attached to each child’s helmet. The solar-powered counter,
\nmounted on a post, beeps as the kids glide by. The data is uploaded onto
\na Web site, so students can track their ridership — and that of their
\ncompetitors.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Now the program, called Freiker (short for “frequent
\nbiker” and pronounced friker) is operating at 11 schools in four states
\nand Canada. Prizes are awarded to the hardiest cyclists at the end of each
\nschool year. Prizes vary with the school, but the excitement generated
\nby a few iPods has never been matched, Nagler said.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“There was a big jump in ridership,” Nagler added.
\n“Now when it’s zero degrees, there’s 25 or 30 kids riding” —
\nand that is just at Crest View Elementary.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The maiden school has seen a fourfold increase in the number
\nor riders since the program began. Altogether, the 11 schools have recorded
\n121,213 rides since 2005. The program received its first corporate donation
\nthis year from Trek Bicycle Corp., amounting to $25,000. Organizers hope
\nto expand Freiker to between 15 and 20 schools by the end of the year.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Those rides can make a difference. U.S. EPA says that “leaving
\nyour car at home just two days a week will reduce greenhouse gas emissions
\nby an average of 1,600 pounds per year.” That is the equivalent of
\nan average American’s total emissions for one month.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Shifting the mind, not the car<\/b><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The program echoes a bigger movement meant to increase
\nbiking and walking. Conservation groups, cities and researchers are trying
\nto wake Congress up to the benefits of “active transportation.”
\nThat means using muscles to cruise the contours of a community, not a car.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“That’s what we need — a mind shift. You don’t always
\nhave to drive,” said Thomas Gotschi, director of research at Rails
\nto Trails Conservancy.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The group says that new infrastructure, including better-designed
\nbike lanes, could lead to a 13 percent to 25 percent increase in biking
\nand walking, depending on the aggressiveness of the overhaul.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

That would slash car travel by between 70 billion and 200
\nbillion miles a year. Carbon dioxide emissions, in turn, would decline
\nby between 33 million tons and 91 million tons annually. Overall, private
\ncar travel, which currently accounts for 20 percent of the nation’s emissions,
\nwould drop 3-8 percent, according to group’s findings in a recent report.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Decades of car-centered transportation policies have
\ndead-ended in chronic congestion, crippling gas bills, and a highly inefficient
\ntransportation system that offers only one answer to most of our mobility
\nneeds — the car,” warns the report, called Active Transportation
\nfor America.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

But getting Congress to steer away from the United States’
\nromance with cars will require measurable justification. So there is a
\nnational movement to count bikers and pedestrians — something that has
\nbeen done to strengthen automobile policies for decades, but never for
\nbikes.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“One of greatest challenges facing the bicycle and
\npedestrian field is the lack of documentation on usage and demand,”
\nsays the Web site for the National Bicycle and Pedestrian Documentation
\nProject.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The coalition is preparing to ask Congress to fund automatic
\ncounting technologies in 20 cities.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Can you peddle pedaling to 16-year-olds?<\/b><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Limited counts are already happening in some places. Baltimore,
\nfor example, started a project last summer that documented 8,000 bikes
\nand pedestrians on the Pratt Street bike lane over 10 days. More counting
\ncould change city policies, said Nate Evans, the city’s bike and pedestrian
\nplanner, who some call the “bike czar.”<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“If significant bike traffic exists, we could justify
\nadding more bike lanes or even taking a vehicular travel lane,” Evans
\nsaid in an e-mail.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Freiker is doing its part to achieve critical mass. Schools
\nin Colorado, California, Oregon and Ottawa, Canada, are participating in
\nthe program, which costs about $4,000 to begin, not including the price
\nof prizes.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

The program expanded to its first high school last week
\nin McFarland, Wis. The experiment could be ground breaking: Will teenagers
\ntrade their gas pedal for a bike pedal?<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Early results have been tempered by technological glitches
\nwith the automatic counter, called a Freikometer, and an unusually long
\nsetup period. The Freiker Web site, which tracks real-time rides, showed
\nthat two bikers rode to the high school yesterday. Almond Elementary School
\nin Los Altos, Calif., meanwhile, registered 91 daily riders. That’s the
\nmost of all participating schools.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Jeff Kunkel, an English teacher at McFarland High School,
\nexpects the program to take off next year, when prizes will be featured
\nfor the first time. Still, there will be challenges, he said.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

“We’re going against a pretty ingrained car culture,”
\nKunkel said, noting that most students drive less than a mile in the town
\nof about 7,000 people. “Trying to challenge that is our new task.”<\/span>
\n
<\/span><\/p>\n

oldId.20090513095350749<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BICYCLES: Why can’t Johnny ride? (05\/12\/2009) Evan Lehmann, E&E reporter https:\/\/www.eenews.net\/climatewire\/2009\/05\/12\/2 Schoolchildren are being reintroduced to an old concept. It is called “active transportation.” Students in a handful of cities involved in this experiment probably don’t think much about the carbon emissions they are preventing as they navigate their bicycles toward beeping devices that count … <\/p>\n

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