Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Hey guys-
So I posted this on Tuesday night, but apparently it didn’t work out somehow…good thing I checked tonight! Anyway…
This is my final, wrap-up blog! I’ll begin by discussing the City Commission meeting that was earlier tonight. Unfortunately, something came up and I was not able to go. But I work at the Collegian Tuesday nights, so I was able to talk to the reporter who covered the meeting after it was over. He said the attendance was the biggest he’s ever seen for a Commission meeting (and he’s been covering them all semester). He said that Diane, the woman I talked about in my earlier posts who organized the first meeting and brought up the Bicycle Master Plan again, served as the “leader” for the group of cyclists in attendance, which he said was probably about 40 or so people. He said she spoke to the Commission members about the city’s concern for lack of bicycle safety and awareness, presented the petition I mentioned, and told the Commission how they really need to pay attention to the Plan concerning the rest of the downtown redevelopment. He said there was some public discussion, the Commission agreed and then most the cyclists left. But he also said after most cyclists had left, the Commission members continued to be sympathetic toward the cyclists, bringing up the plan and bike lanes, etc. when discussing the rest of the items on the agenda.
I don’t know about you guys, but I think of this as a serious success! I think that’s saying a lot especially since they continued to bring up the bike issues after the issue and probably all of the cyclists had left the meeting. Thanks to you guys if any of you journeyed over to the Pathfinder and signed the petition or attended the meeting. It looks as though in the coming years, Manhattan might actually become more biker friendly!
And on that note, I think overall my project was a big success. Though the personal aspect of my project – not driving/riding in a vehicle at least twice a week – failed miserable (I think I only actually did it one week), the personal benefit from the overall project was a huge success. As I’ve said before, before this project, I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was 12. So at the very least, I remembered how fun riding a bicycle is. But I learned so much more. The numbers that I found in my research for my educational part was personally staggering. I used to drive my car all the time just because I am a lazy person and only recently started to worry about it because of gas prices. But realizing that cars are the number one cause for polluting carbons in the atmosphere, which are doing this biggest damage to the environment, is almost unreal. Now I am driving my car less not only because the price of gas is sky high, but because I feel horrible contributing to those numbers if it’s not something like driving home to KC or someplace where I can not logically get without a vehicle. I can’t wait for this summer, because I am going to ride my bike everywhere! Also, when I am back in Manhattan for the school year, I will definitely be attending critical mass each month because it was so fun!
The best thing that I think I took away from this project is that one person really can make a difference in something. The only reason the Commissioners were concerned at all about the bicycle issue is because they saw through the petition and through the number of people who attended the meeting that this really is something the community cares about and is something they need to push. And the only reason that happened is because those individuals, like myself, each made the choice to drop their signature and attend that meeting. NEVER assume that if you don’t do something, someone else will, because if you have that mentality, that means so do others, so you NEED to be that person who is going to get out there and take action because you know someone else is too lazy.
The last point I will make is how this all ties into Ecofeminism. Ecofeminists, very basically, look at the environment as something that is being exploited by human nature, which has a connection to women because the exploitation is almost identical to how women are treated and exploited in our society. Riding my bike instead of driving my car relates directly to this because the only reason anyone drives a car is because the government and the media have conditioned us to think and have physically gotten us to the point where we think we have to, and in some cases we definitely have to, because urbanization has caused our homes, businesses and offices to be so spread out, that we need these cars to get from point A to point B. And the reason they did this was to promote vehicle usage. Just like how our society has taught many of our men and women to believe that men should be or are superior and dominate to women, making it OK to take advantage of them, so has society justified using these deadly and unfathomably polluting vehicles on a not just daily, but hourly basis, by making us believe it is OK to harm, exploit, rape the air in our environment, because we think we need to. Just as we cannot survive without the women we harm for reproduction, we cannot survive without the air we pollute for breath for survival, yet the society we live in today says it’s perfectly OK to do both those things. Which is why choosing to ride my bicycle more to pollute less is an Ecofeminist act.
I hope you all enjoyed my project and got something out of it; I know I did.

