The Price of Our Freedom to Waste

June 7, 2015, 8:00 a.m.

Note (from The Gazette): Members of the Writers Circle met in Iowa City last month to discuss the topic of “waste” — an issue proved to be more complex than it might have seemed at first blush.

The discussion kicked off with a handful of questions: What do we mean by waste? Where do we see waste in our lives and community?

What harm is there in wastefulness, and if it’s so bad, why does it continue to be a problem? What are some possible solutions?

Today, three members share their reflections about our discussion. [In addition to Nicholas Johnson's column, reproduced below, the other two are Bob Elliott, "Waste: It's Not Simple Anymore," p. C1, and Wilf Nixon, "Resources Looking for a Purpose," p. C4, all three currently available in The Gazette Online.]

_______________
Curbing Waste: Bad News, Good News

Nicholas Johnson, Writers Circle
The Gazette, June 7, 2015, p. C1

“Wasted” can refer to our money, health, food, building materials, garbage, last year’s fashions, lives of the most desperate of our fellow humans — or a binge drinking college student. [Iowa City Landfill; photo credit: Sujin Kim/IowaWatch)

Do corporations’ products built-in obsolescence, or their encouraging conspicuous consumption of “the latest thing,” create “waste”?

Rudyard Kipling advised us to “fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run." Are minutes less filled a waste of time?

This column leaves those questions to others while focusing on next steps. Once there’s agreement on what “waste” is, what can we do about it? How, if at all, can Americans be motivated to change?

Here are some illustrations.

Last month we celebrated “Bike to Work Week.” Compared to car costs (running over 40 cents a mile), bicycling is virtually free. For short trips, with easier parking, they can be faster. They don’t require drilling in the Artic wilderness, or military protection of “our oil” under others’ sand. They don’t pollute or accelerate climate change. Biking keeps you trim, happy and healthy, reducing your (and our nation’s) health care costs.

One member of this Writers Circle walks, bikes, and seldom drives over 400 miles a year. The Sierra Club calculates that even far less — substituting a couple short bike rides for car trips each week — would save 2 billion gallons of gas, its impact on climate change, and billions of dollars.

Future wars will be fought over water. The best shower? Get wet. Turn off the water. Suds up. Rinse off. It’s both more effective and efficient than running water for 20 minutes. If millions would do it, billions of gallons would be saved.

The same can be said for turning off the lights when you leave a room, or throwing cans in a recycling basket rather than the wastebasket.

The literature is replete with hundreds more examples. We know what to do. And it takes little time or sacrifice to do it.

The problem? Americans don’t have to be Libertarians to believe the Constitution guarantees their right to act in ways a majority considers stupid — if they don’t harm others. As President Lyndon Johnson used to say, “I don’t shove worth a damn.” What we need is better understanding of how to motivate such people without criminalizing their behavior or denying them their choice.

But how?

Bad boys, for devilment, used to tie a tin can on a dog’s tail and watch it try to outrun the noise. It gave rise to one Writers Circle member’s insight: “tie your reform to the tail of greed, and watch it run off down the street.” Otherwise put, “You get what you measure,” or what you incentivize — whether the standards for faculty tenure, or the installation of seat belts once they’re mandated for the federal government’s cars.

We can be motivated by education, information, appeals by celebrities — whether public service announcements, such as anti-smoking TV spots, or programming. When the Harvard School of Public Health asked Hollywood producers to include shots of drivers fastening seat belts in their films, lives were saved as public compliance followed.

Informed discussions among those chosen as scientific polling samples produce more thoughtful responses. What’s called “deliberative democracy polling” could radically alter the public’s and politicians’ views on public policy.

The five-cent deposit on cans and bottles encourages recycling. Lower auto insurance rates for the accident-free encourages safer driving. “Cap and trade” pollution reduction (income for reduced pollution; choice to pay to pollute more) seems to work. A restaurateur’s smoke-free restaurant (before legally required) actually attracted more customers.

Some major corporations are discovering it’s profitable to move from a linear economy (raw materials to manufacturing, to sale and use, to landfill) to a circular economy (raw materials to manufacturing, to sale and use, to reuse of products’ raw materials through restoration and resale). This not only reduces waste of non-renewable resources. Unilever’s 240 factories in 67 countries now send zero waste to landfills. The sale of an electric car transportation service (rather than “a car”), for a monthly charge, with “new” rebuilt cars and batteries every three years, would be a win-win-win for manufacturers, dealers, drivers — and the planet.

No matter how we define “waste,” the bad news is there’s no groundswell of support to stop it, given the protests of those who profit from it. The good news is that we can be motivated to change.

_______________
• Nick Johnson is a former Federal Communications Commissioner and author of Test Pattern for Living, writes at www.nicholasjohnson.org and FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com

# # #

Bike to Work, Bike for Life

May 17, 2013, 10:15 Bicycles as Problem Solvers
Every year about this time, Iowa City devotes a week to reflecting upon, and riding upon, bicycles as a preferred system of small town transportation. See, e.g., Alesha L. Crews, "Leave the car, take the bike; Events this week celebrate two-wheeled travel," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 15, 2013, p. A1 ("Many locals are leaving their cars at home this week to take part in the annual Bike to Work Week challenge, a change organizers hope will continue throughout the rest of year."); "Iowa City's Bicycle Friendly Community rating upgraded to silver," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 13, 2013 ("Iowa City received a silver status upgrade by the League of American Bicyclists May 13" for its additional bike racks and bike lanes).

One of the annual features of the week is the "race" that compares the speed of traveling around the Iowa City-Coralville area by car, bus, and bicycle. Lee Hermiston, "Neuzil, Bike Make for Winning Team; Officials Enjoy Competing in Annual Race," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 14, 2013, p. A3. As usually happens, the bicycle won. As Hermiston reported, "[Johnson County Board of Supervisors member Terrence]Neuzil squared off against Iowa City Councilor Jim Throgmorton who, reluctantly, drove his car and University Heights City Councilor Mike Haverkamp, who hitched his bike to a Coralville Transit bus. The race took the men from the Coralville Public Library to the Iowa City Public Library. Neuzil won the race ahead of Throgmorton by about three minutes. Haverkamp was several minutes behind Throgmorton."

That pretty well puts away one of the oft-proffered excuses for not biking: "I just don't have the time." What you don't have the time for is driving. It's like I say to folks standing at a bus stop as I pass by on my one-mile walk to town (when the roads are too icy to bike). They ask, "How can you walk in the winter? It's so cold." "No," I reply. "What's cold is standing at a bus stop for longer than it takes me to walk. Walking's comfortable."

But there are more false excuses for not biking than time -- almost all of which have equally persuasive answers and solutions. And many more benefits of biking than speed. Here are some of them:

Costs. Even without $4 or $5 gas, operating a car is extraordinarily expensive -- and even more in time than in money. Years ago, when the average mileage was 7500 miles a year, I calculated (a) the total costs of car ownership: amortization of the purchase price, gas and oil, repairs, insurance and license fees, parking fees, tolls, and so forth. (b) The amount of time it would take the average car owner to earn the money to pay these costs -- plus the time it takes to drive the car, take the car to the mechanic and pick it up, pump the gas, look for parking, and similar non-transportation, car-related time consumption. (c) The total time totaled 1500 hours a year. (d) To take 1500 hours to go 7500 miles is an average of 5 miles an hour -- something you can do without an automobile with a very brisk walk -- not to mention with a bicycle. (e) Can't get from Iowa City to Des Moines that way? Think again. You start working, I'll start walking. I'll be there before you. And that's walking! A biker who's in shape ought to be able to average 15-20 miles an hour and get there days before you do. (Bike racers go 30-40 mph.) This may not be a reason to never own, rent, or otherwise operate an automobile. But unless you are so wealthy that "money is no object," it is certainly something to think about for trips around town when a bike would do as well, or better than, a car. You can acquire, operate, maintain and insure a bicycle for roughly 1% of the cost of a car. [Photo credit: Google/multiple sources.]

