Shek's Footprint

About 500 yards down the 800 yard long two lane section of Deerwood Park Blvd, 1 min and 15 seconds into it, a black sub compact that was patiently following me started to honk. The other lane was fairly busy, there was no room to pass. The traffic light was red, therefore, even if I was not on the road, they would have no where to go.

When I was stopped for the first time, the passenger, male, leaned out of the window and asked me fairly politely with a hint of frustration to stay on the side of the road. I turned around and explained that the lane is less than fourteen feet wide making it unsafe for me to stay on the side. To this, the passenger asked me why I don’t wear a helmet! This was a rhetorical question on the passenger’s behalf because he quickly returned to his usual perch and rolled the windows up as I was saying, “It is not the law”.

The inherent problem with the motorist’s abrasive culture against bicyclists is that few take time to research the law and its inherent flaws. I wish they would like to stop for a conversation and let me explain that I don’t wear a helmet not only because it is not the law. I would start by the epic video of Jens Voigt crashing at high speeds during Stage 16 of the 2009 Tour de France, wearing a helmet but sustaining injuries on his face, not a scratch on his helmet. Further, I would talk about the two crashes during last month’s Women’s ride where the first one walked off without head injuries while the second one had a swollen ankle and no head injuries.

Thereafter, I would point to this study http://bhsi.org/walkerstudy.htm where a cyclist gets extra room and consideration when not wearing a helmet. Though this study was done in the UK, it holds true for USA because the cycling culture and its popularity are similar in both countries. Moreover, I have personally experienced the change in attitude of the motorists in terms of passing clearance once I ditched my helmet.

What I do is bicycling for transportation. Most times I ride under 12 miles per hour. At that speed a fall will mostly result from being hit by a 3000 pound or heavier vehicle, at which point a helmet is vastly insufficient.

From Ken Keifer’s research on this matter,

bicycle head injuries constitute only about from 1.02% to 1.54% of the US total serious head injuries and from .56% to .87% of the head injury deaths. The largest group of head injuries, by the way, are among motorists. Therefore, bicycling is not dangerous, nor is it a leading cause of head injury.

The passenger in the car had already made up his mind that I was illegally blocking his path. After our brief conversation, he had assumed that I am a hypocrite who is spinning his own tales of safety. I find that inference bigotry because he isn’t the one on the same road as rush hour motorists pedaling along. It is foolish to pass judgment on an activity that you are not participating in and therefore can not comprehend.

I successfully achieved my multi modal transport to First Fridays at Five Points. The fourteen mile trip was accomplished one mile on the bike to the bus stop, about 10 miles to Downtown and then a further three miles on the bike to Five Points.

Mine was the only bike on the bus and I shared the trip with four other passengers. I reached Five Points by 7:30 PM after leaving my apartment at 6 PM. Therefore, it took the same amount of time if I would have ridden my bike all the way to Five Points. The journey was fairly friction free except of course the part where I rode on the service road to the bus stop. That one mile stretch was nothing out of the ordinary. Four to five honks and yells all because they had to wait ten seconds to find a gap in oncoming traffic and overtake me.

The verdict is I would do it again only if I felt like not riding my bike. The bus did not save me any extra time. Riding 14 miles is a good work out. I also would not use the JTA if I do not have a ride back from my destination. The Dutch bike in the picture above is the only one that fits on a bus bike rack and is not fit for a 14 mile return journey. Further, the bus was clean and had security cameras inside it. There was a high level of social safety.

Yesterday evening was dissapointing. Instead of having a refreshing ride to Downtown and spending a couple of hours at the First Wednesday Art Walk, I chose to sit at home watching the weather get from bad to worse, watching Weeds season 4 on DVD.

I dont mind riding 12 miles to walk, mingle, buy art and eat food in the Urban Core. What I do mind is getting soaked during the one hour ride only to change into dry clothes and get soaked again at the remaining hour of art walk. That, in my opinion is a low quality evening. I could have tried a bus transit but that would involve me riding in the rain on the awful service road.

Tomorrow is First Fridays at Five Points. Tomorrow is the day I use JTA’s ‘extensive’ bus network to arrive at my destination. I can catch the B7 from the nearby Publix at 6:23 PM (next bus at 7:18 PM, 55 mins after), get off at The Landing, then ride my bike along the Riverwalk to Five Points. All said and done, I will reach my destination by 7:45 PM.

Pros:
Multi Modal commute
Free fare on B7
Weather proof ride till the Landing

Cons:
Riding on the Service Road at 6 PM
No JTA service to come back home (thankfully I have a ride)
55 minute wait time if I miss the bus

$4500 is given towards a new car to people whose clunker achieved 10 mpg or more lower than the new car. $3500 if the mpg difference between the clunker and the new car is less than 10.

Lets assume that most people with an 18 mpg clunker “upgraded” to an SUV achieving 5 mpg more. They received $3500 from the $1,000,000,000 allocated funding. Some simple division later, approximately 285,000 clunkers were pulled off the streets (1,000,000,000 / 3500). Therefore, there are now 285,000 people or families on the road saving 5mpg (or saving 0.012 gallons per mile) more than they usually were.

An average family drives around 15,000 miles a year. This leads to 180 gallons of gasoline saved per family per year. For the 285,000 clunkers replaced, we save 51,300,000 gallons of gasoline every year. Increase the federal funding to $3 billion and we will save a little over 153 million gallons of gasoline every year.

If the average clunker is replaced by a vehicle achieving 7.5 mpg higher, with a $3 billion stimulus, America will save almost 205,200,000 gallons of gasoline every year.

The total consumption of Finished Motor Gasoline is 137,801,370,000 gallons (approximately 8,989,000 barrels per day in 2008. Data from http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html). Hence, a $3 billion funding, by saving 205,200,000 gallons of gasoline, saves only 0.1489% of total consumption. Not too significant in my opinion.

To achieve a 1% reduction in nationwide motor gasoline usage, around $20 billion (that is $20,000,000,000) needs to be pumped into the new-car market replacing over 5.7 million vehicles with a new vehicle achieving 7.5 mpg higher.

I wonder if gasoline consumption can be reduced by 1% by utilizing only $3 billion in bicycle infrastructure and alternate energy driven mass transit and rail infrastructure? The budget for this year’s Mass Transit infrastructure is $8 billion, $5 billion more each year for the next 5 years, not including operating costs. The Cash-for-Clunker’s $3 billion will be a nice addition to the mass transit budget and shave off 8 months from the 5 year proposal.

Further, evaluating the impact on a family, and assuming $3 billion in funding, these 857,000 families (285,000 X 3, assuming one clunker per family though there is no such rule) will save around 180 gallons of motor gasoline related expenses. At an average cost of $2.50 per gallon of gasoline, each family saves a measly $450 a year and gains $15,000 or more debt on a depreciating asset. With $3 billion in funding towards overhauling the streets to make bicycling actually and subjectively safe, families may be able to reduce from two cars to one, saving upwards of $4000 annually in car payments, insurance and gas.

My 50 year old mass produced dutch city bike, a text book definition of clunker, needs no replacement. At the most, it needs $50 of TLC. The next time someone tells me to get a registration for my bicycle, I’ll tell them at least I don’t need Cash for my Clunker!