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Time for the community post!
So critical mass was a success. I know it was kind of a last minute on here, but I really encourage you guys to come out to future ones.
critical mass is held the last Friday of every month (and for those of you who will be living here this summer, they’re still going to have them so attend because there won’t be as many people to go!). I think they decided that it is going to be at 7:00 p.m. each time to keep it consistent.
I know Wikipedia isn’t the best source to use, but I think this description of the event is pretty good:
Critical Mass is an event typically held on the last Friday of every month in cities around the world where bicyclists and, less frequently, unicyclists, skateboarders, inline skaters, roller skaters and other self-propelled commuters take to the streets en masse. While the ride was originally founded with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to bicyclists, the leaderless structure of Critical Mass makes it impossible to assign it any one specific goal. In fact, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets.

Like the definition says, in many bigger cities, critical mass is huge and intended to make a political statement – less cars, more bikes – about the environment and about people being more biker friendly by riding during rush hours, usually 5:00 p.m. Here are a few pictures of critical mass from San Fransisco.

Now, needless to say, our critical mass was slightly smaller than that – only about 30 people. It’s also different because it’s not political here. It’s merely a group of people from the community getting together and riding around town to promote bike awareness, but mostly, to enjoy the ride and each other’s company. With 30 bikes riding through the Ville and down poyntz and other busy streets, I think we definitely made an impact. There were cars and people cheering us on, and we even picked up a few stray bikers on the way! It was a really slow, easy ride and we just had a fun time and enjoyed the weather with other bikers in town. This, I think, relates to all we’ve been talking about with voluntary simplicity. Voluntary simplicity has an emphasis on expanding and developing relationships with people, which is exactly what our critical mass is about. It’s friends and strangers getting together to hang out and have a good time and meet each other while going on a fun ride around town, which is healthy for both your mind, body and the environment! I met some new cool people out there and I really encourage everyone to spread the word and attend the next critical mass! Go bikes!

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Hey again, just a quick update.

Critical Mass will be THIS Friday at 7:00 p.m. We will be meeting in front of the Beach Museum before riding around town. Everyone who has a bike should come!

Also, I thought I’d do a quick update on the Bicycle Master Plan:
There have been many emails back and forth concerning how the plan has failed to be implemented into construction by the City Comissioners like I talked about in my political blog. I thought I would go ahead and copy and paste the emails here for you all to read. It’s pretty interesting. (FYI Rob is the City Engineer who was in charge of that first meeting Jim is a Comissioner)

City Commissioners:
Thanks to Rob and all his efforts to provide us with this information as a follow up to our recent meeting. I was really impressed with his work and consideration for our need for bicycle travel in Manhattan. With the increase in the price of gas we are experiencing it is even more important now. My understanding is that this Bicycle Master Plan was adopted by the city, but not really implemented or incorporated into any of the street development projects since. This goes for the recently approved McCall road development by the Planning Board the other day. I would like to respectfully ask that the city commissioners ask the “why has this plan been ignored” question when you take up the final approval of the plan. Most of the streets in this city are woefully unfit to accommodate safe bicycle traffic and if we are really serious about making this a bike friendly town let’s start by implementing the plans already in place.

Keith

Keith,
The McCall Road Expansion project from Hays to west to East Poyntz has not been approved by City Commissioners. It’s not the role of the Planning Board to approve or disapprove bicycle lanes or road widening projects. The intent of the traffic impact study at the planning board is to identify all the stress and strains in which a development placeson infrastructure the network. When plans for McCall Road move into the development stage. On past projects I have a public meeting with the Commissioners to review the concept of the plans. That is the time in my view in which you can draw the most input into the discussion with the Commissioners on the shapingof the plans and final improvements. The planning board approved the change in zoning and a new plan on Tuesday night. If you had a chance to watch, you might have heard thatwe asked for additional ROW along this segment in order to add newpavement for widening as well as sidewalks. The challenge to theeveryone is what about the other segments how much are we will to affordto meet everyone needs (Bicycle, Motorist and Pedestrian)? If you have questions please let me know. I by all means don’t have allthe answers on how to accommodate everyone’s needs. It’s a start and weonly get better from here.

