Archive for category Alternative transportation
6 Tips for Raising Cooperative Kids
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation, Parenting on May 20, 2010
I’ve been stirring things up on Shareable.net for the last few days talking about Alfie Kohn’s book No Contest: The Case Against Competition and some of his ideas for raising more cooperative, less competitive kids. My post begins:
In 2008, an interviewer admitted to Alfie Kohn that she considers herself a competitive person. “As long as you acknowledge that’s a problem to be solved; it’s not a good thing about us,” he responded. “People say to me, ‘Oh I’m really a competitive person,’ not realizing that it’s as if they’re saying, ‘I have a drinking problem.”
Competition, which Kohn defines as any situation where one person can succeed only when others fail, seems to be something of a state religion in the United States. But Kohn is convinced that we’ve all bought into dangerous myths about the value of competition in our personal lives, workplaces, society, and economic system. He laid out his arguments in his 1986 book No Contest: The Case Against Competition
, and he’s been spreading the word ever since.
He insists that competition is not human nature; it’s something we learn. “The message that competition is appropriate, desirable, required, and even unavoidable is drummed into us from nursery school to graduate school; it is the subtext of every lesson,” he writes.
And according to Kohn, competition undermines self-esteem, destroys relationships, thwarts productivity, and discourages excellence, and he cites more than a hundred studies to back up his assertions.
I was surprised that most people who commented didn’t seem to have heard of Kohn or his theories and weren’t familiar with his research on the subject. So what ensued was a lively, mostly thoughtful conversation about the role of competition in our lives and society. You can check it out here. And feel free to add your thoughts to the discussion.
Shareable.net also published my story about Kidical Mass today. Kidical Mass rides are fun family-friendly bicycle rides where kids can learn the rules of the road.
The article begins:
“Where are all of the cars?” asks Paul Adkins as we pedal down a quiet tree-lined street in Eugene, Oregon on a sunny May afternoon.
Adkins is leading a three-mile Kidical Mass bicycle ride. I’m one of 19 participants; more than half are kids. Adkins is navigating for the group and helping his four-year-old son Dare, who’s new on two wheels, learn the rules of the road.
“There’s a stop sign. We’ll come to a stop, then look, signal, and turn left,” Adkins says.
“Good job, everyone,” he calls as the group glides around the corner behind him.
Occasionally we pass people working in their yards, and a chorus of bike bells dings. We’re usually greeted by enthusiastic waves and smiles.
“Look, there’s a turkey vulture,” a mom near the back of the ride says, pointing out a bird to her daughter.
Later a cat runs past with a garter snake hanging from its mouth, and we see a couple of horses grazing in a field. Both are big hits with the kids.
You can read the rest of the article here.
How Walkable is Your Neighborhood?
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on May 19, 2010
I’m a huge fan of walking. I wrote about why I love it here. I take a walk at least once a day, rain or shine. And every time I wheel my son’s stroller out to the sidewalk in front of our house, I am grateful that we live in a walkable neighborhood.
So what makes a neighborhood walkable? This is how the folks at Walkscore.com define it:
- A center: Walkable neighborhoods have a center, whether it’s a main street or a public space.
- People: Enough people for businesses to flourish and for public transit to run frequently.
- Mixed income, mixed use: Affordable housing located near businesses.
- Parks and public space: Plenty of public places to gather and play.
- Pedestrian design: Buildings are close to the street, parking lots are relegated to the back.
- Schools and workplaces: Close enough that most residents can walk from their homes.
- Complete streets: Streets designed for bicyclists, pedestrians, and transit.
My neighborhood only scores 63 out of 100 according to Walkscore’s criteria and earns their rank of “Somewhat Walkable”. I checked some of the other addresses I’ve lived at in the last six years. Most of them earn a higher score, because they were closer to downtown, which means they were closer to bookstores, restaurants, and other amenities.
