Carbon Trace

I don’t claim to know much of anything about health care. My wife is an expert on the business of health care, and she once told me: “We’re on our own.” By that she meant: Americans are probably never going to fix the health care system, so individuals must do what they can to stay healthy so that we can avoid/survive the ever-increasing costs.

A new report shows that obese people pay more in health care costs. The problem is getting worse:

“Obesity, and with it diabetes, are the only major health problems that are getting worse in this country, and they’re getting worse rapidly,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C., said.

I had to re-up my life insurance recently. That required a visit by a nurse to decide if my 52-year-old bag of bones was healthy enough for the company to earn a profit from my premiums. I’m happy to report they will get fat off my healthy carcas. I have a low heart rate, a killer BMI, a cholesterol count below 180, and blood pressure that a 20-year-old would envy.

I do nothing more than ride my bicycle for basic transportation to achieve this. Achieving this level of fitness isn’t even the point or the goal of my riding. It’s a happy byproduct of burning calories instead of carbon to move around town.

It seems clear to me that if we are on our own then one of the things we should be doing is encouraging our friends and neighbors to get out and move around. Walk to the store. Bicycle to a friend’s house. Stay out of cars as much as possible.

But what do we see when we look around our community? Despite Springfield’s recent advances in promoting active transportation, we still see roads designed for cars only — pedestrians and bicyclists be damned. We suffer with a state department of transportation — MOCAR it should be called — that can imagine little for Missourians except that we spend our lives and fortunes on cars from now into the distance future.

Re-designing our old streets, and designing new ones, so that they accommodate all road users is a positive step toward burning calories — a move, by the way, that MOCAR has been fighting.

What we can do in the near future (my wish list):

1. Paint sharrows on the bicycle route system.

2. Push for the complete streets bill in the next Missouri legislative session.

3. Install and repair sidewalks.

4. Promote downtown as a bicycling and walking destination.

5. Create a bicycle / pedestrian boulevard on Holland between the South Creek Greenway and MSU.

6. Continue to build greenway trails with the goal of creating a beltway around Springfield.

7. Encourage retailers to install bicycle racks and teach developers how to install them properly.

8. Encourage civic and business groups to adopt the 1-mile Solution as the basis for creating “Bike to ____” days. Give them copies of Drive Less, Live More as a resource.

9. Create and promote a utility bicycling mentor program.

10. Create and administer a police enforcement training program.

I have no idea if any of this will work. I know only that it is important to try, and these are the things I’d like to try.

Technorati Tags: 1-mile Solution, bicycle advocacy, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, green transportation, sustainability, traffic design, utility cycling