Ever wanted to go to Olympia and make sure the legislators understand how important it is to support biking, walking, transit and safe streets? Well, you have a chance Thursday.
Sign up for Transportation Advocacy Day and join a crew of residents from around the state in urging leaders to prioritize vital investments in our transportation system. With Federal funding always uncertain and a state transportation package possible within the next year, it is important that state leaders want to not only maintain current investment levels, but grow them.
The health benefits of cycling might not depend solely on how often you bike, but also on where you bike.
Biking is good for your health, right? You’ve probably heard it from bike advocates, the Seattle Bicycle Master Plan, the CDC and maybe even your doctor: Bicycling for transportation in Seattle is a healthy choice.
But when University of Washington Prof. Christine Bae had a past graduate student — Andy Hong — travel a loop around the center of the city using a device to measure commute-time pollution exposure, they found air quality can vary dramatically at points along popular bike routes. Biking on NE 45th Street in the U District will expose you to far higher levels of black carbon than biking on the Burke-Gilman Trail, for example.
So the health benefits of cycling might not depend solely on how often you bike, but also on where you bike.
Urban planners have assumed interventions like walkable transit-oriented development and bike networks hold positive health outcomes for communities, but a ten-year study from the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism shed a ‘not so fast’ warning on the above assumptions, according to The Atlantic Cities.
The article concludes, “a recurring thread throughout the [MIT] report is one of humility: We don’t know as much as we think we do, and there are certainly no silver-bullet design solutions for systemic public health problems.”[1]
As a bike commuter, I simultaneously cough in downtown rush hour traffic and assure myself the physical activity benefits of bicycling far outweigh any harm from pollution exposure. But that’s not just my invincible-twenty-something reaction. Even the 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans remain ambiguous and almost contradictory on the topic: (more…)
The 2011 Chilly Hilly. Photo from Cascade Bicycle Club
Cascade Bicycle Club’s first big ride event of the year is Sunday. Every year, tons of people pack the Seattle-to-Bainbridge ferry for the Chilly Hilly.
The route is a loop around Bainbridge Island, so the “hilly” part is guaranteed. And weather forecasts as of Friday morning show temperatures in the low 40s, so the “chilly” part is looking pretty likely, too.
Unlike many of the club’s other big rides, the Chilly Hilly has no rider limit, and you can register and pay at the start. This leads to big variation in the number of attendees, with rider levels swelling when the weather is nice even though bad weather is half the point.
Do you wish your neighborhood, school, workplace or city were more bike-friendly, but don’t know how to even start making changes happen? Cascade’s Advocacy Leadership Institute may be for you.
An innovative program that has drawn national attention, ALI teaches people organizing skills to effect bike friendly change in their communities.
The class meets one evening a week for a couple months. Also, it’s free.
A parent of a 7th grader at Denny International Middle School has launched a crowdfunding campaign to buy bikes for the an after-school bike education program at the school.
Inspired by the Major Taylor Project at nearby Chief Sealth High School, the Denny program would be like a smaller middle school introduction to transportation cycling.
“The idea is to start the kids off at Denny on Mountain bikes and then they could transition to the road bikes they have at Sealth,” said project leader Theresa Beaulieu in an email. “The bikes we want to purchase will be used for the after school program and offered for the Denny-Lincoln Classic bike ride to students who have taken the after school class. They would be stored at the school and maintained by the students themselves.”
You can pitch in to help launch the program via GoFundMe.
Ever wanted to go to Olympia and make sure the legislators understand how important it is to support biking, walking, transit and safe streets? Well, you have a chance Thursday.
