tokidokizenzen

Yep, I agree with nearly all of it. I think that gas prices are the strongest current force [not very effective in the long run] to help reduce auto use. Unfortunately this only affects middle and lower income folks. Most above this bracket will think nothing of paying $5 at the pump. And about laziness, I'm not sure this is the right word, convenience is more like it. If you see a closer parking spot then you will park there.

Most cities in America do not make alternative transportation easier. I live in the biggest offender of all, Massachusetts. Throughout my life here I have experienced just about all the forms of transportation this city has to offer and none are as convenient as driving. The absolute worst form of transport here are the busses, I will not describe why becuase the list will never end.

In the end I guess there are too many variables to figure this one out. All are valid and effect the convenience of the other. Myself, I would ride in every day but weather and work load does not always permit. And there are the days where I am just too worn out to make the 11 mile commute.

LandLuger

I experimented with a Mueller windwrap and found it offered more protection from the elements than increased speed. The real speed gains are to be found in body socks and streamlined hardshell bodies. This isn't really practical on a bicycle so you need a tricycle, and then you've arrived back at the velomobile. If there was a manufacturer in the States I would be the first in line.

LandLuger

It would seem that a greater sense of community is at the heart of your essay; however, currently the powers that be seem to be driving a wedge between the citizens. Would you agree?

Satyr

This is an important point to remember. The use of a car for moderate tasks is not usually a product of necessity. I see dozens upon dozens of people on my commute to class each day, during snowstorms and icy road conditions. Most of the people are not serious cyclists, and had they been raised in the States, probably would not be biking. This is just to say, attitude drives the use of vehicles.

For the U.S. a few things would need to happen.

1) The association that motor vehicle = freedom/joy would need to be broken. This would basically require less media attention on vehicles, and a revamping of car advertisements. Car adverts are many in the States and always focus on an SUV taking you to some improbable alpine locale, or even a regular vehicle bringing joy by speeding around corners, etc.

2) Greater public concern about health.

3) Commuter bikes need to be easy to acquire. I speak about things that have dynamo lights, racks, baskets, fenders, easy gearing, etc., already installed. Average people in Europe can bike with greater ease pricesely because it is easy to pick up a bike fit for commuting.

4) Bikes need to be popularized to American youth, and the idea that they are a legitament transportation method drilled into the younger generations.

Basically, the general notion is to BREAK down the worship of the car - CREATE supply of utilitarian bicycles - EDUCATE youth. Those three things I think would make a tremendous difference. I have lived in a lot of places and never found a place that deterred my cycling (though most wouldn't spend 3-4 hours commuting each day as I have had to in the past).

I'm pretty optimistic about the future, but occasionally get these dark glimpses where people are so wrapped up in technology that makes life easy that they forget the simple joys.

schiavonec

Greater sense of community could be a way to state it, but it probably depends. Does NYC have a greater sense of community (in the broadest sense) than any other place? Dunno, but it certainly is a great city and one in which you can be car free. Great place to visit, but I don't want to live there permanently. The concept of community can apply to just about any setting though. (People in rural areas have some of the best sense of community there is, e.g. helping one another out, etc.)

Never thought about the 'wedge' that way. The powers that be aren't presenting any impetus (albeit often at their own enrichment) to change so I guess there is an implicit wedge, e.g. keep the status quo.

TimJ

More political participation with an eye toward creating an environment in which less burning of petroleum makes the most sense.

A lot of people have touched on it but zoning laws and the (mainly) municipal entities that control them dictate how we physically live in this country more than anything else. How do you change infrastructure development to be more pedestrian/bike friendly? You go to some boring-ass meeting downtown and make yourself someone to be listened too, or you form some sort of community interest group and make your presence known at those same boring-ass meetings, or you get elected to stuff from neighborhood councils on up and you do the actual legwork required for change. Or you keep informed and knowledgeable about the subjects and you vote for and support the people who are going to do this for you.

Sure, trying to be an example yourself could possibly open someone’s mind a bit or something, but that’s not going to change the new Walmart being built on a road with nothing but freeway access. City councils get some development group in front of them that says ‘we’re gonna build x number of outlet malls and it’ll bring x jobs and x revenues, and all we want is this land and an off-ramp’ and they jump allover it because they need the property tax revenues to pay for city services and they want to say they brought jobs to town, etc., etc., and not one moment is spent considering what that development forces people to do. It forces people to drive. It forces people to take that one particular road. It forces people to spend their day in the car because it’s too far away to be a quick stop, etc.

