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Portland, Oregon: Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels
William Yardley, New York Times
PORTLAND, Ore. – Susan Peithman did not have a job lined up when she moved here in September to pursue a career in “nonmotorized transportation.” No worries, she figured; the market here is strong.1105 08
“In so many ways, it’s the center,” Ms. Peithman, 26, explained. “Bike City, U.S.A.”
Cyclists have long revered Portland for its bicycle-friendly culture and infrastructure, including the network of bike lanes that the city began planning in the early 1970s. Now, riders are helping the city build a cycling economy.
There are, of course, huge national companies like Nike and Columbia Sportswear that have headquarters here and sell some cycling-related products, and there are well-known brands like Team Estrogen, which sells cycling clothing for women online from a Portland suburb.
Yet in a city often uncomfortable with corporate gloss, what is most distinctive about the emerging cycling industry here is the growing number of smaller businesses, whether bike frame builders or clothing makers, that often extol recycling as much as cycling, sustainability as much as success.
(5 November 2007)
Also at Common Dreams.
At Gristmill, Adam Browning says that San Francisco surpasses Portland in bicycle-friendliness: Biking communities thrive in San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
All About: Planes
Rachel OIiver, CNN
The airplane has become, for many, climate change public enemy number one. And for good reason, say environmentalists. The air travel sector now carries the label of “the world’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gases” according to Friends of the Earth (FoE), with airplanes pumping out more than 600 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year. That’s nearly as much CO2 as the African continent annually expels.
The aviation industry’s official contribution to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions tally, however, gives a very different impression. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) and the U.N.’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), aviation globally only accounts for around 3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
That figure has environmentalist up in arms. They say it fails to take into account a process known as radiative forcing, where the impact of emissions from planes in the upper atmosphere — according to the UK-based Aviation Environmental Federation (AEF) — are greater by a factor of 2.7 — or more. Once radiative forcing has has been factored in, the total contribution of aviation to greenhouse gas emissions looks more like 12 percent to 13 percent.
(6 November 2007)
Good backgrounder.
Zip along with shared cars, bikes
Christian Science Monitor
The Zipcar and Flexcar merger, and cities’ interest in bike-sharing, show openness to novel transit.
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Zipcar and Flexcar. They sound like a couple of cartoon characters. But last week’s merger of these member-based, by-the-hour car-rental companies points to a noteworthy development in transport: car-sharing as a way to replace car-owning and to cut costs, energy use, and congestion.
Subscriber-based bike-sharing is also gaining traction, thanks to a popular program that started in Paris in July. The City of Light has had such success with its 10,000 rental bikes (the first half hour is free), that it’s doubling the program – and catching the attention of Chicago, San Francisco, London, and Montreal.
This trend in personal transit-sharing may appeal to only a minority of people. With 200 million cars in the US today, car-share users are projected to top out at about 2 million (Zipcar, the name of the merged company, now has only about 200,000 users).
So the effects on US vehicle congestion and pollution are limited. And with an expected explosion of car sales in China and India (get ready for Tata Motors’ $2,500 four-door, the world’s cheapest automobile), the world needs many solutions to improve energy efficiency and reduce oil use.
(7 November 2007)
