B. Carfree

And all you need to make these fine things happen is to have your air so polluted by cars that authorities get desperate. Oh, and they are also temporarily reducing the number of cars on the road: BBC News - Paris restricts car use after pollution hits high

So, for the next few days, Paris will restrict cars by plate number, offer free public transportation and free bike shares and positively choke on their engine exhaust.

For what it's worth, Milan, Italy has done a few car-free Sundays in the past for the same reason. When their air becomes overly toxic for twelve straight days, they don't allow cars to operate in the city from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM on the ensuing Sunday.

While these are baby steps in dealing with one of the more visible problems of car dependence, they are steps that the US has not yet taken. I'm impressed that some Europeans are willing to acknowledge that cars have huge impacts and, by implication from their actions, much car use is entirely discretionary.

kickstart

Seattle’s Bike Program—Come ride with us Seattle is using our streets to provide safe, affordable travel choices and create great places that encourage people to get out and enjoy streets on foot or by bike. In doing so, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve the health of or residents and make it comfortable for people of all abilities from our 5-year old kids to our 80-year old grandparents to move around.

The Bicycle Master Plan is one tool helping us to reach this vision. Over the last four years, SDOT has invested nearly $36 million in bicycle improvements guided by the plan. The improvements were funded through the voter-approved Bridging the Gap transportation levy and include 129 miles of bike lanes and sharrows, 98 miles of signed routes and 2,230 bike parking spaces. This year the Bicycle Master Plan is being updated. As the City works toward its goal of tripling the number of cyclists, we will consider how to expand our implementation of bicycle facilities that focus on short, neighborhood trips and improvements that appeal to a wide variety of bicycle riders. Please get involved!


Walk Bike Ride Challenge

[h=3]Get, moving, get active, get prizes!
June 15 to September 9[/h] [h=3]Sign up now![/h] You know walking, biking, and riding transit can save you money, improve your health and the environment, but maybe you need a little inspiration to get out of your car and try something different. Well, we’re offering incentives, in the form of great prizes!
The Walk Bike Ride Challenge inspires you to try new transportation options this summer, and hopefully change some of your habits in the long-term. If you convert at least 24 solo car trips to walking, biking, car/vanpooling or riding transit between June 15 and September 9, you could win:

• Grand Prize: A brand new Specialized Sirrus Elite (male) bike or Specialized Vita Elite (female) and helmet from Gregg's Cycles worth $800.
• A $200 REI Gift Card
• A $150 Zipcar gift certificate
• A $100 Farmers Market gift certificate
• A $100 Nordstrom gift card
• Car2Go membership and four hours of use
• Family pack tickets to the Woodland Park Zoo
• And more to come!

Each week in the challenge, we will also be raffling off Orca cards to individuals who invite a friend to the challenge using the "Invite" tab. The friend must accept the challenge and log at least one trip for you to be eligible for the drawing. We'll also be announcing other opportunities to win prizes from time to time, so stay tuned for details.
The Walk Bike Ride Challenge is partnering with Luum this year and using a brand new platform to track your progress, provide tips and encouragement, and engage with fellow Challengers. Sign up now and start inviting your friends, neighbors, family, and co-workers to get moving, get active, and get prizes!
For more information about how the Challenge works you can check out our program guidelines. If you have any other questions or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you.


Bicycle Sunday
Sponsored by Seattle Parks & Recreation and Cascade Bicycle Club


Bicycle or walk along Lake Washington Boulevard south of Mount Baker Beach to Seward Parks entrance.

Lake Washington Boulevard will be closed to motorized traffic from 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sponsored by Seattle Parks and Recreation and Cascade Bicycle Club.
2014 Dates

• May 4, 11 and 18
• June 1, 15 and 29
• July 6 and 13
• August 10 and 24
• September 14 and 21

Folks are a lot more interested and willing to listen when the message isn't foul with smug, self righteous rantings. Effort is best spent addressing actual issues with practical solutions in a positive manner, not to pontificate judgmental ideologies based on fashionably anti establishment rhetoric.

prathmann

The SF Bay Area has designated 'Spare the Air' days when pollution levels are expected to be high. These put some restrictions on individuals, such as no wood-burning fireplaces, and additional ones on industry, but they have yet to restrict car use although car-pooling and mass transit is especially encouraged on these days. A few years ago the area had some grant money to provide free public transit on these days, but that program has lapsed. Of course a few unnamed cycling enthusiasts took advantage of that system by planning rides on 'Spare the Air' days that started with a free BART ride into the city followed by a nice ride over the Golden Gate into Sausalito and continuing through Belvidere and Tiburon to the Larkspur ferry where one could catch a free ride across the bay back to downtown SF and then BART back home.

Fortunately our pollution levels even on 'Spare the Air' days don't appear to be nearly as bad as they were years ago when a rather thick haze of smog was fairly common. So I doubt there will be the political will to enact some of the more severe restrictions mentioned in the OP.

howsteepisit

And once again, a mistaken understanding of free. The busses, trains and workers are not going to work for free, so the French taxpayers will pick up the tab, cost my be dispersed across a wider population, but its certainly not free.

CB HI

Since you do not like the word 'free' for those they wish to encourage to use the bike share and mass transit, what word(s) do you propose they use?