But I think my neighborhood has something going for it that can’t be easily quantified – a culture of walking. Many of my neighbors are home during the day, many of them have young children, and they are often outside and out walking themselves. So my son and I invariably run into people we know when we’re on a walk. Occasionally we even go on walks with our neighbors. So we’re getting to know each other in a way that I’ve never experienced in a neighborhood, even those closer to more amenities.
My neighborhood is also safe, which I think makes a big difference to walkability. Sadly in a few of the other neighborhoods I’ve lived in, including a few that Walkscore deems more walkable, I didn’t feel comfortable walking alone at night. Especially when I lived alone, that meant the neighborhood was only walkable during daylight hours. And there just aren’t many of those in the winter.
So while I love Walkscore’s ranking system and would like to see urban planners put walkability first when designing or retrofitting cities, I’ve discovered that some of what makes a neighborhood walkable just can’t be easily measured.
If you’re curious, here are Walkscore.com’s most walkable cities:
- San Francisco, Walk Score 86
- New York, Walk Score 83
- Boston, Walk Score 79
And here are the ones they rank as least walkable:
- Charlotte, Walk Score 39
- Nashville, Walk Score 39
- Jacksonville, Walk Score 36
You can find out how your neighborhood scores here.
How walkable is your neighborhood? Do you agree with Walkscore’s rating?
Hopeful Weekend Links for National Bike Month
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation, New Urban Habitat on May 7, 2010
Photo Credit: bfick
Pedal Powered Move — Yellow Bike Project, Austin, TX (video)
Two-Wheel Wonders — Ode Magazine
Future Bikes: 10 Bold, Brilliant Bicycle Concepts — The Coolist
World Carfree Video — Carbusters (video)
Welcome to the Path Less Pedaled — Path Less Pedaled
The Book Bike — Shareable.net
What’s the Cycling Capital of the World?
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on May 6, 2010
(Originally published July 13, 2009, reprinted in celebration of National Bike Month.)
Groningen, the sixth largest city in the Netherlands, boasts the highest percentage of bike usage in the world. 57% of trips are made by bike.
Why so many? Because of progressive urban planning and transporation policies. In 1977, a six lane highway intersection in the center of town was replaced by greenery, bike paths, and bus lanes. The city is also split into four sections. Cars must take a road on the periphery to travel from one sector to another, while bikes are free to travel throughout the city.
You can read more about cycling in Groningen here, here, or here.
Bamboo Bicycles
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on May 5, 2010
A couple of years ago, my husband and I were going to plant running bamboo along our back fence. Then we casually mentioned the idea to our next-door neighbor. She looked, well, terrified.
Bamboo is an amazing plant. It’s used to make musical instruments, toys, tools, weapons, flooring, paper, food, cooking oil, vinegar, and alcohol. But it’s also a bit noxious, at least in these parts.
When we were thinking of growing it, we visited a peaceful bamboo garden on the outskirts of town. The gardener showed us around and explained the difference between the many varieties of bamboo that rustled overhead in the slight breeze.
Then the conversation turned to warfare.
“You’ll need to dig a two-foot-deep trench all the way around your bamboo and bury this in it.” He held up a roll of thick, black plastic. “This needs to stick up at least three inches above the soil. The bamboo’s rhizomes will try to jump it. So leave a foot or so of bare ground all the way around the trench. That way you can see them coming over. When they do, mow them down immediately.”
It sounded more like prison-tower watch duty than gardening.
But there’s an upside to bamboo’s invasive nature. It is not only a useful plant; it’s an incredibly renewable resource.
And now you can get a bike made out of it.
Although riding a bike is considerably more environmentally-sound than driving a car, most bike frames are constructed out of materials that are decidedly not renewable. Think: steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, molybdenum, and titanium. Extracting these elements is labor-intensive, environmentally destructive, and can threaten public health.
