Paper, Plastic, Glass, Aluminum--And Pedals

When I first became a dedicated cyclist, as a teenager in the mid-1970s, we were still seen as latter-day hippies:  Whether we rode to work or school, for fitness, to race or tour, or just because, we tended to be more environmentally-conscious than other people.  In fact, the environment was the very reason some people rode. It was, and is, one of my reasons.

The funny thing is that, nearly half a century later, cycling is still associated, correctly, with environmental consciousness.  These days, though, those associations have more overtly political overtones:  If you pedal, drive a hybrid or electric vehicle, look for ethically-sourced products and recycle, even when it isn't mandated, that makes you a"lib" and an enemy to the MAGA crowd.

There is, I must say, at least some truth to the stereotype.  We live up to it every day:

 

Commuting: A Detour Into A Season

 

Interesting, what detours on a morning bicycle commute (yes, I'm doing that again: more about that later) will bring into view.

First, in an industrial area of Long Island City just south of Silvercup Studios, I had to detour for this:

 

OK, I'd seen it before.  But if you're pedaling down 22nd Street and pass under the overpasses for the Queensborough (59th Street) Bridge and the #7 train of the MTA, turn right and then left,  you'll run into something that disrupted the street grid: 

Some time in the past, I started a search I just may resume.  Specifically, I was (and am) curious as to whether that rock outcropping was left in place because it was too hard to break or blast  (there are a few similar outcroppings in Upper Manhattan for that reason)--or, perhaps too expensive.  Or, for all I know, someone or some group of people didn't want it destroyed.  Could it have been sacred to people who no longer live in the neighborhood?

The other morning brought a crisp, cool breeze and a blaze of color some living beings--I include myself, sometimes--hold as a store, a memory, against the season that inevitably follows.

Whenever I see a leaf or a flower, I see a hand.  Sometimes it is trying to capture water, light--or to hold whatever time it may have left.  I couldn't help but to wonder whether those leaves I saw not far from the rock were trying to hold onto their beauty in that moment--or whether they were bleeding away, however slowly, those last flickerings of the light they still hold.

I know that since I've returned to the classroom, my experiences, and those of my students, are different--whether in obvious or not-so-obvious ways--from what they, and I, experienced before the pandemic.  I wonder whether it has anything to do with bicycle commutes like the one I did the other morning. 

No Gas=Less Greenhouse Gas: The Bicycle Equation

There is the Paris Climate Accord.  And there are other agreements between nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Among them is the European Green Deal, adopted by the European Union member states.

A common criticism of such plans is that they're "too little, too late."  Or, more precisely, the goals are ambitious but there are few or no details about what will be done to meet them, or how.  Also, many scientists and others who study pollution and climate change say that the target dates are too far into the future:  The crisis is, and therefore the work needs to be done, now.

In an article she wrote for Parliament, Jill Warren points out another deficiency of the EGD which, I suspect could also be a fault of other plans to "go green" or make cities--and the planet--"sustainable."  I mentioned it last month in writing about Nicolas Collignon's excellent Next City article.  

Essentially, both Warren and Collignon say that any plan to make a city or this planet more livable or "sustainable" should include bicycling--or, more exactly, ways to get more people to ride bicycles.  But planners, whether at the municipal or continental level, seem to have a blind spot where there are vehicles with two wheels, two pedals and no motor (unless you count the humans pedaling them).  Neither says, but I believe both agree with, what I am about to say next: While not everyone will, or want to, be a racer or long-distance tourer, most people can cycle for short trips.

And, I think that each one makes a proposal that, while seemingly very different, are very closely related.  Collignon says that one problem with much planning is that the planners think we can "technology" our way out of our problems. (Some of that mentality is, of course, a result of the sway technology companies have over policy-makers.)  Thus, planners are oblivious, not only to bicycles, but other low-tech solutions.

As planners think in terms of high-tech, they also tend, especially if they are in large governing bodies like the EU, to see the world in macroeconomic terms.  That is why, I believe, that the drafters of the EGD don't mention something that, when I read about it, seems glaringly obvious:  re-shoring Europe's bicycle industry.

Road transport accounts for 26 percent of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions.  I suspect the proportion in similar in Japan and other developed economies.  Some of those emissions come from vehicles transporting manufactured goods, and still more from planes and other forms of transportation.  Re-shoring bicycle (and other) industries would mean that bikes, parts and accessories now made in China would be manufactured once again in France, Italy and other EU countries, as they were until around the beginning of this century.

Cyclists waiting at a red light in Munich, Germany.

Warren's idea ties into Collignon's because as raw materials and manufactured goods have to travel shorter distances to their customers, the means of accounting for, as well as transporting, them don't have to be as technologically sophisticated.  

So, yet another voice is saying that planners and policy-makers need to take a longer and closer look at the bicycle.  Let's hope that Jill Warren and Nicolas Collignon are seen as oracles or prophets rather than as Cassandras.