Rob

Keith, good to hear from you!

I couldn’t agree more with your assessment, and as Rob will tell you, I’ve been quite insistent upon having the bicycle master plan implemented whenever street improvements are made. And, I want to see bike safety improved throughout the entire city. As do you, I know from first-hand experience just how dangerous biking in this city is. As a recent editorial in the paper showed, people can and do get seriously hurt biking here.

I have confidence that Rob is doing his part to make the city safer, and now it’s time for the commissioners to do the same.

Thanks, Keith!

later, jim

***And here is the email I recieved from Diane – the women I spoke about who was organizing the first meeting. Please read this, sign the petition (I already have) and attend the meeting!!***

We have been told, if we want the City Commissioners to implement this plan we need to attend the next City Commissioner’s meeting on May 6, 7pm. The ‘Public Comments’ part of the meeting will be our time to let them know how important it is to implement this ‘Master Plan’ for the safety of bicyclists and pedestrians. The Bicycle Master Plan includes accommodations for road bicyclists and recreational bicyclists (if implemented).

Bicyclists have been signing a petition that is at The Pathfinder in Manhattan. We will leave the petition at The Pathfinder until May 5 so everyone can get it signed before the May 6 meeting with the City Commissioners. The petition will be presented to the City Commissioners on May 6. The cover sheet for the petition is attached.

Hope to see all of you at the meeting on May 6. It would be great if we could have 200+ bicyclist/pedestrians turnout for this meeting.

Thank you.

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air.

Hey everyone! I know you’ve all been anxiously awaiting my next blog so here it is! This blog will be the educational part of my blogging series. I will provide information, links and graphics for you all on car emissions and how/why they are affecting the environment, ways you can help out and I hope it all makes sense!

First of all, let’s start out with what most vehicles emit:

According to the National Safety Council, driving is the single most polluting thing that most of us do. The three main gases vehicles emit are hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbons (like CO2 and carbon monoxide). Beside the health risks these gases impose, they also cause great environmental damages like acid rain and, the most popular and “heated” topic right now, higher earth temperatures, or global warming. Because global warming is a natural process due to the greenhouse effect, in the research I’ve done, I’ve found that it is almost impossible to say how much human activity – aka cars – are contributing to it, but it is safe to say it is speeding up the process, but we don’t know exactly how much.

Now let’s get something straight real quick: the greenhouse effect and global warming are not the same thing. The greenhouse effect is naturally occurring and is caused by a number of gases called greenhouse gases (gases that heat up the atmosphere), which create a “blanket” around the earth keeping the heat from the sun in, making it the temperature we can live and thrive in. However, many of these naturally occurring greenhouse gases – like carbons – are being produced by human activity (e.g. driving cars) at a much more rapid rate then the earth can handle, trapping in too much heat and causing global warming. It’s a very simplified explanation, but hopefully you get the idea.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, “When fossil fuels are burned to produce energy the carbon stored in them is emitted almost entirely as CO2. The main fossil fuels burned by humans are petroleum (oil), natural gas and coal. CO2 is emitted by the burning of fossil fuels for electricity generation, industrial uses, transportation, as well as in homes and commercial buildings. In 2005, petroleum supplied the largest share of domestic energy demands, accounting for an average of 44 percent of total fossil fuel based energy consumption in 2005. Natural gas and coal followed in order of importance, each accounting for 28 percent of total consumption.”

According to the Environmental Defense Fund Web site, “cars and light trucks, which include sport utility vehicles, pickups and most minivans, emit more than 300 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year in the United States. The transportation sector alone is responsible for about ONE-THIRD of our nation’s total production of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that contributes in a big way to global warming.”