For instance, I grew up 60 miles down-river of Leadville, Colorado, where the mining industry allowed heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc to leach into the soil and water. The Environmental Protection Agency declared Leadville and the 20 square-miles around the town a Superfund site.
So imagine if we could make strong, light-weight, functional bicycles without mining, not to mention out of plants that grow like weeds. Well, we’re getting closer to that reality, although most bamboo bicycles contain some metal components.
You can purchase your own custom-made bamboo bicycle from Calfree Design. They claim that their bikes are tough, and they offer a ten-year warranty on them. They’re expensive though. All of the frames that are “on special” on Calfree’s website cost well over $1,000. But “if there were an award for ‘Bicycle with lowest carbon footprint’ (least amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the production of the frame), this frame would win, hands down,” Calfree’s site boasts.
You can also learn how to build a bamboo bicycle yourself.
Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn offers workshops where you can learn to build one in a weekend. They’re also not cheap. The full bike workshop costs $932 and the frame-only workshop costs $632.
But some of the proceeds go to a great cause. The Bamboo Bike Studio is working with partners, including the Bamboo Bike Project, to establish bamboo bicycle factories in “Millennium Cities, starting with Kumasi, Ghana, Kisumu, Kenya, and Quito, Ecuador.” They hope the factories will, “provide a lower-cost, more durable, locally manufactured form of transport specifically designed for local terrain.” Unfortunately you’ll have to wait awhile to attend one of their workshops. They’re full through September.
But if you’re seriously into do-it-yourself, you could check out this how-to on Instructables. (However, as the disclaimer says, “Death or serious injury can result from a bicycle frame failure. … Be smart.)
Hopefully as more companies start to manufacture bamboo bicycles, the prices will come down, making bamboo bicycles a more accessible option for more people.
Would you ride a bamboo bicycle?
A Snapshot of Car-Usage in America
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on May 4, 2010
(Originally published September 14, 2009, reprinted in celebration of National Bike Month)
The 5 U.S. cities (1,000+ population) with the least car ownership* (2000 census):
- Hooper Bay, Alaska (Pop. 1022) - 95.65% of households car-free.
- New Square Village, NY (Pop. 4707) – 73.77% of households car-free.
- Kaser Village, NY (Pop. 3299) – 68.57% of households car-free.
- Kiryas Joel Village, NY – (Pop. 13,214) – 57.78% of households car-free.
- Kotzebue, Alaska – (Pop. 3082) – 51.29% of households car-free.
Number of U.S. cities (1000+ Population) in which 100% of households own a car (2000 census):
Average cost per year of owning and operating a vehicle (2008):
Average percentage of household income Americans spend on transportation costs each year (2007):
Number of minutes per day the average American reports spending behind the wheel (2007):
Amount of time the average 16 year-old American will spend driving a car in his or her lifetime (Figure based on 87 minutes per day average driving-time and a 77.8 year life-expectancy):
3.73 years
Percentage of workers who commute to work in a car alone every day:
Average cost of a new car:
Number of motor vehicles scrapped in the U.S. every year (2007):
Federal Highway Administration budget for 2010:
Federal Transit Administration budget for 2010:
Federal Railway Administration budget for 2010:
*Click on hyperlinks to see sources for statistics.
May is National Bike Month!
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on May 3, 2010
I’m taking a blogging vacation and a mini digital detox this week to hang out with family visiting from out of town. But in honor of National Bike Month, I’ll be celebrating bikes all week by rerunning some of my previous posts about bicycles and car-free living. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll see you next week!
Credit: Tammy Strobel
Bicycle Love (originally published May 5, 2009)
May is National Bike Month! Oh bikes, how I love thee. Let me count the reasons…..
10. Bikes are quiet.
You’ll never get woken up at midnight, because your teenage neighbor’s revving his bike engine. And imagine if they replaced that freeway next to your house with a seven-lane bike path.
9. You can cart groceries home on a bike.
Baskets are classy. Panniers are sophisticated. Cargo bikes are cool. And you can make your own hauling machine with a simple grocery cart.
