The editor of a Canadian car magazine suggests to his readers: "if you're serious about how much you like to drive, do it less" - DRIVE LESS!.. He goes on to add: "what this planet needs more than anything is fewer cars on the road" and: "we need fewer cars crashing into each other, cleaner air in our cities, less carbon dioxide heating up the planet": "we need to reduce our dependence on the foreign sources of oil over which future wars may be fought".
To most if not all of us here on bikies, "driving less" makes eminent sense, and has meant sense for quite awhile for some of us. "Driving less" is better than just picking out and driving another more efficient motor vehicle (although that should be done, too, if one plans to drive at all), because driving less reduces the number of cars on the road as well, and by doing that, it reduces the need for massive and publicly expensive highway capacity expansion projects, that highway official and some politicians seem to love so much, with more and more lanes of concrete being laid all over the countryside, next to residential areas, and which cater to people who like to live in the country while working in the city, which necessitates big, fast and smooth highways, which the state's road and bridge building contractors are always only to happy to provide, for a substantial fee -- from state and federal coffers, of course. But the magazine editor doesn't propose how to get people to actually follow through and drive less, other than just to inform them that it's them of its benefits.. Unfortunately, that is not enough. People need more incentives to stop doing things they're use to doing, to change their ways of getting around, and perhaps to even change locations of either their jobs or their homes to avoid less driving. To those who have been on this list for since 1999, you know I suggested WDOT study ways to get more people to drive less in their environmental impact statement in their state highway plan back in 1999. If fact, there are some of this list who help me craft that recommendation as I recall, and I paid credit to them I recall in a Bicycle Transportation Alliance article back in August 1999 as I recall. However, when push came to shove and the WDOT had to put the final state highway plan 2020 out, the WDOT as I anticipated blew the idea off the whole idea, and to my shagreen the DNR secretary at that time let them off the hook on it (after taking me to the woodshed and reassigning me for coming up with the idea), by remaining not making comment on the Final State Highway Plan 2020 and EIS. But that's all history, now, of course. Water over the damn, as they say. Or is it? I suppose it's too late to stop all the road expansion projects that have been started since the plan was adopted (U.S. Highway 12, Middleton to Sauk City is an example). But I suppose it's theoretically possible to still do "something" (?) about all those other highway and bridge expansion projects that will continue to be built in this state for the next 20 years or more. These include $7.12 billion dollars worth of new publicly funded road capacity expansion projects, which involve laying 2,800 new lanes of concrete, plus building 217 new bridges over water. [The plan also funds $12.92 billion worth of existing highway reconstruction, including the replacement of 337 bridges over water, and many road straightening and cut and fill projects, such as Highway 131 near Ontario and the Kickapoo River, which includes several reconstructed bridges as well.] And of course WDOT also pooh-poohed DNR's comments regarding the need to assess the added greenhouse gas emissions and accumulations that would follow from implementing the 20-year plan and it's massive catering to increased highway travel in the state. [In addition, for every ton of Portland cement used in highway construction, a ton of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere - no consideration of that either by the WDOT in approving it's own 20-year highway construction plan. And now I see from another post the President Bush is ordering that NEPA reviews be streamlined for all federal highway projects in the country, so I guess we can't count on the feds to care about these issues either. For sure, there will also be a lot more cars and SUVs for bicyclists and pedestrians to deal on the public highway system in the next 20 or more years, and undoubtedly much warmer temperatures and more harmful particulates from the added motor vehicle driving as well. It's too bad the editor of "Wheels" did suggest an approach that would get people to actually leave their cars in the garage and pick up another set of wheels that doesn't rely on the burning of fossil fuels in an internal combustion engine for power. If you would like to read about the idea I attempted to get considered back in 1999 when I was assigned to monitor transportation issues for the WDNR, I'd you can read it off the advocacy page of the Danenet's "Bicycle Community Page (bcp): www.danenet.wicip.org/bcp, or you can travel right to the paper I wrote that reassignment at: http://danenet.danenet.org/bcp/neuman_gw.pdf [Thanks to Mike Barrett for posting the car magazine article to another list.] Cheers Mike Neuman "The only thing in American politics that speaks more loudly than money is a riled-up citizenry. So get riled up!" - Dennis Hayes, "The Official Earth Day Guide to Planet Repair", 2001. ------------------------------------------------------------ C-E-N-T-E-R-L-I-N-E-S ------------------------------------------------------------ Issue #53 Friday, September 13, 2002 FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH! OH MY! ------------------------------------------------------------ CenterLines is the bi-weekly e-newsletter of the National Center for Bicycling & Walking. CenterLines is our way of quickly delivering news and information you can use to create more walkable and bicycle-friendly communities. CAR MAGAZINE ADVICE: DRIVE LESS According to a recent article in "World of Wheels," Canada's car magazine, "Since you're reading this magazine, I'm going to make a giant leap of logic and assume that you love cars and you enjoy driving. Not for you the notion of a motor vehicle as merely an appliance or "a tool, personal transportation, for the use of." Cars, to you, are intrinsically interesting. Driving is an act of emotion, not mere motion. That being the case, I have a proposal that may shock you. Drive less. "Am I nuts? The editor of a car magazine telling people to cut back on