Tag: Cycling

Cycling Can Save The World (Part 3,267)

Denmark: This is how we roll.

Yo! Any countries having trouble imagining how to reduce greenhouse emissions (which I guess is just about all of you), listen up!

Inspire your lazy-ass public to ride bikes like the Danes and you will take a big chunk out of climate change, or so says this study:

If all Europeans bicycled as much as the people of Denmark, the European Union could achieve up to one-quarter of its target for carbon emissions reductionsin the transportation sector by 2050, a new report says. According to the European Cyclists’ Federation, the average Dane cycles about 2.6 kilometers a day. If that rate were achieved across the EU, it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 55 million to 120 million tons annually, or 5 to 11 percent of the EU’s overall emissions target, by 2020.

Wondering why that sort of logic has trouble in the land of the Big Mac (apart from the fact that our “leaders” scorn Europe)? The explanation is here.

Bike More = Live Longer

This guy has it figured out.

Since we are on the subject of health, I can’t resist adding that my health care reinvention would include a lot more cycling. Because a new study reconfirms the blindingly obvious: biking reduces obesity and cardiac disease (along with pollution), and saves money:

A study published in the scientific journalEnvironmental Health Perspectives shows that swapping your car for short trips and replacing them with mass transit and active transport provides major health benefits. The study will be presented to the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C. $3.8 billion per year are saved in avoided mortality and reduced health care costs for obesity and heart disease by replacing half of the short journeys with bicycle trips during the warmest six months of the year.

The researchers calculated that an estimated $7 billion including 1,100 lives from improved air quality and increased physical fitness can be saved each year by applying these measures.

But would cycling a lot more be too “European,” too?

Save The World? Get A Bike

San Francisco Critical Mass, April 29, 2005.
Image via Wikipedia

Figuring out how to save the world can be a complicated process. Paper versus plastic. Glass milk bottle versus carton. Car versus bike.

 

Oh wait, that last one is not at all complicated. It’s pretty obvious that transporting our human selves more frequently, when possible, by bicycle, is good for the planet and good for us (though apparently it is tragically annoying to some drivers; and I should mention that some guy in a car, for some inexplicable (really) reason, gave me the finger yesterday while I was riding).

Here in traffic-locked DC, it’s nice to see that this conclusion is starting to change the way people get around, and that bikesharing is taking off.

These kids in Nairobi agree, and they made a pretty good rap ode to how bikes can save the world (backstory is here):

 

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We Have Slow Food. Are You Ready For Slow Driving?

55 mph speed limit being erected in response t...
Image via Wikipedia

When President Carter called for a 55 mph national speed limit in response to the 1970s Arab oil embargo there was a national outcry, and car manufacturers were not far from a decades-long binge on massive cars with powerful engines that could propel them nicely at speeds far in excess of the pokey 55 mph (recent research indicates that given an open road, Americans choose to cruise at 70 mph).

But with oil saturating the Gulf of Mexico, billions of American dollars a year going to nasty, hostile, dictatorships, and climate change slowly throttling the planet, I’ve been waiting for someone, somewhere, to make the case again for slowing down. And according to WIRED, someone has. And the new number is–drumroll–50 mph!

Everyone knows easing up on the accelerator can improve your fuel economy and reduce your emissions. But what kind of impact would it have on the environment if everyone had to slow down?

A potentially big one, as it turns out.

Dutch researchers say lowering the speed limit to 80 km/h (50 mph) would cut transportation-related CO2 emissions by 30 percent. Less drastic cuts in maximum speed would yield reductions of 8 to 21 percent, according to the study by CE Delft.

How?

Beyond significantly reducing the amount of fuel vehicles burn, a strictly enforced 50 mph speed limit would increase the time required to cover a given distance. That would lead many people facing long commutes to ditch cars in favor of other modes of transport, like rail. Longer term, the impact could prompt people to move closer to urban centers.

Okay, I’ll give it a shot. There’s no reason to rush anymore, anyhow, because we are still fully plugged in via our smartphones, even when we are stuck in a car (kidding, cyclists, kidding. Sort of…).

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Dept. Of Inevitable Ideas: Bicycle City

I’ve been waiting for someone to promote a city concept built around bicycles not cars, and someone (actually a group of someones) has got it going on. It’s called, amazingly enough, Bicycle City.

Better make it a dirt bike...

Here’s the backstory:

Founder and co-developer Joe Mellett hopes to begin construction “this summer or fall” on homes situated on the 160-acre tract of land that he and his fellow investors purchased for nearly $1 million. The company has the option to purchase an additional 600 adjacent acres.

“There are other industries—solar, wind, what have you—that address the individual components of climate change, but Bicycle City puts it all together into one home,” says Mellett.

Bicycle City’s homes, which will be up to 1,600 square feet, will be constructed according to one of two eco-friendly building guidelines—the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certifications or One Planet Living’s 10 principles. Lot price tags will range between $25,000 and $35,000, with individual homes clocking in just north of $100,000. Plans for “bicycle taxis” are also in the works.

“The beauty of that is that if you want to live next to your car, you buy a lot on the perimeter of the community and you’d be within under a minute’s walk to your car,” says Mellett.

Judging from the fact that the lest news was posted in 2008, it seems that the world is not flocking to reserve housing, so maybe we are talking about more of an outpost than a city. But every idea has to start somewhere. And personally, I think the better way to get where Mellett is going is for bikers to try and take over an existing city that is amenable to getting beyond cars, like perhaps Portland, Oregon.

Bike Lane Built for Two
Image by K_Gradinger via Flickr

Anyhow, here’s how (and why) you head in that direction. First bike lanes, then the streets! (Yes, I love to feed the conspiracy wingnuts)…

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