{"id":20982422,"date":"2005-08-31T20:27:02","date_gmt":"2005-08-31T20:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=20982422"},"modified":"2005-08-31T20:27:02","modified_gmt":"2005-08-31T20:27:02","slug":"the-cost-of-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=20982422","title":{"rendered":"The cost of cars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"127\" height=\"82\" align=\"left\" src=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/08\/20050831202702667_1.gif\" alt=\"\">Autos are the single largest source of U.S. air pollution. Short trips are up to three times<br \/>\nmore polluting per mile than long trips. When bicycling is substituted for short auto<br \/>\ntrips, 3.6 pounds of pollutants per mile are not emitted into the atmosphere. More<br \/>\nbicycle use means less benzene, cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, CFCs,<br \/>\nsulfates, and ozone in the air. In addition, the bicycle season matches the harmful<br \/>\nground-level ozone season. By biking, you contribute to pollution prevention when it is<br \/>\nmost needed.<\/p>\n<p>If the real taxpayer subsidy of autos were reflected in fuel taxes, a gallon of gasoline<br \/>\nmight cost as much as &#36;9.00. That&#8217;s because other taxes cover the costs of road<br \/>\nbuilding, maintenance, parking space, police services and losses from accidents,<br \/>\npollution and congestion. If more commuters bicycled, these costs would go down. All<br \/>\ntaxpayers, businesses and citizens would save money!<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nBicycling reduces health costs<\/p>\n<p>According to the CDC, more than 200,000 deaths per year can be attributed to physical<br \/>\ninactivity. Obesity costs our nation &#36;68 billion in health care and personal costs annually. The<br \/>\nstatistics on the lack of physical activity among children are also alarming. Most children are<br \/>\ndriven to school in cars or buses, and one child out of every 4 is overweight.<br \/>\nMedical research has well established the fact that a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate<br \/>\nphysical activity three days a week can reduce incidents of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and<br \/>\nhypertension and improve mental health and cardio-vascular fitness (Case Study No. 14,<br \/>\nNational Bicycling and Walking Study, FHWA, 1992).<br \/>\n25<\/p>\n<p>Active people are healthier than inactive people because exercise stimulates the immune system<br \/>\nand increases the metabolism. The pollution that motorists inhale inside a car has been shown<br \/>\nmore harmful to them than outside the car.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.bikeleague.org\/educenter\/organizerkit.pdfoldId.20050831202702667<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Autos are the single largest source of U.S. air pollution. Short trips are up to three times more polluting per mile than long trips. When bicycling is substituted for short auto trips, 3.6 pounds of pollutants per mile are not emitted into the atmosphere. More bicycle use means less benzene, cyanide, lead, carbon monoxide, carbon &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=20982422\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The cost of cars&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20982422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20982422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20982422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20982422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20982422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20982422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20982422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}