Every last tiny little municipal zoning decision forces behavior, plain and simple. Most people don’t base their everyday decisions on anything beyond taste and convenience, and often convenience will engender taste [$$ falls into convenience]. They don’t care how their coffee beans were grown, or where their gas comes from, or who made the shirt they’re wearing- and they are never going to. That’s the biggest mistake most earnest tree-huggers make, thinking ‘if only other people understood what I understand, their behavior would change’. B.S. People don’t care, they don’t want to care, they don’t want to know. Lucky for all the earnest tree-hugger types, they don’t need to.

People drive 2 blocks away because more often than not they’re forced to drive to get what they want. So, driving simply becomes habit. If decisions at the municipal level were made with an eye toward NOT forcing particular bad behaviors- at the least- or at the best, forcing good behavior, then change would start to occur naturally. The majority of everyone who doesn’t give a thought to their everyday actions would be habituated to better behavior without even knowing it.

More political participation with an eye toward creating an environment in which less burning of petroleum makes the most sense.

TimJ

I could not possibly disagree more. See my previous post above, but think about your ideas in the context of, well, any problem this country has ever faced. You're talking about changing minds, getting people to think about things differently, and that’s got to be the most inefficient, ineffectual method of controlling behavior there is. I mean, that’s the ultimate goal, right? You don’t want someone to still drive a block to the store but like bicycles, you want them to bike to the store, right?

If you want to change behavior, then go after the behavior. Going after the supposed logic behind the behavior is a fool’s errand, because who says there’s any logic there at all?

Plus, think about actualization of this idea, the idea to change ideas. What are you going to do? What is anyone going to do? It’s possible to make some people think differently, take the GOP’s war against reason since Golwater’s defeat. They created think tanks in order to create “experts” who could farm out their “expert” opinions and shape the discourse, they got rid of “equal time” legislation and began raising pundits whose sole purpose is to keep the talking points in the spotlight, they created a system of harassment and intimidation that has ultimately created the idea that there is no such thing as objectivity, etc., etc., and now we have the absolute worst president this nation has ever had presiding for 8 years.

That took 40 years, billions of dollars and a ton of insiders, and still they’ve maybe only brainwashed 1/3 of the country.

Changing people’s minds is the absolute worst way to change their behavior on a national scale. I firmly believe that to be true.

chicbicyclist

Timj, petroleum buning could be easilly replaced with other alternative forms of energy, especially in the near future, making your arguments kinda moot.

recursive

With what? ethanol? hydrogen? fuel cells? natural gas?

There's not enough.

TimJ

Uh, I don't think that's accurate, and I don't even see how it addresses my argument. Did you read up until you saw the words "petroleum burning" and stop there?

mpop

TimJ, I would have to say, it is best to change ideas, not just action. Why do you think we (I use we because I am a conservative) conservatives make so much fun of "Political Correct" speak, it does not change the underling problem it just hides it till it boils over. Also if you only change the actions, as soon as the rules that prohibit the action are removed that action will come right back. Now if you change the way people think, if you win their hearts and minds then you have won a more important war. Along with this, you have to realize that in all culture wars one of the major weapons is the language, so you do need to look at the language wars.

Laws might help curb bad actions, but you still need to win the culture war.

TimJ

I’m not talking about laws that address behavior, I’m talking about infrastructure. Infrastructure dictates behavior far more than laws regarding personal behavior when you talk about civic actions. You’re making the mistake of thinking there are innumerable options available to each individual on how to live their life day-to-day, so therefore the only way to change how someone lives is to change how they want to live. Sorry, there isn’t. There’s a finite set of choices based upon where a person is physically and what surrounds them. What surrounds them is infrastructure built according to a plan, usually a plan that pays no mind to anything but drive in, drive out.

When people start to fight against these sort of civically bad behaviors, like the car culture, people who never gave any thought to how they live get offended and reflexively defend themselves, defend their complete attachment to their car, for instance, and then go so far as to embrace the “bad” behavior as a statement to liberty, or some other thing. This is how something as rote as driving around in a car becomes a deeply held symbol of individualism and freedom. I mean, yee-ha. Driving around in a car. Go cowboy.

If you go after hearts and minds you’re framing the argument as philosophical or moral one which means there’s no right or wrong, no up or down, and maybe it can effect change, maybe it can’t, my point is it’s the worst way to change behaviour. You want to change how a rat runs through it’s maze, change the maze.