Time Saving, Convenience. Parking in an urban area can be a real hassle, as well as an added cost, whether navigating a parking garage or looking for street parking. My rule of thumb when looking for street parking in the Georgetown area of Washington years ago was to pick the first parking space I could find within one mile of my destination. The 15-minute walk would take less time than driving around and around looking for a closer place to park. Iowa City's not that bad, but you can no longer pull up in front of your downtown destination (and not have to deal with parking meters!), as was the case when I was a boy. And don't talk to me about parking garages! The ticket often turns into nothing more than a hunting license, as you drive around and around, ever upward, until you end up parking on the roof. And allow plenty of time to exit, especially if you're coming from an event where numerous other attendees are in line ahead of you trying to get out.

You don't have to warm up your bike in the winter. You don't have to search for your car keys (if you have a combination lock for the bike). The odds are good there will be either a bike rack, or something else to lock your bike to, right outside the front door of your destination. And you will be taking up about 1/30th the space required for a car when you do so.

War for Oil. We send our brave soldiers off to war around the world in search of an answer to the perplexing question: "How did our oil get under their sand?" It costs taxpayers trillions of dollars to provide this military protection for our oil companies -- not to mention tens of thousands of lives, and hundreds of thousands of wounded, Americans and others, military and civilian. Bicycles do require a little lubricant for the chain from time to time, but aside from that their only demands for energy involve peddling with your leg muscles.

And Speaking of Muscles -- and Obesity. You can bike outdoors all over town for a month for far less than what your favorite fitness center will charge you to bike in one place indoors. And if you're interested in firming up, and losing a little weight (whether for yourself or your kids) -- and who isn't -- biking just may be your answer. It's cheaper than Lipitor and better for your heart -- as well as a positive for prevention of diabetes and cancer. In fact, virtually every bit of advice about our health, regardless of the disease or injury in question, ends up coming back to "diet and exercise."

Multitasking. "Don't move your thumbs while I'm talking." Students sit in class with their laptops, managing their Facebook pages. Couples sit in restaurants, each on their cell phone. Kids think they can do their homework while watching TV, talking on the phone to one person, while texting another. Whatever you think about those kids of electronic multitasking, bicycling offers another that is in no way socially offensive.

You have to go to work, or shop for groceries. If you drive, maybe you'll listen to the radio, music, or engage in the risky behavior of talking on a cell phone or texting. But if you hop on your bike, instead of hopping into the car, for those trips (or even portions of them; drive to cheap parking, with a bike rack and your bike; bike the rest of the way) you're multitasking: building exercise into your day in a way that takes no additional time (or money!) whatsoever. Bike baskets can carry many of the items you formerly drove to the store to get; and if you want to do more, the relatively cheap bike trailers will enable you to carry almost anything -- up to and including your small child.

Stress Reduction. Driving can be noisy, aggravating and stressful. Biking makes virtually no noise and is more calming and peaceful; the additional oxygen to the brain makes you more creative. You are closer to nature and know you're doing something that uses no fuel, is non-polluting, and healthier for both you and the Planet. And that's just for the commuting and shopping trips. With 80 miles of bike trails locally, there's also safe recreational riding -- such as the Clear Creek trail from Iowa City to the Coral Ridge Mall, or the Iowa River Corridor Trail from the City Park to the new Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and lake along Sand Road. That will really clear your mind.

This listing of bicycling's benefits could go on and on, but as a concession to the necessary shortness of a blog essay, and life itself, it will stop here.

Finally, for old time's sake, a republication of a column I wrote on the subject for the New York Times 40 years ago. A little background: I was then working as an FCC Commissioner in downtown Washington, D.C., living in Maryland, and commuting by bicycle each day along the C & O Canal towpath. The facts it contains are from 1973, and the theme of the column is as much an anti-automobile-petroleum-based transportation system tirade as pro-bicycle -- as befits the early '70s. But many of the points are still valid. Chapter 7 ["Antidote for Automobiles"] in Test Pattern for Living, published by Bantam Books at about that time, and scheduled for reissue sometime this summer, strikes a similar theme.

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2
I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
__________
Happy biking -- not just for "Bike to Work Week," but the other 51 weeks as well.

# # #

Bicycles As Problem Solvers

May 14, 2012, 9:10 a.m.

Bike a Week, Bike for Life
As the Press-Citizen reminds us, "Bike to Work Week" has rolled around on its two wheels again this year. Editorial, "Try Biking to Work This Week, Month," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 14, 2012, p. A 7 ("As we have during past Bike to Work weeks, we urge area residents to try biking at least part of their commutes or errand-running this week."). For local resources see "Think Bicycles" (and thanks to Rod Sullivan for that link).

Just as dutifully, here's my annual essay on the subject. These ideas were first advanced 40 years ago as a section of an article in the Saturday Review, Nicholas Johnson, "Test Pattern for Living; How About Trying to Find Out What You Would Do and Be and Think and Create if There Weren't Some Corporation Trying to Sell You on Doing Everything Its Way," Saturday Review, May 29, 1971, which was modified into a chapter in a subsequent book with the same title, "Antidote to Automobiles," Nicholas Johnson, Test Pattern for Living (Bantam, 1972), ch. 7, pp. 110-117, and later in the New York Times, Nicholas Johnson, "Bicycles are Model Citizens; The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking," New York Times, August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2 -- reprinted at the bottom of this blog entry.
_______________
Iowa City is once again devoting a week to reflecting upon, and riding upon, bicycles as a preferred system of small town transportation.

The week has often involved some data gathering regarding the comparative virtues of three transportation modes: automobile, bus, and bicycle. The conclusion from the bike, car, and bus race across town last year, from the Coralville Library to the Iowa City Library? "[T]he commute takes about the same amount of time, no matter what mode of transportation." As Emily Schlettler quoted Coralville City Council member Tom Gill as saying, "'Why burn the gas? The commute by bike is more convenient and quicker.'" Emily Schlettler, "Bike to Work Week Celebrated," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 17, 2011, p. A3.

Of course, there are many more reasons than efficiency and comparable speed for biking. Here are some of them:

Costs. Even without $3 or $5 gas, operating a car is extraordinarily expensive -- and even more in time than in money. Years ago, when the average mileage was 7500 miles a year, I calculated (a) the total costs of car ownership: amortization of the purchase price, gas and oil, repairs, insurance and license fees, parking fees, tolls, and so forth. (b) The amount of time it would take the average car owner to earn the money to pay these costs -- plus the time it takes to drive the car, take the car to the mechanic and pick it up, pump the gas, look for parking, and similar non-transportation, car-related time consumption. (c) The total time totaled 1500 hours a year. (d) To take 1500 hours to go 7500 miles is an average of 5 miles an hour -- something you can do without an automobile in a very brisk walk. (e) Can't get from Iowa City to Des Moines that way? Think again. You start working, I'll start walking. I'll be there before you. And that's walking! A biker who's in shape ought to be able to average 20 miles an hour and get there days before you do. This may not be a reason to never own, rent, or otherwise operate an automobile. But unless you are so wealthy that "money is no object," it is certainly something to think about for trips around town when a bike would do as well, or better than, a car. You can acquire, operate, maintain and insure a bicycle for roughly 1% of the cost of a car.