The figure below displays a breakdown of sources of CO2 emissions in the U.S. in 2005 and is from the EPA Web site:

That fossil Fuel Combustion is almost entirely from vehicles and, this was three years ago – clearly the EPA needs to update its Web site and clearly things have gotten even worse in the past three years and are only projected to get worse. The Energy Information Administration Web site wrote that, “Levels of several important greenhouse gases have increased by about 25 percent since large-scale industrialization began around 150 years ago. During the past 20 years, about three-quarters of human-made carbon dioxide emissions were from burning fossil fuels.”

Here is a graphic from the EIA site depicting this:

Note how incredibly steep that incline is. Why? Think about what we’ve been talking about in class the past few weeks. This line is relatively stable with slight increasing, but then when it hits the 1950’s, it sky rockets! What happened in the ‘50s? The creation of the interstate/highway system and thus, suburbs, urbanization and the push for people to buy and drive cars everywhere. But just look at the stats. Something obviously needs to be done!

With the way that our society and cities are set up right now, it is virtually impossible (unless you live in a big city and have access to constant public transportation) to completely stop driving your car – something I’ve definitely been finding out trying to fit in just two days a week without using a vehicle…it’s not been going as well as I had anticipated. But that being said, what can we, as drivers, do to help?

Here are some of the main tips from the EPA Web site on what we can do on the road. To get the full descriptions of each category, click here.

1) Buy Smart

2) Drive Smart

3) Check your tires

4) GIVE YOUR CAR A BREAK!!

“Use public transportation, carpool or walk or bike whenever possible to avoid using your car. Leaving your car at home just two days a week will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 1,600 pounds per year. Whenever possible, combine activities and errands into one trip. For daily commuting, consider options like telecommuting (working from home via phone or over the Internet) that can reduce the stress of commuting, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and save you money.”

5) Use Renewable Fuels

To find other tips on what you can do to reduce emissions in the home, at the office or at school, click here.

Also, the EPA has these cool tests that you can do to calculate your car’s energy impact score. Click here to find out what kind of gas mileage your car gets, what your car’s carbon footprint is and tips for getting the most out of your tank (so you don’t use as much, therefore contributing less to greenhouse gases!) Luckily, I have a Honda Civic. I really first bought the car because I wanted a cheaper compact. But it turns out my cheaper compact rates really low on the footprint scale (which makes me feel good) and gets really good gas mileage (I really don’t know a thing about cars, so I had no idea about my gas mileage). And that’s good considering I went on this Web site to see what the lowest price of gas was in the city nearest to us, and it is $3.26. I can’t believe we’re saying that’s cheap. If you have no better incentive to buy a bike or walk more, I think that’s enough.

I hope you all enjoy those links and understand a little better why we should ALL start walking and biking more!!

Also just a quick update on the political aspect of my project: I received a series of e-mails from the city and got the city’s Bicycle Master Plan. I would link it on here, but I know we’re not supposed to give away the location and this is all about the city! So if you want to view it, go to the city’s Web site – if you don’t know it, Google it – and type in the words “Bicycle Master” under the site search and hit “go” on the side. Then the entire document should come up under Document Center Matches. It’s a little lengthy, but pretty interesting about the possible future of the inclusion of bicycles into our streets and businesses.

One last thing! (Sorry my posts turn into novels.) Critical Mass is going to be THIS Friday. For those of you who don’t know, Critical Mass was started a few months ago here by my boyfriend actually and some of our friends. It’s done at the end of each month in cities all across the nation and is an evening (just an hour or so) where people who love bikes and love the environment get together and ride around town to promote bicycle awareness and just to have a good time. It’s apparently a pretty easy ride and I encourage everyone to attend!! I’ll make another post within the next few days to let you know the time and meeting place for sure. It’ll be sometime after 6 p.m.
Thanks for reading!