[btw- I reject any notion of a "culture war". The only "culture war" this country has experienced is the manufactured one being waged on Fox News and Talk Radio every day. There's no "culture" there, just hate-mongering.]

Roody

Some real life examples would be helpful Tim.

How would you "change the maze" to reduce car usage?

mpop

TimJ, well if people chose to live in the city more then in the suburbs then we don't need to worry to much about infrastructure. This is first step in the culture war here is to get people to reexamine where they live, and why they live there. If we get people to consider living in the city, this will not happen over night, people already have homes they live in, but when some one finds the need to move (say a new job in a new area) if they see the value of buying in the city, or teach the younger generations about living in the city, when they finally move out of their parents basement, they will look at living in the city. this could take 40 years or more, but if we take a longer view of things we can win for the future. (I know you hate Talk Radio, I will admit I love it and those you said you don't like I do like, I am a talk radio junkie) but this is the tactic that has been used with talk radio, reach the hearts and minds and over time people will change.

TimJ

Helpful? How about this- stop building things the way they’re built.

Seriously though, I’m talking about the forest, not the trees, all you need to do to think about what’s wrong with zoning is go to the nearest mall and observe how completely unfriendly it is to anything but cars. Now, imagine it otherwise.

How about no more off-ramp shopping centers? Just completely stop the practice and have some sort of maximum distance of shopping center to residential center, with access from smaller roads and pedestrian walkways, sidewalks, etc., within the complex, from street to shop. Limit the size of one-store retail centers. Incentives for complete underground parking where possible, making above-ground stores designed specifically for pedestrian access. How many parking spaces for how much square foot is regulated, why not how many ring-and-post bike stands? Or bike lockers? Curb the practice of single-use zoning. Tie mass-transit to a formula so any project that attracts x# of people or more per x time period must be serviced by mass transit, and put the cost on the developer if there’s no extant service.

I don’t know, there’s tons of stuff, I’m not a city planner. The country isn’t shaped the way it’s shaped because of some “free market”. This place is zoned down to the last square inch and the only question is: whom does the zoning serve? So far, much development has served nothing but monied interests- no regard to civic life at all. So rather than keep building things according to where the money flows, why not build it according to what’s best for people and place?

LandLuger

Your points are well taken, and you seem to have a grasp of the mindset of the common man at least those that I know. But as you said most cities and states are just struggling to make the budget year to year. How much credence do you think they will give to an individual representing a fraction of a % of the population? How would you put your ideas into practice? If one were to just show up talking up the coming energy crunch and the concerns over the future of our children's children how do you think it would go over? I'm not trying to throw cold water over your remarks; for the most part I agree.

WorldWind

I agree, the shift must happen from the top down. With well planned living spaces. But also, the profit in oil must be removed from the equation before its use in cars will be contraindicated. Just making things more expensive only excludes the lower classes from the utility they provide. Even when this benefits the infrastructure, it will not curtail their use to any great extent. Further more it will intensify the rift between the haves and the have-nots and spur ever widening waves of crime.

But the question was not about homes and oil but cars wasn’t it. The profit in making cars must be removed from the equation before all the cars begin to disappear from the landscape. Before this will even begin to happen we will need viable public transportation that is safe and convenient. Stores will need to start specializing in low cost error free deliveries. Then the question becomes can we live without our cars and still have the American dream?

In a world of bicycles only you would severely limit mobility to the young and healthy.

LandLuger

Truly at present energy is vastly undervalued just look at how much energy is required to produce the above fuels, but at some point these will become viable as the existing oil fields expire. We are already laying plans to build a new fleet of nuclear fission plants to produce more energy rather face the reality of conservation. It is just the mindset of the people; we are willing to burn anything to keep up our lifestyle.

LandLuger

Yes and people still elect the representitives as much as many in this forum would probably wish otherwise. In all honesty I know Joe Public, and the only way many of the utopian ideas just far presented could come forth would be under an authoritarian government.

LandLuger

Though you probably will not agree, society evolved to this point. The origin was probably the assembly plant philosophy of Ford and the Model T. The question is what will be the catalyst to drive the evolution of society in our (cyclists) favor?

TimJ

I can't speak to that because it's a local issue, wherever one's local is. "All politics are local", as they say.

The main thing I'm trying to communicate here is this: we didn't get to the state we're in through sentiment, hearts and minds, or conscious desire. People didn't overtly want their city centers to dry up, or everything to be hostile to pedestrians, or the skys to be filled with smog. Yes, educate and advocate, but public sentiment isn't what got us here in the first place, and it's not what's going to get us out.