Time Saving, Convenience. Parking in an urban area can be a real hassle, as well as an added cost, whether navigating a parking garage or looking for street parking. My rule of thumb when looking for street parking in the Georgetown area of Washington was to pick the first parking space I could find within one mile of my destination. The 15-minute walk would take less time than driving around and around looking for a closer place to park. Iowa City's not that bad, but you can no longer pull up in front of your downtown destination (and not have to deal with parking meters!), as was the case when I was a boy. And don't talk to me about parking garages! The ticket often turns into nothing more than a hunting license, as you drive around and around, ever upward, until you end up parking on the roof. And allow plenty of time to exit, especially if you're coming from an event where numerous other attendees are in line ahead of you trying to pay for the pain of parking and exit.

You don't have to warm up your bike in the winter. You don't have to search for your car keys (if you have a combination lock for the bike). The odds are good there will be either a bike rack, or something else to lock your bike to, right outside the front door of your destination. And you will be taking up about 1/30th the space required for a car when you do so.

War for Oil. We send our brave soldiers off to war around the world in search of an answer to the perplexing question: "How did our oil get under their sand?" It costs us taxpayers trillions of dollars to provide this military protection for our oil companies -- not to mention tens of thousands of lives, and hundreds of thousands of wounded, Americans and others, military and civilian. Bicycles do require a little lubricant for the chain from time to time, but aside from that their only demands for energy involve peddling with your leg muscles.

And Speaking of Muscles -- and Obesity. You can bike outdoors all over town for a month for far less than what your favorite fitness center will charge you to bike in one place indoors. And if you're interested in firming up, and losing a little weight -- and who isn't -- biking just may be your answer. It's cheaper than Lipitor and better for your heart -- as well as a positive for prevention of diabetes and cancer. In fact, virtually every bit of advice about our health, regardless of the disease or injury in question, ends up coming back to "diet and exercise."

Multitasking. "Don't move your thumbs while I'm talking." Students sit in class with their laptops, managing their Facebook pages. Couples sit in restaurants, each on their cell phone. Kids think they can do their homework while watching TV, talking on the phone to one person, while texting another. Whatever you think about those kids of electronic multitasking, bicycling offers another that is in no way socially offensive. You have to go to work, or shop for groceries. If you drive, maybe you'll listen to the radio, music, or engage in the risky behavior of talking on a cell phone or texting. But if you hop on your bike, instead of hopping into the car, for those trips (or even portions of them; drive to cheap parking, with a bike rack and your bike; bike the rest of the way) you're multitasking: building exercise into your day in a way that takes no additional time (or money!) whatsoever. Bike baskets can carry many of the items you formerly drove to the store to get; and if you want to do more, the relatively cheap bike trailers will enable you to carry almost anything -- up to and including your small child.

Stress Reduction. Driving can be noisy, aggravating and stressful. Biking makes virtually no noise and is more calming and peaceful; the additional oxygen to the brain makes you more creative. You are closer to nature and know you're doing something that uses no fuel, is non-polluting, and healthier for both you and the Planet. And that's just for the commuting and shopping trips. With 80 miles of bike trails locally, there's also safe recreational riding -- such as the Clear Creek trail from Iowa City to the Coral Ridge Mall, or the Iowa River Corridor Trail from the City Park to the new Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and lake along Sand Road. That will really clear your mind.

The list could go on and on, but as a concession to the necessary shortness of a blog entry, and life itself, it will stop here.

Finally, for old time's sake, a republication of a column I wrote on the subject for the New York Times about 40 years ago. A little background: I was then working as an FCC Commissioner in downtown Washington, D.C., living in Maryland, and commuting by bicycle each day along the C&O Canal towpath. The facts it contains are from 1973, and the theme of the column is as much an anti-automobile and petroleum-based transportation system tirade as pro-bicycle -- as befits the early '70s. But many of the points are still valid. Chapter 7 ["Antidote for Automobiles"] in Test Pattern for Living, published by Bantam Books a year earlier (and now available for free download), strikes a similar theme.

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2
I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
__________
Happy biking -- not just for "Bike to Work Week," but the other 51 weeks as well.

# # #

Bike to Work, Bike for Life

May 17, 2011, 6:45 a.m.

Bicycles as Problem Solvers
Iowa City is once again devoting a week to reflecting upon, and riding upon, bicycles as a preferred system of small town transportation. Emily Schlettler, "Bike to Work Week Celebrated," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 17, 2011, p. A3.

The conclusion from the bike, car, and bus race across town, from the Coralville Library to the Iowa City Library? "[T]he commute takes about the same amount of time, no matter what mode of transportation." As Schlettler quotes Coralville City Council member Tom Gill as saying, "'Why burn the gas? The commute by bike is more convenient and quicker.'"

Of course, there are many more reasons than efficiency and comparable speed for biking. Here are some of them:

Costs. Even without $4 or $5 gas, operating a car is extraordinarily expensive -- and even more in time than in money. Years ago, when the average mileage was 7500 miles a year, I calculated (a) the total costs of car ownership: amortization of the purchase price, gas and oil, repairs, insurance and license fees, parking fees, tolls, and so forth. (b) The amount of time it would take the average car owner to earn the money to pay these costs -- plus the time it takes to drive the car, take the car to the mechanic and pick it up, pump the gas, look for parking, and similar non-transportation, car-related time consumption. (c) The total time totaled 1500 hours a year. (d) To take 1500 hours to go 7500 miles is an average of 5 miles an hour -- something you can do without an automobile in a very brisk walk. (e) Can't get from Iowa City to Des Moines that way? Think again. You start working, I'll start walking. I'll be there before you. And that's walking! A biker who's in shape ought to be able to average 20 miles an hour and get there days before you do. This may not be a reason to never own, rent, or otherwise operate an automobile. But unless you are so wealthy that "money is no object," it is certainly something to think about for trips around town when a bike would do as well, or better than, a car. You can acquire, operate, maintain and insure a bicycle for roughly 1% of the cost of a car.

Time Saving, Convenience. Parking in an urban area can be a real hassle, as well as an added cost, whether navigating a parking garage or looking for street parking. My rule of thumb when looking for street parking in the Georgetown area of Washington was to pick the first parking space I could find within one mile of my destination. The 15-minute walk would take less time than driving around and around looking for a closer place to park. Iowa City's not that bad, but you can no longer pull up in front of your downtown destination (and not have to deal with parking meters!), as was the case when I was a boy. And don't talk to me about parking garages! The ticket often turns into nothing more than a hunting license, as you drive around and around, ever upward, until you end up parking on the roof. And allow plenty of time to exit, especially if you're coming from an event where numerous other attendees are in line ahead of you trying to get out.

You don't have to warm up your bike in the winter. You don't have to search for your car keys (if you have a combination lock for the bike). The odds are good there will be either a bike rack, or something else to lock your bike to, right outside the front door of your destination. And you will be taking up about 1/30th the space required for a car when you do so.