8. Bikes run on renewable resources – food, water, and human calories.
With the obesity rate hovering around 35%, quite a few of us have some calories to spare.
7. Cycling tones your muscles, heart, and lungs.
The American Heart Association says all healthy adults ages 18 to 65 should get at least 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise five days a week. With a bike, you can probably get that on your commute to work.
6. Bikes enable you to smile and wave at your neighbors.
Social isolation is growing in the U.S. Let’s get out of our cars and take a spin around our neighborhoods.
5. Bikes are thrifty.
Check out Bike at Work’s calculator to see how much cash you can save by dumping your car.
4. Bikes emit zero pollution.
Automobiles belch out 333 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, not to mention nitrogen oxide, sulpher oxide, toluene, benzene, formaldehyde, and more. All bikes emit is a little human sweat.
3. Once you’ve learned how to ride a bike, you never forget.
What can I say … it’s like riding a bike.
2. Bikes are economical.
What’s the world’s most efficient mode of transportation? You guessed it – the bike. For energy burned per miles travelled, cycling is three to five times more efficient than walking. And it trounces running, driving a moped, taking a train, car-pooling, horseback riding, and swimming. (Sadly the least efficient mode of transport seems to be America’s favorite – driving a car with no passengers.)
And finally, the ultimate reason I love the bicycle…..
1. Bikes took down the bustle and the corset.
That’s right, ladies. The bicycle craze in the 1890s changed womens’ fashion forever. Women abandoned their confining corsets and adopted what was known as common-sense dressing.
In 1896, Susan B. Anthony said, “I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle, and away she goes, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
Let’s celebrate our two-wheeled friends all month by taking them everywhere. Note that Bike-to-Work Week is May 17-21, and Bike–to-Work Day is Friday, May 21. Employers can find out how to participate here.
What are your top reasons for loving bikes?
Adults on Bikes
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation, Social movements on March 15, 2010
Shareable.net published my article about three different bike cooperatives today. It starts:
Over a hundred years ago, H.G. Wells famously quipped, “When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.”
When Wells wrote his novel Cycles of Change in 1896, the world was in the throes of a bicycling craze. James Kemp Starley’s 1885 invention of the modern bicycle enabled the working classes to travel quickly and cheaply for the first time. Women who had been constricted in corsets, hoops, and petticoats were donning bloomers and discovering a newfound freedom of movement.
Today in the United States it can be harder to muster Wells’ optimism about the bicycle. Only one percent of urban trips in this country are made by bike, and only 0.55 percent of people commute to work on a bicycle.
And although Susan B. Anthony once credited the bicycle with doing “more to emancipate women than anything else in the world,” today the vast majority of American cyclists are white males. According to research by John Pucher, American men make three times more trips by bicycle than women. Plus, a 2008 NSGA Sports Performance Study found that while African Americans and Hispanics make up 12 and 15 percent of the U.S. population respectively, each group represents only about six percent of bicyclists.
Obviously there are some huge barriers to bicycling in the United States, especially for women and minorities.
Nevertheless I discovered ample reason for optimism about the future of American bicycling. In cities across the country, people are coming together to form bicycle cooperatives with the mission to make buying, building, and repairing bikes an affordable, accessible, and shareable experience. And many of them are reaching out to women and minorities.
You can read the rest of the article here.
Plan a Bicycle Trip
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation, Parenting on March 11, 2010
Google Maps added a “bicycle” option! Now they’ll help you find the best route by car, public transit, on foot, or by bicycle. The bike function is still being tested, and Google is asking for users’ feedback to guarantee their routes are actually bicycle-safe.
I just tested it by asking for a map of the best bicycle route from my house to my friend’s house across town. I wouldn’t say it chose the absolute best route, as it sent me up a busy street when I know of a couple of safer, more enjoyable routes. But it was a much better route for biking than the way they recommend for cars. So it’s definitely an improvement.
