[SustainableTompkins] bike to work

Wed May 7 20:09:59 PDT 2008

Folks,

  I may be sarcastic, cynical, curmudgeonly, contrarian, passionate to the point of being obnoxious, and even occasionally stupid, but I find the American middle class far too entertaining to ever be nothing more than slightly annoyed, and only occasionally so.  I'm enjoying the show too much to experience even the least twinge of bitterness.

    It's not that I really care, either.  I take the attitude Gore Vidal articulated in an interview back in the 70s.  I'm enjoying playing the role of what he referred to as the "Laughing Cassandra."

  It's simply sprawl, no quotation marks needed.  Cheap gasoline isn't the source either.  Since its beginings in the Victorian Age, well before the advent of the automobile, the primary engines of sprawl have been racism, class neurosis and delusions. 

  As far as the superiority of "positive reinforcement" over criticism, after some forty years of "positive reinforcement" Americans are consuming land at a rate 8 times faster than our population growth.  The average new home built today is more than double the size as the average new home built 40 years, even though the average American family is now 35 percent smaller than the average American family in 1970.   Ithaca in 1970 accounted for about 45 percent of Tompkins County's population, thirty-five years after the first Earth Day, it now accounts for less than 30 percent.

  Outside the Cornell campus less than 1 in 40 people does anything other than jump in a single occupancy vehicle 5 or 6 days a week and drive 5, 10, 15 or more miles to go to work. 

  So much for the benefits of "positive reinforcement." 

  Bike ten miles to a bus stop, on a rural highway with traffic zipping by at 60 miles per hour, and enjoying it? 

  Give me a break!  

  The danger aside, the average American balks at walking more than ten minutes or more than half a mile.  I just don't see more than a dozen or so of the 2,500 to 3,000 commuters using Route 96 today jumping on their bikes and pedaling to and from work 250 days per year.

  Buses?  

  Today the three heavily subsidized TCAT Route 21 buses running between Trumansburg and Cornell at peak commuting times, at full capacity, can only carry about 4 percent of the total commuting population, and the majority of the people riding the bus do so primarily because Cornell picks up the fare.  I pay enough taxes, thank you, without paying more to subsidize somebody's lifestyle choice of living in T-burg, Jacksonville or points beyond or in between with added buses.

  And yes, nobody is confronting the fact that we have to redefine how and where we live.  I've yet to hear Al Gore or any other public leader stand up and advocate for re-inhabiting our cities, densifying them and making the car practically superfluous.  

  Car Sharing, like the Toyota Prius, is just another attempt to sustain an environmentally bankrupt lifestyle, not a solution to the problem.  The solution lies in returning to and re-creating our cities as compact, livable, walkable communities.

  Let's take Andy Goodell's news from Bogota.  Sure they can close down 70 miles of streets every Sunday, but only because the average family in Bogata probably doesn't have to own a car, much less two cars.  Bogota, like every other city outside the US and Canada is built very compactly.  It has a population density fifteen times that of the city of Ithaca.  As a result, walking, biking and mass transit are not just viable, but attractive options to driving.  

  In fact if Ithaca and its surrounding suburbs were built just one-fifth as densely as Bogata is, the 50,000 residents would be nestled almost entirely within the valley between West Hill and East Hill and occupying less than three square miles instead of 12 square miles of sprawl.  Six-Mile Creek would be the southern boundary of the city and the Commons would be just a quarter-mile from the countryside.  Most destinations would either be within the magical half-mile/ten minute walking distance, or easily accessible by bike or by the buses that run every 12-15 minutes, because their routes are condensed to a mere fraction of their length today.

  Ithacans could be enjoying the benefits of burning 60 calories per mile, as I do, instead of burning 60 cents per mile in an automobile.

  The fertile bottomlands from Wegmans to Buttermilk Falls could be gardens, not parking lots and fast food restaurants big box stores.  

  I've yet to hear Al Gore talk about such a vision for America, and I'm not holding my breathe.  He's not about to put his celebrity and cash flow at risk with such "nonsense." Despite my advocacy I don't hold out a lot of hope myself that the American middle class is suddenly going to overcome 130 years of brainwashing and a mountain of myths, fears and phobias regarding city life and Al certainly isn't the type to risk his neck trying to change public attitudes.

  So, folks, keep on spreading out, farther and farther, and keep on feeding Big Oil and the automobile industry, and keep right on pumping five times the per capita amount of green house gases into the atmosphere as the Chinese do.  According to a recent article in the Ithaca Journal, you're paying an average of $600 per month, per car, for the privilege.

  And please drive safely and carefully as you motor on past the few dozen people who will actually take to their bikes on May 16th.

  George Frantz

Jan Quarles <janq at zoom-dsl.com> wrote:
  George,

I understand your bitterness about this crazy "sprawl" we developed due to 
cheap gasoline, but you can't expect people to sell their homes overnight.

Also, positive reinforcement is more effective than criticism at encouraging 
societal change.

Bike-to-Work Day could turn into regular bike commuting because the event 
gets people just to try it for one day. When confronting change, the first 
step is the most difficult one of all. Imagine: someone borrows a bike for 
that day, discovers it's feasible and fun, obtains a bike, and uses it more 
and more. That's better than no change at all.

Many of us live beyond the bus line because we chose to own land. We grow 
our own vegetables, tend our forests, and are good organic land stewards. 
But usually at least one person in the farmhouse holds a job in Ithaca. So 
instead of driving 20 miles into town, that person does what s/he can: bikes 
or carpools for 10 miles to the nearest Park 'n Ride, and takes the bus the 
rest of the way. This type of compromise is far better than driving the 
whole way round trip.

It's simply not true that "neither Al Gore nor anybody else" is willing to 
confront this problem of sprawl and its transportation challenges. 
Sustainable Tompkins, for example, just convened a public meeting on the 
topic, with Ithaca Carshare and other groups presenting real solutions. 
Ironically, Bike-to-Work Day is one of hundreds of examples that proves the 
exact opposite of your assertion. The event demonstrates a willingness to 
confront this problem and take action to solve it.

Jan Quarles

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "George Frantz" 
To: "Sustainable Tompkins County listserv" 

Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 12:36 PM
Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] bike to work

> Noble idea, but why just Bike to Work Day?
>
> Why not Bike to Work Week?
>
> Why not Bike to Work Month?
>
> Why not just everybody just regularly commuting to work by bike?
>
> Oh, that's right. Rather than living in compact, walkable, bikable and 
> transit-friendly communities most Americans, including about 80 percent of 
> Tompkins County's (non-student) workforce, choose to live in a place where 
> any form of journey to work transportation other than the single-occupancy 
> automobile is just plain inconvenient.
>
> Another one of those Inconvenient Truths that neither Al Gore nor anybody 
> else seems willing to confront.
>
> George Frantz
>
>
>
> Andrejs Ozolins wrote:
> Just alerting folks to a sort of grassroots eruption re Bike to Work Day:
> http://flcycling.org/info/btwd2008/index.shtml
> Please join in if interested and possible.
>
> Andrejs
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