War for Oil. We send our brave soldiers off to war around the world in search of an answer to the perplexing question: "How did our oil get under their sand?" It costs us taxpayers trillions of dollars to provide this military protection for our oil companies -- not to mention tens of thousands of lives, and hundreds of thousands of wounded, Americans and others, military and civilian. Bicycles do require a little lubricant for the chain from time to time, but aside from that their only demands for energy involve peddling with your leg muscles.

And Speaking of Muscles -- and Obesity. You can bike outdoors all over town for a month for far less than what your favorite fitness center will charge you to bike in one place indoors. And if you're interested in firming up, and losing a little weight -- and who isn't -- biking just may be your answer. It's cheaper than Lipitor and better for your heart -- as well as a positive for prevention of diabetes and cancer. In fact, virtually every bit of advice about our health, regardless of the disease or injury in question, ends up coming back to "diet and exercise."

Multitasking. "Don't move your thumbs while I'm talking." Students sit in class with their laptops, managing their Facebook pages. Couples sit in restaurants, each on their cell phone. Kids think they can do their homework while watching TV, talking on the phone to one person, while texting another. Whatever you think about those kids of electronic multitasking, bicycling offers another that is in no way socially offensive. You have to go to work, or shop for groceries. If you drive, maybe you'll listen to the radio, music, or engage in the risky behavior of talking on a cell phone or texting. But if you hop on your bike, instead of hopping into the car, for those trips (or even portions of them; drive to cheap parking, with a bike rack and your bike; bike the rest of the way) you're multitasking: building exercise into your day in a way that takes no additional time (or money!) whatsoever. Bike baskets can carry many of the items you formerly drove to the store to get; and if you want to do more, the relatively cheap bike trailers will enable you to carry almost anything -- up to and including your small child.

Stress Reduction. Driving can be noisy, aggravating and stressful. Biking makes virtually no noise and is more calming and peaceful; the additional oxygen to the brain makes you more creative. You are closer to nature and know you're doing something that uses no fuel, is non-polluting, and healthier for both you and the Planet. And that's just for the commuting and shopping trips. With 80 miles of bike trails locally, there's also safe recreational riding -- such as the Clear Creek trail from Iowa City to the Coral Ridge Mall, or the Iowa River Corridor Trail from the City Park to the new Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and lake along Sand Road. That will really clear your mind.

The list could go on and on, but as a concession to the necessary shortness of a blog entry, and life itself, it will stop here.

Finally, for old time's sake, a republication of a column I wrote on the subject for the New York Times some 38 years ago. A little background: I was then working as an FCC Commissioner in downtown Washington, D.C., living in Maryland, and commuting by bicycle each day along the C&O Canal towpath. The facts it contains are from 1973, and the theme of the column is as much an anti-automobile and petroleum-based transportation system tirade as pro-bicycle -- as befits the early '70s. But many of the points are still valid. Chapter 7 ["Antidote for Automobiles"] in Test Pattern for Living, published by Bantam Books at about that time (and now available for free download), strikes a similar theme.

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2
I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
__________
Happy biking -- not just for "Bike to Work Week," but the other 51 weeks as well.

# # #

Bicycles: Why Automobiles Are Like Cigarettes

June 17, 2010, 7:10 a.m.
[For BP disaster see, "Uncanny Prediction of BP Disaster & Response," June 10, 2010; "BP's Commercial: Shame on Media," June 9; "Big Oil: Calling Shots, Corrupting Government," May 26, 2010; "Obama As Finger-Pointer-In-Chief," May 18, 2010; "Big Oil + Big Corruption = Big Mess," May 10, 2010; "P&L: Public Loss From Private Profit," May 3, 2010.]

Why Fish Need Bicycles
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
There's a wonderful column in the Press-Citizen this morning by D.J. Moser explaining why fish need bicycles. It's clever, well written, and analytically sound. It's reproduced at the bottom of this blog entry.

Do you recall the line from the 1970's: "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"?

My own realization that fish might actually need bicycles occurred during Iowa City's 1993 flood, while I was bicycling through the City Park. The sidewalk between the ball fields and the River had a couple of inches of water over it, so I was biking even slower than usual to minimize the water on the bike and myself. Looking down, I saw a fish on the sidewalk, alive but lying on its side, also making its way slowly along the path. As I looked at it I said to myself, "Now there's a fish that really does need a bicycle.

D.J.'s point is less frivolous, more related to the day's news -- as you'll see in a moment.

Anyhow, even though bike to work week is long passed, it caused me to Google myself and "bicycles" to see what I might have written on the subject.

Last December someone kindly uploaded a column of which I had no memory whatsoever, with the notation, "Federal Communications Commissioner Nicholas Johnson wrote this piece for the New York Times, Aug. 2, 1973." (They also nicely noted, in reference to my candidacy in the Iowa Third District congressional Democratic primary of 1974 -- following which Chuck Grassley won the general election to Congress -- "Imagine what the Senate might be like if Johnson beat Grassley back then.") Curious, I checked my online bibliography and lo and behold, there was the column. So I guess it is my writing, especially since there is a version of it in my book, Test Pattern for Living.

It's my take on how automobiles are like cigarettes. Because it refers to giving up smoking, I should probably quickly add in this anti-tobacco age that to the best of my memory I have never smoked a cigarette. (Unlike President Clinton, who smoked but didn't inhale, since I lived through a time when cigarette smoke was everywhere, I didn't smoke but did inhale!) The line does, however, reflect the true story of my father's path to giving up tobacco -- too late in his short life, as it turned out.

The column, reflecting the spirit of the 1970s, went like this:

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2.

I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same say, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.

If you've read this far you will understand why D.J. Moser's column caught my eye and caused me to smile and applaud.

(Headlined, "If You Give a Fish a Bicycle," I couldn't help myself from playing with the thought: "Give a fish a bike ride and she can ride for a day; teach her how to ride a bicycle and she can ride for a lifetime." Something like that. Maybe you had to be there.)

Here is Moser's column.

(Because it is copyright, if either he or the Press-Citizen objects to my reproducing it in this context I will, of course, remove it.)

If You Give a Fish a Bicycle
D.J. Moser
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 17, 2010
http://www.press-citizen.com/section/OPINION02

You've probably heard it said that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. This phrase has been around since the 1970s and is a variant of the earlier observation that man needs god like a fish needs a bicycle.

Without getting into such complex matters as feminine needs and religion -- neither of which I yet understand -- I think it's important to point out that fish do need bicycles and they need them badly. [Photo credit: Iowa City Press-Citizen.]

Which fish, you ask?

Well, for starters, the fish that are currently floundering around in the pool o' stank previously known as the Gulf of Mexico.

And what, exactly, are their biking needs? They need us to get off our cans, ride our bikes a little more, drive our cars a little less, and thereby reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

Stop.

I know what you're thinking.

Here's another diatribe from one of those hyperintense, neon spandex-clad bikers who slow traffic by riding four abreast on Iowa City roads.

Not the case.

While I do believe that bikers and motorists must learn to share the road, and that choice of biking apparel is both personal and tricky, please know that I'm a regular guy who rides a 1999 mountain bike to work, using the bike lanes and wearing the baggiest clothes I can find.

But my question is this: "Why do so many people refuse, or not even give consideration to, riding their bike to work or on errands?"

