February 28, 2011
by julie
Comments Off on MPR Coverage: Winter Cycling & Minnesota Bicycle Summit
Minnesota Public Radio this morning covered the Minnesota Bicycle Summit, along with a dose of discussion about individuals who bicycle all winter long.
Listen here:
The Bicycle Summit begins at 9:30 AM and will run throughout the afternoon.
February 28, 2011
by julie
Comments Off on Bike Lanes & The Door Zone
I’ve ranted a bit about bike lanes in the past. As I’ve said before: I am not opposed to bike lanes, but so many of them are poorly engineered they create their own hazard by suggesting to well-intentioned cyclists that they should ride within them, and to well-intentioned motorists that cyclists should be within them and therefore that is where one scans for bicyclists.
This video is a demonstration by W. Preston Tyree, the League of American Bicyclists Education Director, on some of the problems created by bike lanes drawn alongside curbside parking lanes — and also of abiding by a three-foot rule next to parked cars. The visualization of the issue should provide food for thought to both those involving in designing bike lanes, and cyclists who make extensive use of such lanes built alongside curbside parking.
February 27, 2011
by julie
Comments Off on Transportation & Inequality
There’s a lot of talk of budgets, and of “highway funding” versus “transportation funding” going down right now. Many cities, states and even the federal budget are cutting funds to mass transit. In this environment, I absolutely recommend giving a listen to “Back of the Bus: Mass transit, race and inequality,” a public radio documentary. It’s to air on Minnesota Public Radio at noon on March 11, but can also be downloaded as an MP3 from Transportation Nation.
This documentary makes a powerful argument that transportation has been a social engineering weapon to intentionally disenfranchise minorities and the poor. It tells the story of how transit use came to be equated with second-class citizenry, and how transportation planning since Eisenhower onward has focused primarily around accommodating middle-class whites. Included in the documentary is the story of the construction of I-94 through St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood, along with the modern update of how the planned light rail line might have gone through the neighborhood — without stopping.
This is another element of the argument that mandatory parking capacity rules for development, road construction and cheap gas subsidizes automobile use, even as many roadway advocates complain about the more obvious subsidy in most rail and bus systems. Less than 20% of transportation dollars are spent on mass transit projects. (Bicycle funding is often scattered in with road projects, rather than called out as its own line item.)
February 27, 2011
by julie
Comments Off on Bicycle Events: February 28-March 6
As we hit the back-end of winter and look forward to the giant tire-eating potholes of spring, here are a few goodies on this week’s Minnesota Bicycle Events Calendar:
There’s also time yet today to attend a talk on one cyclist’s experiences cycling in Peru, presented at REI Bloomington at 3:00, or to hit up tonight’s episode of indoor crit racing at the NSC.
Next week brings the National Bicycle Summit, as well as several local meetings of the St. Paul Bicycle Coalition, the Bike Edina Task Force, and the Richfield Bicycle Task Force. Plenty of great policy action ahead!
February 25, 2011
by julie
Comments Off on Cheap Gas Encourages Dependence
Simple economic wisdom suggests that as prices for any commodity go up, price helps dictate demand. The Economist took a look at gas taxes and relative gas use, specifically in light of current rising oil prices.
Per the article:
Petrol prices in America are substantially below levels elsewhere in the rich world, and this is almost entirely due to the rock bottom level of petrol tax rates. The low cost of petrol encourages greater dependence; the average American uses much more oil per day than other rich world citizens. This dependence also impacts infrastructure investment choices, leading to substantially more spending on highways than transit alternatives. And this, in turn, reduces the ability of American households to substitute away from driving when oil prices rise.
Obviously, there are a few challenges to comparing the US to many of the countries in the graph — the geographic scope of the US creates issues not necessarily in scale to those experienced in smaller nations like Japan, the Netherlands, or (yeesh) Luxembourg. Some of the nations on this list also were able to significantly retool systems after WWII as a result of their infrastructure being rather trashed by the whole affair.
The Economist suggests that raising the gas tax — and not even so high as that seen in other rich, first-world nations — would provide valuable funds for highway construction and infrastructure investment. A rise in the gas tax would hit consumers, but as gas prices rise consumers generally try to minimize usage.
Tom Friedman of the New York Times suggests a $1/gallon gas tax, phased in at 5 cents a month beginning in 2012 — although he suggests that all funds be used to reduce the federal deficit. He calls unrest in the Arab world a wake-up call to reduce foreign oil dependence.
Of course, the challenges to such a plan are many, not the least of which is that it is, yes, a tax — and many elected representatives have no stomach for raising taxes, even if there is clear economic benefit to doing so. And no one would suggest going straight to European-style taxation overnight — the chart above shows that even $1/gallon would not bring US taxation up to similar levels — as the infrastructure isn’t there in most of the country to fully support movement away from gas usage. At the same time, it’s clear that the present demand for gas is unsustainable in the long-term, so action needs to happen now to prepare for the inevitable.