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Hey everyone – so this is my political post for my project.
I was planning on working on the political aspect later on, after I had done some in depth research about bike paths, zones, cross walks and sidewalks around town, so I could get something together to present to the city. But it looks as though I’ve been beat! I read in the paper Wednesday that there was going to be a meeting at City Hall all about making the city more bike friendly. How perfect is that? I learned a lot from the meeting and joined an e-mail list so they city will keep me updated and I can actually be a part of decision making. So here is the gist of what went down:
The meeting was led by the city engineer, and I’d say there were about 20 people who attended. However, I was only one out of two or three students there. Everyone else in attendance was mostly over 40, which I found a little strange. Maybe it was lack of communication about the meeting, but I will definitely let you all know on here or on class when the next meeting is so you can come and tell your friends because they even expressed how they wanted more students in attendance.
Basically, what they are trying to do right now is get a bicycle committee together for the city to push these issues of more bike lanes, wider roads, side walks and bike sensitive traffic lights because I guess when they redid Anderson and that area around McCall, they were supposed to put in bike lanes and cross walks and side walks, but because commissioners and other workers have agendas…these got put to the side and forgotten about or not cared about because there was no one to keep pushing it. So that is the biggest issue right now. And with all the downtown redevelopment going on right now, it’s the perfect opportunity to make this city more biker and walker friendly, at least over in that area. People are really concerned right now that those areas, which used to be at least a little more friendly, are going to be completely unsafely accessible by bike or foot because of all the businesses and street facelifts that are going in. However, it has been expressed that those new businesses and buildings in general across the city – including campus – are going to start providing more bike parking, which is awesome.
Everyone can see how little bike lanes we have, and the issue is that in order to make more lanes, the streets would have to be widened and that is pretty much not an option. I guess when you have a street, it needs to be at least 14 feet wide for a bike lane. Most of the streets around here are 12 feet, which is not safely big enough for the lanes. In order to put in those lanes, the city would have to tear up the roads and widen them, which would take so much time and cost so much money. So, the alternative is to widen the sidewalks along the streets – or put them in for that matter, like around Tuttle – to make them big enough for walkers and cyclists. A man in attendance said he has seen this all around Europe and it works so well. What they do is have a wide sidewalk – I’m not sure exactly what the dimensions are – and have a painted line down the middle. One side is for bikers, one side is for walkers and you stay on your respective side. This seems like the best option for the city and the most feasible. People wouldn’t really know what to do with it though unless there were signs around the side walks, which leads me to the next point. Another thing that was constantly brought up in the meeting was that there really needs to be signs put up all around the city saying “Share the Road” and those sorts of things. There were some avid cyclists in attendance, who I recognized from watching bike races in town, so you know they are good and know what they are doing, and even they said that there are certain streets they just will not go on – like Anderson – because of the drivers. Even if there were bike lanes in place, it wouldn’t change the fact that a lot of drivers just don’t know that bikes are to be treated with just as much respect on the road as cars. Education is key, and there needs to be a signage movement so people can start being aware of bikers on the road.
Another interesting point that was brought up is that something needs to be done and it needs to be done fast! There were a lot of older people in the meeting that said they have been cycling for years, and never have they seen more bikers on campus and around town than this year, and there seems to be more and more. Why is this? Because of the gas prices. They’re obviously not going to go down anytime soon, so the number of bikers will continue to grow and the problem is going to get worse and worse until something is done.
Connecting this all back to feminism, there were only about five females in the entire meeting, including myself. However, the person who organized whole thing and put together a list of what needs to be done to the city was a woman. I sat next to her and got to talk to her a little bit, and she was really cool. She was really passionate about this subject, you could tell, and rightfully so. She was the one up there saying how she is tired of nothing ever getting done, about the commissioners constantly overlooking issues like these and how we need to really start pushing more than ever. This really reminded me of how we talk about ecofeminism and females being more close to nature, more caring of it, than the males. Although the issue of making these changes from and environmental point of view was not brought up, I feel like it was the same thing – an underlying issue. I didn’t speak in the meeting, number one because I was sick the whole past week and was not feeling particularly well, and also because I didn’t know what to expect out of it. But now that I do, I’m really excited for the next meeting since I know what is going on with the “movement” now and will be able to put my 2 cents in! I’ll definitely put some updates from the emails I should be receiving in my coming blogs to keep you updated.
Sorry this was a book. Thanks to those of you who actually took the time to read it, I just had so much to share! Oh, and p.s. – I went two days without being in a car! It was so hard, and I had to make some sacrifices, but it was worth it! J

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air.