Well, I've conducted my own unscientific poll and the answers are generally unconvincing.

• Biking takes too much time. Really? If you take various shortcuts and bike paths, I think you'll find that bike time and car time are actually pretty comparable in a city like ours. Not to mention the fact that you'll be multi-tasking by running your errand and getting some exercise at the same time.

• Biking makes me sweaty and gives me helmet-head. There are a couple options here. Some bike commuters choose to shower and change at work. It's actually pretty easy to do once you get in the routine. (Admittedly, this isn't an option available to everyone, but it is a choice that many simply fail to consider.)

As for helmet-head, just unbuckle and keep your helmet on as you do your shopping. Shoppers might stare at you, but they might be thinking how sporty and awesome you are.

• Biking's dangerous. Maybe so, but if you obey traffic laws and signs and use some common sense, you can greatly reduce your risk. I've crashed my bike twice in the past 10 years with nothing hurt but my pride.

Of course, there have been some nasty and even fatal car versus bike accidents, but plenty of people get hurt while driving or riding in cars, too. So be alert, be visible, and ride defensively, but don't let safety worries keep you off your bike.

• Bikes are expensive, uncomfortable and complicated. This is simply untrue. Many of us have one or more bikes getting dusty in the garage. Furthermore, there is an almost endless supply of affordable bikes available through sources such as Craigslist, eBay, the Iowa City Bike Library, etc.

As for being uncomfortable and complicated, bikes are getting more user-friendly every day. Take a look at any bike rack in town and you'll see that practical, comfortable bikes are all the rage.

Maybe you're already biking occasionally. If so, great job. Keep up the good work. But if you're using one of the above excuses, please reconsider. Just ride once this week -- just once -- and see how it goes.

You'll be giving the fish the bicycles they need while becoming less addicted to companies like BP.

Ride Baby Ride!

As you see, it all circles back to the prior blog entries linked from the top of this one.

You want to know what you can do about BP's pollution of the Gulf of Mexico.

Here's our suggestion. Think about it.
_______________

* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
# # #

Biking's Many Benefits

For the Week of May 10, 2009; posted May 9, 2009, 5:30 p.m.; May 11, 2009, 6:45 a.m.; May 13, 2009, 7:30 a.m.; May 14, 2009, 5:00 p.m.

Bike for Life
Bike to Work Week
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
It's "Bike to Work Week," Rob Daniel, "Organizers Push Bike to Work Week," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 9, 2009, p. 3, and time for me to pedal my annual spiel for the wheel.

[And see also, Rachel Gallegos, "Bicyclists Take It to the Streets," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 11, 2009, p. 3A; Mike Kilen, "7 tips for enjoyable biking to work," Des Moines Register, May 11, 2009; and "Why I Ride My Bicycle," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 11, 2009, p. 7A ("Seven Iowa City area women write about why they ride their bikes to work and their riding experiences as we kick off Bike to Work Week." Those seven biking authors are: Susan Beckett, Wendy Brown, Erin Fleck, Diana Harris, Karen Kubby, Feather Lacy and Mary Lohse Shepherd); Rob Daniel, "Biker Beats Car, Bus in Annual Bike to Work Race," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 12, 2009; Editorial, "Working Toward a Bike-Friendly Community," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 13, 2009, p. A13 ("One step in the right direction is the Metro Bicycle Master Plan recently produced by the JCCOG Regional Trails and Bicycling Committee"); ; Brian Loring, "The Advantages of Biking," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 13, 2009, p. A18 ("With so many bicycle owners but so little bike riding in the United States, there is great potential to increase the role that bicycles play in daily commutes and other frequent trips"); Editorial, "Public Bike System Would Unclutter Downtown and be Eco-Friendly," The Daily Iowan, May 14, 2009, p. A6; Rob Daniel, "Biking, Walking to School Nets Rewards," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 14, 2009, p. A3.]

[And here are a couple additional links (among potentially hundreds) to biking resources: Bike Iowa (with links to many resources, including 68 Iowa bike clubs); Bike Cult; and for a couple places to get started in Iowa City, the 30th Century Bicycle; the Iowa City Bike Library; and World of Bikes.]

Think you can't do it? Click here to see why I answer your concerns with "Oh yes you can!"

Thirty-seven years ago I published a book titled, Test Pattern for Living. (Although long since out of print, it is still available for free downloading, and has maintained its own devoted cult following over the years.) The benefits of biking received an entire chapter in that book, and I have been extolling them ever since.

You see, the point is not that there is a single benefit from biking, but a lot of that benefit. The point is that there are so many multiple benefits from biking, each of which provides a lot of that benefit. They are spelled out in this blog entry, so I won't repeat them all here. But examples would include the sheer joy that comes from more oxygen in the brain, the beneficial reduction of obesity and heart attack risks, the greater speed of commuting and ease of parking, and the virtual elimination of expense (compared to operating a car) -- a not insignificant benefit at any time but especially during the current global economic collapse.

As a young boy, I started using a bike to deliver the Des Moines Register to my neighbors (a bike the Register enabled me to buy at a discount with my paper route money). Later, in the 1970s, I rode across the state in the RAGBRAI event with Donald Kaul for a number of years, reporting on it for National Public Radio. That three-speed RAGBRAI bike, with its rod brakes, still hangs in the garage these days. (I was told this museum piece was of a design originally created for the bicycles of postal delivery persons in India, and later for the bicycles that became the backbone of the Viet Cong's very effective transportation system during the war. "U.S. Army Transportation Museum," Wikipedia ("The museum has an extensive Vietnam War exhibit, including . . . bicycles used by the Viet Cong").)

Today my somewhat more modern (but still inexpensive) bicycle is mostly used for daily commuting, as well as exercise and recreation along some local trails. (For years I jogged almost every day as well -- in Washington, through the woods of Glover Park, just outside my door. The toll it took on my knees has eliminated that exercise option in recent years, but for some reason my knees seem to still like biking.)

As life has a way of coming full circle, this past year marked the publication of my son Gregory Johnson's book, Put Your Life on a Diet -- already in its second printing. Although it is compatible in theme with Test Pattern for Living, and also has a chapter on transportation advocating bicycles, it is otherwise unique, very much up-to-date, and grows out of his leadership with the "small house" movement -- as suggested by the book's sub-title: "Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet." And see "Life Mobility Transportation Group - Bicycles, Electric Cars, and Greener Alternative Fuel Modes of Travel," on his ResourcesForLife.com Web site.

I've made no effort to update the bicycling chapter from my book, reproduced below.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a different time from today. So you'll need to update the statistics if you want to use them. And the sentiments are very much 1970s' -- though the conclusions, social and ecological conditions haven't changed all that much.

It was a time of political and economic change, and one of my goals was to see if I could help contribute to a year in America in which there would be more bicycles sold than automobiles. (That goal was accomplished, as you'll see from a quote in what follows.)

In the 1970s there was also a good deal of artistic as well as other creative experimentation. It was represented in this book with the fact that the Foreword was sheet music (written by Mason Williams) and the chapters consisted of quotes on the even numbered (left hand) pages, and my text on the odd numbered (right hand) pages. As I described that feature in the Introduction,

[A]ny honest author will admit he has drawn heavily from the writings of others. I have emphasized this fact by the use of quotations from diverse sources . . . [One] reason I have emphasized the quotes is that my search involves the discovery of common themes . . .. When different people start saying the same thing -- when a blue-collar worker expresses frustrations similar to those of college students, when the teachings of Buddha are consistent with the insights of psychiatrists, or when ecologists echo the sentiments of poets -- I feel excitement. If you want, you can just read the quotes, and skip my text entirely -- or read it later.

