Green Options

Pensacola’s not a big city, population-wise, but it’s spread out over a large area that’s more car- than pedestrian-friendly. So it’s nice to see that visitors now have a more eco-friendly option for exploring the historic “City of Five Flags”: pedicabs.

The Pensacola News-Journal reports this week that the city welcomed its first pedal-powered taxi service this fall with the launch of Foot Taxi. The business offers eight pedicabs in a service area that encompasses most of the old downtown area, including many of the city’s popular nightspots and restaurants.

[Image Credit: Timothy J on Flickr under a Creative Commons license]

Each year, community bicycle projects from around the country (and abroad) come together at the Bike!Bike! to talk shop and come up with ideas for making their communities more bicycle-friendly. Atlanta’s Sopo Bicycle Co-op is teaming up with Bike Collectives Network to bring this annual conference to the Southeast for the first time this January!

The green movement has espoused the use of bicycles as a carbon-neutral form of transportation. Health experts suggest bicycle riding can combat childhood obesity.

A new report reveals an estimated 389,300 children and adolescents 18-years and younger were treated in emergency departments for bicycle-related injuries, making bicycles second only to cars in consumer products that cause childhood injuries.

Even with mandated helmets and safety programs, children are experiencing contusions and abrasions (30 percent), lacerations (30 percent) and fractures (19 percent) mostly to their extremities followed closely by face and head injuries. According to the study, boys are 70% more likely than girls to be hurt on bikes. Tracy Mehan, a research associate at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and author of a new study explains the results:

While the number of injuries decreased slightly over the 16-year study period, in 2005 an average of 850 children per day were seen in emergency departments for bicycle-related injuries.  The magnitude of bicycle-related injuries each year is evidence that prevention of these injuries needs to remain a priority.

Yesterday, I did something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time: pick up my son from school using a bike and trailer instead of a car. It was exhausting (the last block home was the hardest), but I’m hoping to keep it up (even if my son complains, “We could be home already” — even though he’s the one who lobbied to ride in the trailer in the first place!)

With a gas-guzzling Blazer on its last legs, the only thing that’s been holding me back till now was the lack of an alternative. Stroke of luck number one came a few weeks ago, when I passed a house with an 18-speed women’s bike in the front yard with a sign that said “Free: Please take.” So I did.

Freshman entering the University of New England and Ripon College are given free bikes if they promise to leave their cars at home.  At Ripon College, 200 Trek mountain bikes, helmets and locks were given to freshman that signed up for the program. Dr. David C. Joyce, Ripon’s president and competitive mountain biker, explained, “We did it as a [...]

[Creative Commons photo by Paul Kist]

A few folks asked for a followup to the post about Colin Beavan’s run-in with Senator Jeff Klein. After Beavan posted about the Senator almost mowing him down with his black Mercedes, people around the country called Senator Klein’s office to express their outrage. All of that action made a big difference! The Senator set up a meeting with Beavan, and the two men met yesterday along with Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives.

An extra twenty bucks a month might not get you whooping and hollering with joy, but would it inspire you to consider riding your bike to work more and driving less?

That’s what backers of the long-awaited Bicycle Commuter Act are hoping, as the measure that’s been kicking around for seven years was among the many added as a “sweetener” to the $700 billion financial system bailout bill passed by Congress last week. Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer has been pushing for the bike act for years, arguing that similar benefits have long been granted to car-driving commuters.

With cycling perhaps getting an uptick in popularity of late due to increasing gas prices and fuel economy concerns (and overall greater consciousness of the environment?), it seems worth noting the laws of the road — for safety and for clarification between motorists and cyclists.

Do cyclists belong on the road or the sidewalk? Should cyclists defer at all times to motorists? Who has right of way in any given situation? How can bikes and cars peacefully coexist?

Various municipal and state laws address these questions, among others. To identify what statutes apply to your home area, view the Mass Bike list, which links to various state’s laws online.

Wake up, American drivers!  With gas prices through the roof, you’re undoubtedly sharing the road with record numbers of cyclists.  And guess what?  Those cyclists have just as much right to the road as you do.  If you expect them to obey the rules of the road, you’ve got to understand how to share that road with cyclists.

[Creative Commons image by Jasoon]

The letter below reminds me a lot of something that happened to me.  I was riding down 10th Street in the right hand lane.  Rather than pass me in the empty left lane, a giant SUV swerved towards me, nearly running me into a ditch.  At the next light, the driver rolled down the window to shriek that I should be riding on the sidewalk (untrue/illegal), and he knew because he was a cyclist, too!  I guess he was a cyclist with no belief in Karma?

Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, had a run-in today with a NY state senator today.  Or, I guess, you could call it a near run in?  Here’s his open letter to Senator Jeff Klein:

Run, Walk or Cycle 30 miles within 30 days starting October 1 to provide safe drinking water to 1,200 kids for life! Register now, it’s easy. You can form a team, find a team or go solo. Cover all of your 30 miles in one shot or spread it out over the entire month! Go to: http://www.blueplanetrun.org/30-mile

This is a great reason to start getting into shape. If you are already an athlete, just do what you are doing and apply it to this very worthy cause! We need 1,000 athletes to join Team Blue with a pledge of $1/mile. Help us by spreading the word. You can download a flyer from our website under “what more you can do.”

Currently, these kids miss school and walk long distances to find and collect water. They often resort to a hand-dug open pit used by animals and people. The water is filthy! They get sick and miss even more school. With a well, these kids are given a proper education; they are healthy; they can grow their own vegetables!