Looigi

Subsidized. If there's no direct user fee, then it's 100% subsidized by the taxpayers.

The times I spent visiting Europe the vehicles seemed significantly more polluting that what it seems like in the US. Lots more obviously smelly smoky exhausts, 2 stroke motorcycles and scooters, and diesels. Of course this was nothing compared to what I experienced in Asia.

howsteepisit

Subsidized or publicly funded work fine for me, Does anybody think that any publicly funded or private industry supported is really free? If so I would suggest taking a basic economics course.

B. Carfree

Yes, governments subsidize many things, like water systems, agriculture, park spaces and so on. However, subsidizing the least-polluting transportation options has the benefit of being rational, compared to the obviously irrational subsidies we give to private automobile (ab)use.

howsteepisit

I never disputed the advantages/disadvantages of subsidizing anything, only the impression that anything is without cost. How about if they were to say that user fees are suspended when pollution rises to a certain level?

CB HI

Everything public, including transit is subsidized. Even private supported is funded by other individuals, is subsidized by the individuals who buy the product of the industry. Maybe it is you that needs a basic economics course.

The word 'free' works just fine to let riders and bicycle renters know that there will not be any direct charge to them for the designated time period.

One simple word works fine to put the point across, but it puts some mindsets into a tail spin.

kickstart

Mass transit, alternative transit, and individual transit all fill legitimate, necessary tasks. Each to its own time and place where most productive and efficient, there isn't one single answer.

It's an arrogant fools errand to judge everyones need by your own.

CB HI

Get real, B. Carfree is not judging based on his needs. The huge amount of very large single occupant vehicles falls far outside the limit of NEED. You seem to confuse desire with need.

kickstart

Wow, you guys know a persons needs just by looking at them!
No wounder you guys know it all, and feel justified to speak for all of humanity. Maybe you should get together and come up with a comprehensive list of what's "need" and what's "desire", and what form of transportation must be selected for each use. Maybe a graph or points system that takes into account distance, terrain, climate, physical ability, cargo capacity, income, commitment schedules, lifestyle, and perhaps even allow for some recreational use too.
I'm confident you guys can do it, you have the answer for everything with a certainty that there can be no possible alternative. Must be a real burden to be better and smarter than everyone else, makes me thankful I'm not.




"get real"?
More likely you see what you want/need to see to make yourself feel morally superior.

CB HI

Here you go, off the deep end again. Your pretty naive if you think every person on the freeway NEEDS to be in a single occupied car.

kickstart

Of course not, but what burning bush gave you the right to pass judgement them, or decide how they should conduct their affairs.

Personal transportation will continue to evolve, increase in demand, and always be necessary. Get over it,or better yet, try to be a participant in positive change rather than hinder it with divisive rhetoric.

CB HI

How have I passed judgement on THEM? I simply stated a fact. You are the one passing judgement on so many posters here, declaring you know what their motives and complete beliefs are. You really should look in the mirror with your claims of passing judgement.

kickstart

When you spout bile to incite a reaction, you don't get to cry foul when it does. It seems you can dish it out but can't take it.

Posting here is an open invitation for the ideas to be commented on and criticized. My judgments of ideas presented here don't go beyond my opinions being shared here. I'm not forcing my ideas on others in the real world as you and others claim they do, nor would I try to stop you from doing your thing. The wrongs of others are not license to do wrong likewise.
Do you not comprehend that if your words and/or actions rankle your fellow cyclists, that it presents an even worse image of cycling to the other 98% who don't ride, but have the power to decide how we do?

Believe it or not I actually agree with most of what you say, just not how you say it, try to go about getting it, or pretending its beyond question .
I would like to see significant reduction of individual motor vehicle use in urban centers, I'm on the road 10 hours a day in the metropolitan Seattle area, do you think I like it being jammed with single occupant vehicles? I support better education and enforcement in regards to the rights and laws pertaining to bicycles. I support improving the public transit system, I support continuing to expanding the bicycle infrastructure and improving what is sub standard.

CB HI

You are pointless. You create your own absurd reactions to others post.

kickstart

Yes, I understand you don't get it.....you may have the last word.

howsteepisit

So CB HI, we agree that this is not free, but you think calling it free is fine, and I don't Ok I am good with that.

Comment: I am quite well educated beyond the basic level in economics thank you.

CB HI

But you want to use words that do not convey that the user at the moment does not have to pay anything. In essence, that is as free as it gets and conveys that the user does not have to pay any additional funds.

Public bus service that charges the user $3.00 per ride tells people the bus fee is $3.00. But by your standard, you want them to advertise the charge is $18 dollars per ride. Sort of makes it confusing for those getting on the bus to know how much they will be charged. Your attitude on this serves no useful purpose. It is just an anal exercise with no benefit.

CB HI

Your the one that twisted B. Carfree's post and then threw insults at him based on your lack of understanding. You do that fairly often.

howsteepisit

In my opinion, it is important for bus riders to know the actual cost of riding the bus is whatever it is, as we should be aware of true costs. I am fine with that suggestion, thanks for making it. And had the headline read User fees suspended I'd be fine with that.

I am not fine with saying that if something has no cost at the moment, then its free, or has no cost.