In today's reproduction of the chapter the quotes are indented and blocked and my text goes to the margin. Page numbers are indicated as, e.g., # p. 110 #.

Antidote to Automobiles
[Test Pattern for Living, Chapter 7]
# p. 110 #

We might have to slow down a little or perhaps even sit quiet occasionally to develop better taste. One can't think very deeply at 70 miles an hour.
-C. E. Warne


My new pattern requires renting new cars at the airports as needed. I am progressively ceasing to own things, not on a political-schism basis, as for instance Henry George's ideology, but simply on a practical basis. Possession is becoming progressively burdensome and wasteful and therefore obsolete.
-R. Buckminster Fuller


When you drive a car, you drive a reflection of your self. And, in the case of the 1971 MGB, it's a reflection of someone very special.
-MG advertisement in Time

# p. 111 #

So far, we have approached alternate life styles almost in terms of hedonism: What feels best for you? What will remove the pain of living in a corporate state -- other than the drug life (whether alcohol, tranquilizers, or others) that only brings more ultimate pain? But what we so often discover is that the very products, activities, and attitudes that make you feel better also have significant social advantages: They use less of our nation's precious natural resources, they pollute less, they make less noise, they add to the pleasure of others, they enable each of us to live in a society in which we can grow in individual worth and fulfillment, they are more aesthetically pleasing, they make for better citizenship, and they are even more economical. Take bicycles, for example.

I ride a bicycle -- not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice. I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution by tonnage in the United States. It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile. Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are driving for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all. No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your

# p. 112 #

The most natural form of locomotion, walking has been In use since before the Invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire. Reliable and totally non-polluting, it offers convenience -- no parking, no cost. Invigorating, it promotes health and gives you the chance to think.
-Paul Swatek


Automobiles insulate man not only from the environment but from human contact as well. They permit only most limited types of interaction, usually competitive, aggressive, and destructive. If people are to be brought together again, given a chance to get acquainted with each other and involved in nature, some fundamental solutions must be found to the problems posed by the automobile.
-Edward T. Hall

ANNOUNCER: Sidney spent Sundays shelling at the seashore. Then Sidney started digging the Mustang -- the great original . . .. Now Sidney's making waves all over. Last week he saved three bathing beauties. (And they all could swim better than Sidney!) Only Mustang makes it happen!
-a television commercial

# p. 113 #

convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure, and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good. You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells, you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind. And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap. You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts it should last almost forever. Your satisfaction comes from within you, not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people: folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrols," men unloading trucks. Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters, but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limou-

# p. 114 #

On a different speed scale, bicycles could move 2.8 times as many people per amount of space. If a bicycler can make 10 miles an hour, the car would have to exceed 28 mph to rack up more passenger miles on the same system of streets. But the New York City average speed for cars during rush hour is only 8.5 mph, 13 mph on the feeder roads. It's a fact that today in many cities you can make better time aboard a bicycle than in a car.
-Paul Swatek


Make your second car a bicycle.

Consider the advantages that the bicycle has to offer -- low cost, no pollution, and convenient to park.

For under $50 you can get a bicycle fitted with enough trimmings to make it practical for going shopping and carrying a small child. The cheapest car costs about thirty times that.

A bicycle is also inexpensive to operate, maintain, and insure.

Bicycles are quieter than any form of motorized transportation, produce no pollution, and use up no fuel.

A bicycle takes up about 1/30th the parking space of a car.

In city traffic today, the bicycle is often faster than the car or bus.

Bicycles give the rider the sort of healthy exercise that many Americans usually do not get.

Riding a bicycle makes it possible to get a better appreciation of a beautiful day, or a pleasant ride through the park.

. . . The New York Times quoted a 32-year-old millionaire who pedals up Fifth Avenue to social engagements in a dinner jacket as explaining, "It's much easier than fussing with a chauffeur."
-Paul Swatek

# p. 115 #

sine. Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more. The automobile accounts for at least 60 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all carbon-monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year. One million acres of land are paved each year; there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon. Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages. Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper-repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.

The bicycle does not kill or maim; it does not pollute; it does not deplete natural resources; it makes no noise; it takes a great deal less space; and it is very much cheaper. (You can buy a brand new bicycle for

# p. 116 #

Commuting by bicycle? Is this some kind of put-on? It may sound like a joke to motor-minded America, but in the rest of the world nobody is laughing. In countries that are willing to take it seriously, the bicycle [is] transportation. Switzerland, for example, which traditionally places a high value on peace of mind and purity of air, has more bicycles than automobiles. In Amsterdam -- a national capital with roughly the same population and climatic conditions as Washington, D.C. -- 150,000 people ride bikes to work every day. Hundreds of thousands more commute by bicycle in other European cities. The same is true in much of Africa and Asia.
-Thomas R. Reid, III


This year an estimated 10 million bicycles will be sold, compared to a projected 8.6 million new cars.
-Friends of the Earth

# p. 117 #

little more than what it costs to operate an automobile for two weeks.) Although the bicycle makes a direct assault on four great problems that plague the modern city -- traffic, noise, parking, and pollution -- urban planners have overlooked it in their search for solutions to the urban transportation crisis.

It is more than ironic that America can invest so much stock faith and rhetoric in the competitive marketplace of commerce and yet ignore the "marketplace of ideas" (to use a phrase by Mr. Justice Holmes) by tolerating the television monopoly that is used to merchandise Detroit's peculiar dreams of the appropriate automotive life style -- with all that life style's attendant social ills. My own commission, the Federal Communications Commission, has been instrumental in encouraging broadcasters' censoring off the airwaves the messages from ecology groups (like Friends of the Earth) that would cry out against the urban devastation being wrought by Detroit's automobiles. (The FCC decision, fortunately, has been substantially reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.) In perhaps one of the greatest advertising overkills of all time, we Americans are being grossly oversold an automotive product and life style (bigger, faster, sexier cars) that we neither need nor may really want, and that will surely eventually kill us with its exhaust by-products and lethargy-induced heart attacks, if it does not get us first in a crash. This may serve the corporate profits of the automotive, oil, steel, cement, and road-building industries, but it is shortchanging the American people.

There are other ways to get around.

# # #
You, too, can have a happy Bike to Work Week -- 52 weeks every year! Try it.

Think you can't do it? Here are some suggestions/answers/arguments that say, "Yes You Can!"

1. I'm just not in shape. Bikers come in all shapes and sizes -- physically and in terms of fitness. You can join them. Haven't biked during the last 20 years -- or ever? Start slowly. Don't go out and buy the most expensive one in the shop (even though a perfectly good new bike will only cost you roughly 1% of what a new car would cost). Rent, or borrow, a bike and take a ride around one city block in your neighborhood. Gradually extend your distance -- a half-mile, a mile (10 to 12 blocks), five miles -- over the course of a month. Doesn't it make you feel better? Isn't it kind of fun? Buy a used bike. Make sure it's properly adjusted to your size, and the tires are kept properly inflated -- and that you wear a helmet and follow some simple safety rules (see 6, below). Don't worry about the hills; they will seem to be much less steep with time. Until those leg muscles develop just get off the bike and walk it up the hills that are a little too difficult, even when you've geared down. And remember, there's no shame in walking; every biker has done it on some occasion; and besides they'll just think you had to get off because you have a flat tire.