We got here via bad civic planning. We let this happen by allowing developers and corporations to write civic code, largely. And if you think about it it makes no sense in any way except this: maximum profit for the developer and the interest. And that's no way to build communities.

So how to appeal to a bunch of small-minded bureaucrats? Well, first off, elect better people. Second, the arguments need to be local and specific. If some dude goes to a city council meeting and talks about Gaia, he's going to be treated like a fool, and rightly so. The council doesn't need to think like someone who wants better planning, they just need to hear a better plan. So, have a good, specific argument.

Again, I can't talk specifics because this is local stuff. The large idea is simple: government determines how things get built, so therefore they don't have to be built they way they've been built- it can be changed. But the rest is all local.

TimJ

No, I agree, if you're using "evolve" simply as a descriptive term and not in a context like darwinian evolution. Yeah, we "evolved" to here all right, but there was nothing "natural" about it. We didn't know there was anything really wrong with the **** everything, pave whatever, kill whatever formula for growth until the 60s, but now we do. I mean, we're getting into big patterns in history, but specifically talking about modern infrastructure, the consumer boom after WW2 was the catalyst there. Prior to that we didn't have suburbs, essentially, and suburbs themselves a large part of the problem in regards to car use. Naw, before the consumer boom we were killing stuff as quickly as we could kill it, but there wasn't so much demand so we didn't really see much consequence from our actions, it wasn't until we started becoming a consumer culture that things really took off. But then we had the boom and people started building and it was bad planning, lack of foresight, and lack of knowledge.

Catalyst? I don't know. Our petroleum-based society is so obviously archaic, especially considering what we're capable of, I don't think there's any one thing that will start any revolution. I'm a firm believer that NO ONE IS GOING TO SAVE US, because no one doomed us. We got on a certain footing and by the time people realized it was a bad way to go on such a huge scale, the majority of interests were more interested in the status quo. So, again, go local. if it makes sense to do things right, then right things will be done.

attercoppe

I came back to this discussion a little late, hope y'all don't mind jumping back some to a previous comment:
(emphasis mine)

The Denver Post has recently been running some ads, a quarter-page apiece, from "Denver-area auto dealers". They're titled "Freedom to Drive", subtitled "YOUR CAR, YOUR SPACE." About half the ad space is a picture of the Statue of Liberty in front of an American flag. Here's the copy from two of them:

"Unleash your tweeters and subwoofers.
Pull away in a crescendo of Christina Aguilera.
MP3, U2, CD, R&B-you know the words.
Motor on in a sanctuary of leather, chrome, and Sly Stone.
Ease into a dream, dream, dream machine with cupholders, amplifiers, and non-stop vistas.
It's your rolling oasis, front-row concert seat, ticket-to-ride at your speed and to your destination.

It's not just a ride, it's your surround-sound boogie buggy.

Listen to the possibilities at your Denver-area auto dealers.

Buy Your Car Today."



"Business to go.
Late? Buzz a shave down a side street.
Making goal? Dial appointments in all-wheel-drive.
You've got horsepower, voice mail, burl wood dash and remote audio control.
GPS, SUV, HOV, MPG, but few Yugo's. [sic]
Young merchants with motors, your life is in overdrive, 8 to 5, 6 to 2.
It's not just your car, it's a briefcase with torque; a weekend five-passenger party.

Power up your life at your Denver area auto dealers.

Buy your car today!"

So basically, in the first one, they're selling a car as a mobile stereo. "Drive around for no other reason than to listen to music!"

In the second, the car is a necessary business tool - not to mention they're apparently promoting:

a)either shaving while driving, or speeding through neighborhoods as a shortcut (can't tell which)
b)talking on the cell phone while driving
c)driving 17 hours a day, likely including to and from the bar(s)/club(s) (6pm to 2am)
d)driving a five-passenger car as a daily personal-use vehicle (though they do throw in HOV - along with SUV and GPS)

Fake patriotism, emotional appeal, peer pressure, it really kind of makes me sick. The worst part? I'm sure it's effective. It's this kind of brainwashing advertising that needs to be done away with.

KrisPistofferson

You can make an attempt to respond with credible ideas, too, or is it more gratifying to constantly crap on other people's posts?

chicbicyclist

Yeah, Timj, I think I misread you a couple posts back but I think you misread me, too. I was talking about your arguments for controlling petroleum fuels only, and I actually largely agree with your other points(city planning, et. al.).