Hey everyone! Time for the first update on my actual project. This blog is going to be focusing on the personal aspect of my project, which was not riding in any vehicle twice a week. Well, sadly, I have to report that I have not met that goal. This, which I thought was going to be the easiest part of my project , has turned out to be extremely hard! So much harder than I had originally thought. I knew I drove my car a lot before taking this class, and believed I had cut back significantly on my driving since. But it’s amazing how much you realize about something when you’re actually paying attention to it, not just taking it for granted.

Now that I’m consciously trying to not drive or ride in any motorized vehicle at least twice a week, I realize how much I actually do it. I don’t even like to think about how much I was driving before this project. I have only managed to get one day in this past week where I didn’t drive, and let me tell you, it was TOUGH! I had to eventually give up going to the Rec for it – among other daily tasks like going to the bank, to Target – because I usually go late at night, and like we’ve discussed before in my previous blog and your comments, that’s just not a good idea for a female, like myself, to be walking to riding at that time. I also have noticed how much I drive to places I could simply walk or bike to, but I choose to drive because it will be faster, and I have other things I need to get back home to do.

So something I’ve learned from this is that I really need to plan out my days and readjust my schedule so that I can make sure I will be able to get all my errands and commitments completed by way of bike or walking. The nice thing, however, is that it’s getting lighter and lighter at night, which means I will be able to stay out and get things done later. I also went to the Pathfinder and bought some small, blinking lights for the front and rear of my bike. They aren’t bright enough to be used as a headlight when it’s really dark out, but that’s okay because I won’t be riding then anyway. They have two settings: one a constant light and one a blinking red or white light so that when it’s still light enough for me to be out, but getting a little harder for drivers to see (twilight), hopefully this will make me more visible. On that note, I found this online:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahg6qcgoay4

Like I said, hopefully those lights will help me out and I won’t be like the bear!

But the good news is that I have not driven to class or been dropped up or picked up by a friend for the past two weeks. So I guess I haven’t completely failed yet! I am going to step it up a notch and make a serious effort to meet my goal of two days a week without emissions. I’ll give you an update on how that’s going next time! Until then…

