If you are commuting by car right now for 5 miles or less, you can afford a bike to make the same trip on. The reality is that gas gotten more experience and the savings of riding a bike even for short trips adds up.

Let's look at some numbers.

The Supplement Scenario: Here we assume that a bike supplements a car that you plan to keep and drive, and that the savings of riding a bike will come purely from saved case. Using an online calculator, you can quickly estimate your annual fuel cost for a trip. If you travel 1.5 miles each way, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (you take some vacation, right?), that's 750 miles per year, spent on that short commute. If you get 20 miles per gallon and gas cost $4.00 gallon, then your cost of gas for that commute is $150 for one year. For five years that's $750.  continue reading »

A small group of locals have returned from an unconventional vacation: riding bikes 110 miles over two days to Clifty Falls State Park, where they hiked and rested for a day...then rode back over two more days. Mark, Kurt, Derrek, Hopi and Don put together a bicycle tour journal with photos and stories featuring a home-built recumbent bike, wild parsnips, "road closed" adventures and more.

Ralph Nader announced his bid for president on Meet the Press today. Tim Russert gave a ridiculous interview, focusing on the 2000 election and Nader's potential effect on Democrats rather than real issues. Below is a particularly blatant and shameful example of Russert's disregard for Nader's platform and politics:

[The election coverage has avoided discussion of Palestine/Israel] even though it's central to our security and to, to the situation in the Middle East. [Barak Obama] was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois before he ran for the state Senate, during he ran--during the state Senate. Now he's, he's supporting the Israeli destruction of the tiny section called Gaza with a million and a half people. He doesn't have any sympathy for a civilian death ratio of about 300-to-1; 300 Palestinians to one Israeli. He's not taking a leadership position in supporting the Israeli peace movement, which represents former Cabinet ministers, people in the Knesset, former generals, former security officials, in addition to mayors and leading intellectuals. One would think he would at least say, "Let's have a hearing for the Israeli peace movement in the Congress," so we don't just have a monotone support of the Israeli government's attitude toward the Palestinians and their illegal occupation of Palestine.

MR. RUSSERT: But would you prefer, as an American citizen, to have Barack Obama or John McCain as president?  continue reading »

I thoroughly recommend a visit to Fountain Acre Foods, an off-the-grid Amish-run grocery story. Located in plain sight just off of 27 south of Fountain City, this full service grocery is eight miles north of Richmond.  continue reading »

This blog entry is a repository of personal "action items" that I suggest when I give my talk entitled "Going Local: Building a Self-Reliant Richmond, Indiana," first presented in its current form in November, 2007. As I say in the talk:

• You may already know a lot of this stuff
• I don't like telling people how to live, and I very much still aspire to practice some of these things myself, so I don't offer these up with any sort of moral authority
• This can be thought of as a menu of possibilities, rather than a list of imperatives or instructions

If you're not completely sure why it might be a good thing for Richmond to become self-reliant or why these action items might help, then please invite me to give the talk for your group or organization. It's chock full of great information about the energy crisis, climate change, the economy, and the implications for life in Richmond and Wayne County, Indiana. I also tell some jokes.

Now, on to the list, which is largely centered on reducing our dependence on and usage of fossil fuels:  continue reading »

From Palladium-Item News: Richmond Council to consider smoking ban at Monday's meeting:

The Richmond Common Council on Monday night will tackle an ordinance that would ban smoking in all public places in the city.

The ordinance, supported by councilman Al Glover and several other local groups, would ban smoking in places such as restaurants, bingo parlors, polling places, convention centers, retail stores and all public transportation facilities. It does not include taverns or private clubs.

The Richmond Common Council meets at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Council Chambers at the Richmond Municipal Building, 50 N. Fifth St.

Cardinal Greenway project lands more state dollars - [Palladium-Item News]

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) has awarded more than $20 million in Transportation Enhancement (TE) funds statewide for projects such as multi-use trails, streetscape improvements and historic bridge rehabilitations. That figure includes project money for a portion of the Cardinal Greenway in Wayne County.

The project also includes signage, a trailhead and bicycle racks. The new portion of the trail will connect to the rest of the 70-mile Cardinal Greenway Trail that stretches through five Indiana counties.

Multi-use trails are gaining popularity in many Indiana communities, and the state’s 10-year goal is to have a trail within 15 minutes of every Hoosier.  continue reading »

Today I was looking at the differences between two soft shell rain pants I have and thought I'd write up a little comparative review.

One pair is called Cold Fusion from Beyond, aka the Stealth Commuting Rain Pants. The other is Foxwear Rain Pants.

They are both custom-made out of similar materials, but the pants from Beyond end up costing nearly twice as much.  continue reading »

There's been increasing press lately about bicycling as transportation.

The difference between riding for recreation and transportation matters a great deal for the construction of the bikes, although few bikes focused directly on transportation are seen the US.

Here's a quiz of sorts to show how recreation vs. transportation attitudes lead to different bike designs. Follow along and see which style of bike matches you!

At the end if the quiz, there are some photos and details highlighting some features available on transportation bikes.  continue reading »

As a part of my work on the committees that are implementing the Comprehensive Plan that Richmond recently developed, I created a list (with some help from Mark) of some transportation goals that have a focus on alternative transportation (read: goals that don't celebrate car culture). Here's what I came up with, in no particular order:

1.Improve funding and infrastructure for public transportation, pursue newer public transportation services like the Smart Jitney (door-to-door route-deviation microbus service)  continue reading »