the driving? No, I'm serious: if you're serious about how much you like to drive, do it less. What this planet needs more than anything is fewer cars on the road. We need fewer cars crashing into each other, cleaner air in our cities, less carbon dioxide heating up the planet. We need to reduce our dependence on the foreign sources of oil over which future wars may be fought. "At the same time, what we of the auto-enthusiast persuasion need is more quality in our driving, not quantity. Put these two needs together and what we have is an opportunity for enlightened self-interest. If we're going to benefit from reduced traffic, we who like to drive will have to do our part. But there are personal spin-off benefits from leaving the car at home, say, one or two days a week. And on the days we do drive, we'll enjoy it that much more. "On many of North America's busiest highways, traffic already grinds along so slowly that it would be literally faster to ride a bike to work. How much longer before walking becomes the faster alternative?..." Source: http://click.topica.com/maaawKxaaTxPpb15N8Lb/ The joy of (not always) driving by Jeremy Sinek Since you�re reading this magazine, I�m going to make a giant leap of logic and assume that you love cars and you enjoy driving. Not for you the notion of a motor vehicle as merely an appliance or "a tool, personal transportation, for the use of." Cars, to you, are intrinsically interesting. Driving is an act of emotion, not mere motion. That being the case, I have a proposal that may shock you. Drive less. Am I nuts? The editor of a car magazine telling people to cut back on the driving? No, I�m serious: if you�re serious about how much you like to drive, do it less. What this planet needs more than anything is fewer cars on the road. We need fewer cars crashing into each other, cleaner air in our cities, less carbon dioxide heating up the planet. We need to reduce our dependence on the foreign sources of oil over which future wars may be fought. At the same time, what we of the auto-enthusiast persuasion need is more quality in our driving, not quantity. Put these two needs together and what we have is an opportunity for enlightened self-interest. If we�re going to benefit from reduced traffic, we who like to drive will have to do our part. But there are personal spin-off benefits from leaving the car at home, say, one or two days a week. And on the days we do drive, we�ll enjoy it that much more. On many of North America�s busiest highways, traffic already grinds along so slowly that it would be literally faster to ride a bike to work. How much longer before walking becomes the faster alternative? It�s not an issue only of journey times. The greater the traffic congestion, the nastier the driving experience becomes. The fact that you have zero opportunity to enjoy your car�s scalpel-sharp steering and spine crushing acceleration is the least of it. Stop and go driving is tedious, frustrating and mentally draining. Hell on your car, too. Worse, you�re trapped in the company of people behaving badly. The heavier the congestion, the worse the behaviour. I don�t know about you, but I normally go a long way to avoid being near aggressive, selfish, boorish people who get what they want by pushing and shoving. Don�t think you�re exempt if you�re the one who�s behaving badly. What do you think is happening to your stress levels, to your heart rate, every time you cut off another driver so that maybe you can get home seven tenths of a second earlier than if you had stayed in the other lane? Of course, if that�s the way you drive the chances are you�re also blowing a wad every year in traffic tickets and inflated insurance premiums. Let�s face it, this whole concept of personal mobility that the automobile represents is a wondrous privilege and luxury that we abuse and misuse shamefully. And I don�t mean misuse in the sense of driving badly, though Lord knows there�s enough of that going around. I mean it in the sense of driving inappropriately; driving when you really should not be driving. Last Saturday night � a warm, dry night in early May � a neighbour invited us to their house party. My wife and I walked the entire 150 metres to get there. Two other guests, each of whom lives less than 300 metres from the venue, drove to the party. C�mon folks, this is not OK! Another example. Go to any mall, and even in the nicest of weather you will see drivers circling around looking for parking as close as possible to the mall entrance. Sometimes people even get into fights over empty parking spots. Meanwhile, maybe 100 metres further away, there�s acres of empty parking. People spend five minutes burning gas and spewing emissions so they can save themselves a one-minute walk. Then there are all those rugged, outdoorsy SUV drivers. Have you noticed how it always seems to be SUVs parked because their "active-lifestyle" (pah!) drivers are too lazy to walk 50 or 100 metres from a legitimate parking spot? Or how about this for the height of absurdity? Suppose we need a to pick up carton of milk or rent a movie. We put on our $200 "athletic" shoes, brush past the bicycle in the garage to get into the car, and drive to the plaza 0.9 kilometres away. If we think about it at all, maybe we justify it to ourselves in terms of time saved. But then, maybe later that same day, we get into the car again and drive a few kilometres to the fitness club, for which we pay hundreds of dollars a year in membership. There, we spend the next hour or two doing totally artificial exercise on a bicycle or a treadmill going absolutely nowhere. And on the way home afterwards we stop to fill up our tank and bitch about the price of gasoline. Now you tell me who�s nuts. (Here�s a thought: imagine how much energy could be saved and pollution avoided if every exercise machine in every gym was hooked up to a generator that fed electricity back into the hydro grid. Remember, you read it here first). Quite aside from oil crunches and global warming, there�s another crisis facing our western lifestyles: growing levels of obesity and declining physical fitness. Surveys show that not only are we getting fatter, so are our kids. Could there be a connection between the obesity epidemic, dirty air, global warming ... and the number of mothers I see every morning chauffeuring their 1.7 children to neighbourhood schools in nine-seater Chevrolet Suburbans? D�ya think? ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! 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