2. It's too far to my job. What do you mean by "too far"? That it will take longer than you'd like? (It may actually save you time; see 4, below.) That you have to dress up for work and might dirty your clothes? (There are answers for that, too, in 5, below.) That you'd have to bike on unsafe streets? Yup, once again, see 6, below. Bear in mind, I'm talking about biking to work in Iowa-sized towns (up to and including Des Moines); I'm not advocating biking along Los Angeles' freeways from Pasadena to Santa Monica every morning.

3. There are a lot of things for which I need a car. (a) I'm not suggesting you not have access to a car when you truly need one, only that you probably truly need one less often than you think. (b) If you and your partner have more than one car you might be able to share one, and cut your costs in half. Or maybe rent one over occasional weekends for heavy shopping, or trips out of town. (c) The average person expends 1500 hours a year for their car: [1] the hours you must work to earn the money for car payments, repairs, insurance, licensing and fees, gas and oil, [2] driving to, waiting for, going back to pick up your car, and other time consuming efforts associated with those tasks, and [3] the hours you spend actually driving the car for your own purposes. The average distance driven is 7500 miles per year. At 1500 hundred hours, and 7500 miles, that's an average of 5 miles per hour -- a good brisk walking speed, and much, much slower than what you can do on a bike. (d) Many of those "needs" you fulfill with your car may not really be "needs." (e) You'd be amazed how much you can carry with a bike. [1] Small and medium-size objects can be put in a jacket pocket; or, if they won't fit there, in one of the various-sized baskets available for bicycles. [2] Regularly have larger loads? Groceries? Laundry to the laundromat? There are reasonably priced bicycle trailers that are lightweight and easy to pull that quickly snap into and out of their connectors.

4. I don't have the time. Put aside the fact that you're only getting 5 mph out of your car (see 3(c), above). Assume that wasn't true and that the only time required by your car was the time spent getting from one place to another. Traveling by bike is, worst case, not significantly slower than a car, and often actually faster. [See, Rob Daniel, "Biker Beats Car, Bus in Annual Bike to Work Race," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 12, 2009.] Why is that? Bikes' advantages, among others, include the combination of (a) being able jump on your bike and go (without opening the garage, warming up the car, backing out of the drive, getting into traffic), (b) bike trails (with no stop lights), sidewalks and bike lanes (faster than sitting in rush hour traffic), and (c) being able to pull up and park right outside the door of your destination (rather than having to look for a parking place or drive round and round in a parking garage).

5. I need to dress for work. (a) Do you really? Midwestern workplaces are much more casual than those on the East or West Coast -- and more casual than any were in the 1950s. (b) I knew a multi-millionaire in Manhattan who used to bike, in black tie, to formal events. I see men in suits biking in Iowa City. Clearly it is possible to do. (c) There are alternatives. Combine your biking with a stop off at a gym; shower, and keep your good clothes, there. I've often found myself working in buildings that have showers in the restrooms. Many people who walk to work wear one pair of walking shoes while walking and carry (or keep at the office) another pair they wear at work; you might be able to carry, or keep at the office, the clothes you need there.

6. I just wouldn't feel safe. You're less likely to be seriously hurt moving around town on a bike than in a car. OK, I know the data can be debated for hours without reaching agreement. The point is that, with some minimal precautions -- just as with driving, walking, boating, or any other activity -- you're safe on a bike. "Car emissions kill 30,000 people and car collisions kill 46,000 each year in the U.S. . . . 725, 629, 665, 732, and 693 cyclists died per year in 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, and 2000 respectively." Bicycle Almanac. Those are pretty good comparative odds. Actually, most bike accidents are the result of ignoring some of those simple safety practices: biking against, instead of with, traffic; running red lights; biking without a helmet; riding too fast, or going in and out of traffic; biking at night without a headlight and flashing rear red light -- and, of course, OWI. If you're going to ride on sidewalks a bell is a courtesy as much as a safety device.

7. What would I do on days that aren't perfect biking weather? What if it's a bitter cold winter day? Or a real summer scorcher? Or it's raining? Hey, nobody's taking attendance; you want to skip a day, skip a day. But once it becomes a habit you may end up doing what a lot of bikers do: ride your bike every day -- unless it's a safety issue. I never bike in tornadoes; if you wouldn't be safe in a car you probably aren't safe on a bike. It's conceivable fog or rain would be so thick as to impair vision. And when roads are so icy that cars can't stay on them bikes probably can't either. As for cold, the folks who are really cold in winter are the ones standing and shivering at a bus stop, or scraping the ice off their windshield. Biking helps keep you warm. Besides, cold weather is easy to deal with; we midwesterners call it "layering" -- the colder it gets the more layers of clothing you put on (paying special attention to feet, hands, head and face). I once walked across Iowa City in 100 below wind chill weather just to see what it would feel like; it was as comfortable as any other temperature for which I've been adequately dressed. Heat's another matter. There's no limit to how much additional clothes you can put on in the winter, but there are limits to how much you can take off in the summer (though you wouldn't know it to see some summertime bikers). So why do 7000-10,000 bicyclists from Iowa and around the world take a week out of their lives, and pay the costs, to ride across the entire state of Iowa during the peak of summer heat in July? Because it's just that much fun to do. And the heat? If you're moving along at 15 mph or so, and sweating, you have the equivalent of the comfort of a fan blowing on you and evaporating that moisture. You'll be a lot more comfortable that the folks sitting in their lawn chairs along the route. (But you do have to remember to keep taking liquids and electrolites.) Rain? You're not going to carry an umbrella while biking, but there are lots of rain gear outfits to choose from that will keep you warm and dry. (Just remember to keep your bike chain oiled to avoid rust.)

Any other reasons why you say "I can't" to which I can respond, "Oh, yes you can"? Just put a comment on this blog entry and I'll try to give you an answer.
_______________

* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson

# # #

Bike for Life

May 13, 2008,9:05 a.m.

Bike for Life
Bike to Work Week
Thirty-six years ago I published a book titled, Test Pattern for Living. (Although long since out of print, it is still available for free downloading, and has maintained its own devoted cult following over the years.)

Bicycling has remained a major part of my life ever since, as a young boy, I started using a bike to deliver the Des Moines Register to my neighbors (a bike the Register enabled me to buy at a discount with my paper route money). Later, in the 1970s, I rode across the state in the RAGBRAI event with Donald Kaul for a number of years, reporting on it for National Public Radio. Today my bicycle is mostly used for commuting and some local trails for exercise and recreation.

So it was natural that any book called Test Pattern for Living would have a chapter on bicycling. And, this being "Bike to Work Week" and all, it seemed appropriate to dust it off and run it in the blog this week.

As life has a way of coming full circle, next month we will be celebrating the publication of my son Gregory Johnson's book, Put Your Life on a Diet -- already in its second printing. Although it is compatible in theme, and also has a chapter on transportation advocating bicycles, it is otherwise unique, very much up-to-date, and grows out of his leadership with the "small house" movement -- as suggested by the book's sub-title: "Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet."

