I’m happy that the whole honor was focused on my efforts for bicycle and pedestrian advocacy instead of simply academic stuff. The academic stuff is important, but all too often it is, well, academic

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, cycling, green transportation, transportation, Transportation Planning

• Motorists works 2 hours each day to pay for a car.
• Bicyclists work 3.8 minutes each day to pay for their bicycles.

(Obviously the costs are different depending upon one’s circumstances. The well-to-do work fewer hours for their cars. The poor work more.)

Yep, getting rid of my car gave me a huge pay raise. And it got me out from behind the wheel sitting in traffic — one of the top things Americans have cited as making them unhappy. It’s also a heath issue — all that sitting and all that stress. Win-win-win for me!

I have said this before: Using a bicycle for basic transportation in Springfield is easy. So easy. OMG it is easy. If it weren’t easy, I might not have stuck with it (because I just assumed it would be hard and that I’d end up driving a lot).

One thing, however: It helps to live close to your major destinations. That’s not a requirement. But if you live in a far-flung suburb surrounded by nothing but large traffic sewers, well, it’s going to be less easy. You can still practice the 1-mile Solution.

Technorati Tags: 1-mile Solution, bicycle advocacy, bicycle commuting, bicycle culture, cycling, green transportation, utility cycling

What do you expect when you put people in cars they feel good about driving (or at least less guilty), which are also cheap to buy and run? Naturally, they drive them more. So much more, in fact, that they obliterate energy gains made by increased fuel efficiency.

Seems the carbon emissions are not going down the way they were supposed to. Now, what happens if we get Americans to drive greener, more efficient cars. More sprawl? Yikes!

Just can’t win.

Or can we?

Are there forms of transportation we can use more and do more good?

Hmmmmm… I wonder.

I like the green argument for bicycling and walking. My decision to go all-in when I moved to Springfield was primarily a green decision. It’s become so much more, of course. But I think the green argument is still worth making — especially to the Millennials.

Technorati Tags: green revolution, green transportation

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, cycling, green revolution, green transportation, walking

Nothing very surprising. From The City Fix:

The study found that autonomy was more important for commuters than the status or comfort associated with car ownership. “More than two-thirds of participants cited convenience, control, and flexibility—not comfort or status, as the chief benefits of car ownership,” the report says. Especially in the presence of ride-sharing services, study participants agreed that car ownership was not essential to their lifestyle.

The study also cites the idea of improving perceptions of alternative transit as a means of encouraging individuals to choose sustainable transit options, especially when it comes to real-time, geographically aware and mobile-accessible information sharing.

The participants cited three main benefits of switching away from automobile commuting: improving the environment, lowering their budget for travel, and improving their health.

For some of the participants, one of the most rewarding aspects of a car-free week was rediscovering the community. After the study period, participants felt more integrated into their communities and felt that discovering new transportation routes exposed them to new experiences, like local events, public art projects, shops and local businesses.

You can read the same list of benefits on many weblogs like this one. I’m 100 percent in favor of sending this message to the public both on Carbon Trace and in person (re: my scheduled talk on the 1-Mile Solution at Ecopalooza at MSU this Friday — talk time tentatively scheduled for 2:00 p.m. — details soon).

My problem with this study is the low number of participants and the fact that at least some of them were self-selected. While the advocate in me enjoys the positive message, the academic in me is scratching his head. The metrics don’t appear to add up to a statistically-significant conclusion.

As a set of anecdotes, it’s fine. As reporting, it’s fine. Calling it a “study” is a bit grandiose.

The fact of the matter is that millions of Americans are hopelessly stuck using automobiles. Even if they wanted to use some other form of transportation, circumstances make it difficult to impossible to do so. This is why I push the 1MS idea. A large number of people who are stuck using cars can find some destination within a mile of home suitable for a trip by foot or bicycle — even if it’s just to a friend’s house a few blocks away.

Part of the problem with the U.S., however, is that there are still a sizable number of people who cannot even do the 1MS because our built environment has automobile dependence.

Wan another set of data and a different (equally important) message? Conduct this same study in a typical exurban development rather than a large city.

Technorati Tags: 1-mile Solution, bicycle advocacy, green transportation, sustainability, walking