I’m reading Car Sick by Lynn Sloman. I had to dash to my computer to tell you about two things I read in the opening chapters.
1. Sloman’s reseach in the U.K. shows a situation much like in the U.S.: About half of all car trips occur within about two miles of home and about a quarter of all trips are within one mile of home. She argues that cars are not necessarily the best means of transportation over these distances. Our car culture — enabled by engineers who thought (still apparently think!) that more roads equal less traffic — argues that the car is now the only way to get around. We’ve developed our neighborhoods, towns, and cities in such a way that it seems like common sense to start a car to drive a mile.
2. In chapter two she makes a list personal objections to the automobile and brackets out pollution and congestion because there are many cogent objections besides these obvious ones. Her first objection: “Fast cars hog the best routes.” In other words, the routes to the places people want to go are the ones that traffic engineers and local political authorities allow cars to travel the fastest. I’m fairly comfortable in traffic up to 40 miles per hour (although I prefer not to travel such routes). I confidence gained through experience. For many people who might ride bicycles, these roads are just too scary even though they have just as much right to use them as the drivers of automobiles.
Solutions? Well, yes, encourage the 1-mile Solution. But what about when that 1-mile radius includes a major artery?
Begin calming traffic. In Springfield, one thing that could mean is: stop raising speed limits. The city did lower speed limits for residential streets. That’s great. But, really, who needs to drive more than 30 miles per hour on, for example, Fremont Ave.? Another way to calm traffic: Increase moving violation fines so they hurt, and make drivers legally responsible for all collisions with cyclists and pedestrians. It’s quite possible to kill a cyclist in the U.S. and get off with nothing more than a traffic ticket.
There are other ways to calm traffic. Check with TrafficCalming.org for details.
Comments 6
Thanks for the pointer – it’s just gone into my Amazon shopping basket, and I’ve spent twenty minutes playing with Google Maps to plot my one-mile and two-mile solutions!
Posted 25 Jan 2009 at 6:27 am ¶I don’t know if you caught this recently, but it was an interesting piece about re-working some driving cities into walker friendly places…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98011494
It’s an interesting issue. I think some of the pull back into downtown areas through this period of gentrification was partly for the walk-a-bility. After all, a mile is a short distance unless you’re crossing a 4 lane, 45 mph road with no sidewalks.
But with housing prices still 17% ahead of wages even after their huge decline, I wonder what power developers have to change the circumstances.
I’ll check the book out.
Posted 25 Jan 2009 at 11:43 am ¶I agree with the need to change the way our culture thinks about travel. I’ve started to bike to work 3x a week which is about a 45 minute commute both ways. Compared with a 15-20 minute commute in a car. Being in California offers me the somewhat unique opportunity of nice weather year round. It doesn’t rain much and never snows. I commend you for riding in such conditions. When I lived in Missouri I would only commute this way in the spring and fall. Summer I became too sweaty and winter was just miserable. I’ve decided that this year temperature nor weather will influence when I ride. I will ride Mon-Wed-Fri no matter what.
Like your post states, my co-workers and family are confused by the notion that this 45 bike ride is hard. I barely consider it a workout. The route that I take is 3/4ths on a bike only bike path and in a bike lane for the remaining 1/4. I consider myself very lucky to have this. In Missouri riding to work on the roads was somewhat dangerous. I knew my instincts and riding ability are good, but there are a bunch of drivers that simply do not pay attention to the road and their surroundings. I think this is the reason people are scared of riding a bike to work, because THEY are the drivers are almost hit bicyclists and are non attentive. I agree that the fines should be raised, esp for hitting another motorist or biker.
Thanks for the heads up on the book, I just bought it from amazon.
Oh also I’ve adopted biking to anywhere within a mile of my house. This actually has a very good effect on my grocery shopping. Since I only have backpack to carry my goods home in, I careful decide what is really needed. Cuts cost by cutting out crud in my diet and added exercise on the bike.
Keep on keeping on…
Posted 26 Jan 2009 at 9:35 pm ¶Also next time I need to proof read my comments.
Posted 26 Jan 2009 at 9:38 pm ¶(“I careful decide what is really needed” = “I carefully decide what is really needed”
Andrew… Good for you for commuting that distance. That’s not easy. BTW, are you Andrew Elkins my former student?
Posted 27 Jan 2009 at 10:47 am ¶I just found my way back to this post to respond. Yes I am, I’ve been keeping up with rhetorica blog every once in a while and have been following this one pretty intently since you started it.
Posted 30 Jun 2009 at 1:26 pm ¶