I've made no effort to update the chapter from my book, reproduced below. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a different time from today. So you'll need to update the statistics if you want to use them. And the sentiments are very much 1970s' -- though the conclusions, social and ecological conditions haven't changed all that much. It was a time of political and economic change, and one of my goals was to see if I could help contribute to a year in America in which there would be more bicycles sold than automobiles. (We did it, as you'll see from a quote in what follows.) In the 1970s there was also a good deal of artistic (as well as other) experimentation. It was represented in this book with the fact that the Foreword was sheet music (by Mason Williams) and the chapters consisted of quotes on the even numbered (left hand) pages, and my text on the odd numbered (right hand) pages. As I described that feature in the Introduction,

[A]ny honest author will admit he has drawn heavily from the writings of others. I have emphasized this fact by the use of quotations from diverse sources . . . [One] reason I have emphasized the quotes is that my search involves the discovery of common themes . . .. When different people start saying the same thing -- when a blue-collar worker expresses frustrations similar to those of college students, when the teachings of Buddha are consistent with the insights of psychiatrists, or when ecologists echo the sentiments of poets -- I feel excitement. If you want, you can just read the quotes, and skip my text entirely -- or read it later.

In today's reproduction of the chapter the quotes are indented and blocked and my text goes to the margin. Page numbers are indicated as, e.g., # p. 110 #.

Antidote to Automobiles [Chapter 7]
# p. 110 #

We might have to slow down a little or perhaps even sit quiet occasionally to develop better taste. One can't think very deeply at 70 miles an hour.
-C. E. Warne


My new pattern requires renting new cars at the airports as needed. I am progressively ceasing to own things, not on a political-schism basis, as for instance Henry George's ideology, but simply on a practical basis. Possession is becoming progressively burdensome and wasteful and therefore obsolete.
-R. Buckminster Fuller


When you drive a car, you drive a reflection of your self. And, in the case of the 1971 MGB, it's a reflection of someone very special.
-MG advertisement in Time

# p. 111 #

So far, we have approached alternate life styles almost in terms of hedonism: What feels best for you? What will remove the pain of living in a corporate state -- other than the drug life (whether alcohol, tranquilizers, or others) that only brings more ultimate pain? But what we so often discover is that the very products, activities, and attitudes that make you feel better also have significant social advantages: They use less of our nation's precious natural resources, they pollute less, they make less noise, they add to the pleasure of others, they enable each of us to live in a society in which we can grow in individual worth and fulfillment, they are more aesthetically pleasing, they make for better citizenship, and they are even more economical. Take bicycles, for example.

I ride a bicycle -- not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice. I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution by tonnage in the United States. It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile. Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are driving for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all. No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your

# p. 112 #

The most natural form of locomotion, walking has been In use since before the Invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire. Reliable and totally non-polluting, it offers convenience -- no parking, no cost. Invigorating, it promotes health and gives you the chance to think.
-Paul Swatek


Automobiles insulate man not only from the environment but from human contact as well. They permit only most limited types of interaction, usually competitive, aggressive, and destructive. If people are to be brought together again, given a chance to get acquainted with each other and involved in nature, some fundamental solutions must be found to the problems posed by the automobile.
-Edward T. Hall

ANNOUNCER: Sidney spent Sundays shelling at the seashore. Then Sidney started digging the Mustang -- the great original . . .. Now Sidney's making waves all over. Last week he saved three bathing beauties. (And they all could swim better than Sidney!) Only Mustang makes it happen!
-a television commercial

# p. 113 #

convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure, and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good. You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells, you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind. And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap. You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts it should last almost forever. Your satisfaction comes from within you, not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people: folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrols," men unloading trucks. Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters, but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limou-

# p. 114 #

On a different speed scale, bicycles could move 2.8 times as many people per amount of space. If a bicycler can make 10 miles an hour, the car would have to exceed 28 mph to rack up more passenger miles on the same system of streets. But the New York City average speed for cars during rush hour is only 8.5 mph, 13 mph on the feeder roads. It's a fact that today in many cities you can make better time aboard a bicycle than in a car.
-Paul Swatek


Make your second car a bicycle.

Consider the advantages that the bicycle has to offer -- low cost, no pollution, and convenient to park.

For under $50 you can get a bicycle fitted with enough trimmings to make it practical for going shopping and carrying a small child. The cheapest car costs about thirty times that.

A bicycle is also inexpensive to operate, maintain, and insure.

Bicycles are quieter than any form of motorized transportation, produce no pollution, and use up no fuel.

A bicycle takes up about 1/30th the parking space of a car.

In city traffic today, the bicycle is often faster than the car or bus.

Bicycles give the rider the sort of healthy exercise that many Americans usually do not get.

Riding a bicycle makes it possible to get a better appreciation of a beautiful day, or a pleasant ride through the park.

. . . The New York Times quoted a 32-year-old millionaire who pedals up Fifth Avenue to social engagements in a dinner jacket as explaining, "It's much easier than fussing with a chauffeur."
-Paul Swatek

# p. 115 #

sine. Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more. The automobile accounts for at least 60 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all carbon-monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year. One million acres of land are paved each year; there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon. Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages. Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper-repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.

The bicycle does not kill or maim; it does not pollute; it does not deplete natural resources; it makes no noise; it takes a great deal less space; and it is very much cheaper. (You can buy a brand new bicycle for

# p. 116 #

Commuting by bicycle? Is this some kind of put-on? It may sound like a joke to motor-minded America, but in the rest of the world nobody is laughing. In countries that are willing to take it seriously, the bicycle [is] transportation. Switzerland, for example, which traditionally places a high value on peace of mind and purity of air, has more bicycles than automobiles. In Amsterdam -- a national capital with roughly the same population and climatic conditions as Washington, D.C. -- 150,000 people ride bikes to work every day. Hundreds of thousands more commute by bicycle in other European cities. The same is true in much of Africa and Asia.
-Thomas R. Reid, III


This year an estimated 10 million bicycles will be sold, compared to a projected 8.6 million new cars.
-Friends of the Earth

# p. 117 #

little more than what it costs to operate an automobile for two weeks.) Although the bicycle makes a direct assault on four great problems that plague the modern city -- traffic, noise, parking, and pollution -- urban planners have overlooked it in their search for solutions to the urban transportation crisis.

It is more than ironic that America can invest so much stock faith and rhetoric in the competitive marketplace of commerce and yet ignore the "marketplace of ideas" (to use a phrase by Mr. Justice Holmes) by tolerating the television monopoly that is used to merchandise Detroit's peculiar dreams of the appropriate automotive life style -- with all that life style's attendant social ills. My own commission, the Federal Communications Commission, has been instrumental in encouraging broadcasters' censoring off the airwaves the messages from ecology groups (like Friends of the Earth) that would cry out against the urban devastation being wrought by Detroit's automobiles. (The FCC decision, fortunately, has been substantially reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals.) In perhaps one of the greatest advertising overkills of all time, we Americans are being grossly oversold an automotive product and life style (bigger, faster, sexier cars) that we neither need nor may really want, and that will surely eventually kill us with its exhaust by-products and lethargy-induced heart attacks, if it does not get us first in a crash. This may serve the corporate profits of the automotive, oil, steel, cement, and road-building industries, but it is shortchanging the American people.

There are other ways to get around.

# # #

You, too, can have a happy Bike to Work Week -- 52 weeks every year! Try it.