Check it out!
And speaking of bikes, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that my son is crazy about them. He runs and find his bike first thing in the morning, and he squeals “Vroom vroom” every time someone rides past on a bike. He’s also a big fan of wearing his helmet and riding in his bike trailer.
In this nice, peaceful stretch of time before he starts making everything into guns, I must also say, it’s thrilling to see how much he loves reading books, or “nanomes” as he calls them, and smelling flowers, or “floofs”.
And yes, he’s also big on making up his own words.
Bamboo Bicycles
Posted by Abby Quillen in Alternative transportation on March 1, 2010
A couple of years ago, my husband and I were going to plant running bamboo along our back fence. Then we casually mentioned the idea to our next-door neighbor. She looked, well, terrified.
Bamboo is an amazing plant. It’s used to make musical instruments, toys, tools, weapons, flooring, paper, food, cooking oil, vinegar, and alcohol. But it’s also a bit noxious, at least in these parts.
When we were thinking of growing it, we visited a peaceful bamboo garden on the outskirts of town. The gardener showed us around and explained the difference between the many varieties of bamboo that rustled overhead in the slight breeze.
Then the conversation turned to warfare.
“You’ll need to dig a two-foot-deep trench all the way around your bamboo and bury this in it.” He held up a roll of thick, black plastic. “This needs to stick up at least three inches above the soil. The bamboo’s rhizomes will try to jump it. So leave a foot or so of bare ground all the way around the trench. That way you can see them coming over. When they do, mow them down immediately.”
It sounded more like prison-tower watch duty than gardening.
But there’s an upside to bamboo’s invasive nature. It is not only a useful plant; it’s an incredibly renewable resource.
And now you can get a bike made out of it.
Although riding a bike is considerably more environmentally-sound than driving a car, most bike frames are constructed out of materials that are decidedly not renewable. Think: steel, carbon fiber, aluminum, molybdenum, and titanium. Extracting these elements is labor-intensive, environmentally destructive, and can threaten public health.
For instance, I grew up 60 miles down-river of Leadville, Colorado, where the mining industry allowed heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and zinc to leach into the soil and water. The Environmental Protection Agency declared Leadville and the 20 square-miles around the town a Superfund site.
So imagine if we could make strong, light-weight, functional bicycles without mining, not to mention out of plants that grow like weeds. Well, we’re getting closer to that reality, although most bamboo bicycles contain some metal components.
You can purchase your own custom-made bamboo bicycle from Calfree Design. They claim that their bikes are tough, and they offer a ten-year warranty on them. They’re expensive though. All of the frames that are “on special” on Calfree’s website cost well over $1,000. But “if there were an award for ‘Bicycle with lowest carbon footprint’ (least amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the production of the frame), this frame would win, hands down,” Calfree’s site boasts.
You can also learn how to build a bamboo bicycle yourself.
Bamboo Bike Studio in Brooklyn offers workshops where you can learn to build one in a weekend. They’re also not cheap. The full bike workshop costs $932 and the frame-only workshop costs $632.
But some of the proceeds go to a great cause. The Bamboo Bike Studio is working with partners, including the Bamboo Bike Project, to establish bamboo bicycle factories in “Millennium Cities, starting with Kumasi, Ghana, Kisumu, Kenya, and Quito, Ecuador.” They hope the factories will, “provide a lower-cost, more durable, locally manufactured form of transport specifically designed for local terrain.” Unfortunately you’ll have to wait awhile to attend one of their workshops. They’re full through September.
But if you’re seriously into do-it-yourself, you could check out this how-to on Instructables. (However, as the disclaimer says, “Death or serious injury can result from a bicycle frame failure. … Be smart.)
Hopefully as more companies start to manufacture bamboo bicycles, the prices will come down, making bamboo bicycles a more accessible option for more people.
Would you ride a bamboo bicycle?
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