Hello everyone. Happy Monday.
Here are the most notable news items our community came across in the past seven days…
Grandmas who ride: A group of Canadian women called “Victoria Grandmothers for Africa” completed a 280 kilometer bike ride to raise money for kids who’ve been orphaned by HIV/Aids. (Saanich News)
She did it! American endurance cyclist Lael Wilcox completed an around-the-world bicycle ride in record time (108 days with a daily average mileage of 174 miles) and set the cycling world abuzz with her inspiring attitude. (Cycling News)
New rules proposed for big vehicles: Safety advocates are very pleased that the federal government is poised to make a big upgrade to its vehicle safety regulations with the expressed intent to improve safety of people outside them. (NPR)
How to not stop speeding: An effort to require carmakers to install audio warnings when people drive over the speed limit seems destined for the dustbin because government regulators are worried about whether drivers will like it or not. (Washington Post)
We are infected too: Surprise, surprise! Motonormativity, aka “being car-brained” is a very prevalent condition here in the United States and it’s a major barrier to making progress for non-drivers. (Streetsblog USA)
Cars are the problem: “One of the few predictions that I feel very confident in is that, a century or so down the road, people will look at modern car-centric America with the same disgust that we feel when we hear about old timey cities without modern sewage systems.” (How Things Work)
Marginal gains in the sack: The latest front in pro cycling’s pursuit of speed centers around not moving at all. Here’s what the pros are doing to get a solid night of sleep. (Velo)
Parking restrictions: The University of Portland has tightened their parking permit system amid a reduction in car spaces as they try to meet city transportation goals. (UP Beacon)
Thanks to everyone who sent in links this week. The Monday Roundup is a community effort, so please feel free to send us any great stories you come across.
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Car emissions apologia is also common among people who bike. The tail-pipe emissions that we huff on our bike rides will cause some of use to die early and to suffer immensely but the response from the cycling community to this fact is mostly a shrug. Tail-pipe emissions morbidity/mortality also makes the ubiquitous denial of the utility of vehicle electrification in the cycling community incredibly short-sighted and kind of narcissistic.
I’ve never seen anyone seriously say that EV transition wouldn’t be a positive on the tailpipe emissions front. I do often see that it’s not the most important thing, and that our investments will be sort of in vain if there aren’t strong investments in changes to land use and other cultural norms around driving.
And I think that’s true – spending like $1 trillion on electrifying the automotive fleet is money not spent on other changes that could be more impactful. EV transition solves one problem – tailpipe emissions from ICE cars – while investing in public transit and changing land uses can solve more than one problem. But almost all of our money is being spent to do tax credits for EVs, rather than investing in other proven no carbon modes of transportation.
EVs will be very beneficial here; tire particulates may increase a bit, but tailpipe emissions will be zero, and braking related emissions will be much lower due to regenerative braking. And noise emissions should be much lower as well (especially for trucks).
How would you reduce emissions more quickly if you could redirect EV tax credit money? If you say “better transit”, please include how you plan to get enough people to ride it that emissions actually drop. Whatever we do, the solution needs to be humming along in 10-20 years, with a big chunk done sooner.
Are there other solutions queued up and ready to go the way EVs are?
Until we electrify diesel-powered transit (tolley+BEV), it’s also part of the air toxic problem.
People shrug about things that they can’t control. Tailpipe emissions are controlled mostly Federally, via Federal emissions rules for new vehicles.
At a local level, we can elect officials to add county and State-level emissions rules, but you can’t block out of state drivers from driving through our state and city. Most counties in Oregon have no DEQ testing requirements. We can’t control emissions policies in Washington state.
The single best thing we could do would be to ban all 2-stroke scooters, but a ban like that would be hard to enforce and probably would be ruled unconstitutional knowing the current makeup of the Supreme Court.
*shrug*
Go Lael! Hell yeah!