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Hey guys, thanks for all your comments on the last post!
this post isn’t going to really follow the plan I laid out in my first blog, or probably count toward anything, but be more of a rant after reading “Sprawl: the Automobile and Affording the American Dream” in Schor, because so many things just clicked!
First of all, on 109 it said that $11.9 billion was spent on advertising cars while only $7 billion was spent by the government on mass transit systems. okay, now I know that the advertising was not all money spent by the government, but still, it makes me think of some statistic I heard while watching a movie on hunger in a Fair Trade Advocates meeting: that it costs almost the exact same amount of money to build one of those huge, special jets used in the army (forgive me, I can not think of what it’s called at the moment) as it cost to end hunger in Brazil…now I just feel the government could be putting just a little bit more money into things like mass transit systems and helping end hunger, to name a few, than building more planes…
anyway. Secondly, on page 112 it says, “Americans die each year on highways, and Americans are more likely to be killed as pedestrians than they are to be killed by a stranger with a handgun.”
Okay, this goes with the safety that I and you all were talking about in my last blog. I even have some friends that when I tell them that I’m riding my bike on campus, the first thing they say is, aren’t you afraid you’re going to get hit? Personally, that does not really scare me because I am usually aware of my surroundings and feel like when I bike, the roads aren’t that busy, and if they are, I’ll use the sidewalk (if there aren’t too many people on it). However, I did wipe out doing that one time. That was fun…and embarrassing.
But along with that note about the high rate of pedestrians getting hit, sure you hear of a biker or someone on a crosswalk getting hit by a car in our town, but it’s not that often. I can only imagine how much higher that rate is in bigger cities! I went to Chicago over break and rode in a few cabs, and let me tell you, I have never been so scared of hitting people in my life. I can not even tell you how crazy the cab drivers (and local drivers too) were! I literally can not count the number of people we came within INCHES of hitting or other car doors that we came within CENTIMETERS of! It was frightening. Also, there were a lot more people walking around there too than here, obviously, but there were very few bikers than we have here. And it makes sense. If I biked in Chicago, I would be terrified of being hit! It feels like it would almost be inevitable!
One last comment on mass transportation, and then I’ll be through, I promise!
I also rode the el (their train system) for the first time. I was so excited to ride mass public transportation for the first time – sounds lame I know – and it was super cheap and I was thinking to myself, man this would be great to be able to ride all the time. That is, until I read the sign on the side of the train that read “if your immediately safety is threatened, move to next car.” oh. Well that’s comforting, I thought. Then I thought, being a woman in a big city like that, I would never ride the el alone at night, I would take a cab. Or drive myself. Reverting, not helping the emissions situation. Which goes back to the same point I made in my last post. Which leads me to my final thought: we definitely need more mass transit systems and accessible alternative vehicle options across the nation, but to go along with those, we need to make sure they are safe to use!! I will probably touch on that in another post.
Phew. Thanks for reading!

Less Fuel 4 Cleaner Air

Hi everyone! Hope you all have been having a great break. This is my first post, so I’ll give you all a little overview of my project. Basically, what I’m going to be doing is driving less, biking more. I chose this because I drive….all the time. Too much. When I got bored, I used to just drive around and listen to music (but since gas prices have rose, and since I’ve taken this class, I don’t do that anymore). I spend too much on gas, especially in this town when everything is so close together, which is definitely not helping the environment at all. So I want to start riding and walking more places. Also, some friends and I have been noticing how biker/walker unfriendly this city is. There are hardly any bike lanes around town, and there are definitely not enough cross walks. If you want to go to Wal-Mart, you pretty much have to drive because there are no crosswalks, and that Tuttle and Bluemont intersection would be pretty dangerous is you tried to run or bike across it. I can’t believe, especially in a college town, where we have so many international students who come here with no means of transportation, that there are so few bike lanes and cross walks. Also, for whatever reason, I don’t really know why, I’ve noticed that the majority of bikers around town are male. I only see girls riding their bikes every once in a while. I honestly have no idea why that is, or what the reasons for it could be for. I’ll probably just start asking questions and try and figure it out. Any ideas?
So I’m going to be doing what one person can do:

Personal – I’m going to try my best to not ride in any vehicle twice a week. Originally, I was going to have two set days where I would not drive, but my schedule is so sporadic, that I don’t think I will be able to plan it out like that. So, two days out of the week, I will walk/bike the entire day. I’m also going to try and never drive to campus, unless it’s after dark. Which, obviously is a whole new issue, but let’s not get into that right now, because this blog would be waay too long!

knowledge – I’m going to do some research on this town, and find out exactly how many crosswalks and bike lanes there are and where they are, map it out, and present it to all of you on here so you know where you can and can not get to without a car. Also, I’m going to do some research and find out exactly how gas and fumes from cars harm our environment.

Political – once I find out all that information, I’m going to find out how our town compares to other towns of similar size and demographics (aka college towns) to see how we compare with accessibility to popular places with alternative modes of transportation. Then, I’m going to try and put together a plan and present it to the city.

Community – finally, I’m going to attend critical mass at the end of the month. if you guys haven’t heard of it, it’s something that’s pretty new to our town, but what happens is a bunch of people get together and ride around the city together promote cycling and just to have a good time!

Well, I was going to post a picture of my bike, but then I realized that that would be traceable to me! Oh well, I’ll get an image on the next post