Angry Transportation Rants

Folding Bicycles, Part I

2010-04-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

The other day I was given a folding bicycle. I have wanted one for some time, because it seemed like it might be a good way to take a bike on buses and light rail trains. When I put my bicycle on the rack at the front of the bus, I always worry that the driver will drive off before I can get it off. OCTA even has a 1-800 number for claiming lost bicycles. On the subway, of course, you walk your bike right onto the train. At rush-hour, though, you get a lot of glares from people who want to stand where your bike is.

Now that I have the folder, I am a little dubious that the bus drivers will let me carry it on. Even folded, it is still sort of a bulky package. For the train, though, I can see that (even unfolded) a 16” wheel bike is going to take up a lot less real estate than my 700cc road bike.

My folder is a vintage Dahon, which was bought new by a pilot acquaintance of mine. (Plane+folding bike, how's that for a car free mode?). It has a steel frame and weighs about half again what my road bike does, so it will probably be no fun to hump up the stairs on the subway.

After I cleaned it up, I rode it for about 4 miles on the Whittier Greenway. The short cranks are going to take some getting used to, and the brakes are certainly not as strong as I am used to. That being said, I was surprised how fast I could cover ground.

The next step is to take the bike into the city and see how it does. Stay tuned for my conclusions.

Scooter Review: 2009 Kymco People 150

2010-04-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Back at the beginning of this year, I bought a new scooter. Needless to say, I formed some pretty strong opinions about the new machine within the first couple of weeks. I restrained myself from writing a review right away, though. I though it would mean more after I put a thousand miles or so on it. This morning I looked down at my odometer and saw 1749 km, which works out to about 1050 miles.

I chose a 150cc scooter because it is big enough to go 60 mph on arterial streets, but small enough to be fuel efficient and easy to park. There are hundreds of models of 150cc scooters on the market. I chose a Kymco because they have a reputation as a reputable company, with offices in the US and a 2 year warranty. Kymco makes a lot of the fact that they use ISO 9001 quality control. I thought that a Kymco would be reliable "out of the box".

If I had it to do over, I would still buy a 150cc scooter, but probably not a Kymco.

First, the good:

The scooter handles great. It points well, and the front-back balance is as good as any motor bike I've owned. The wheels are big (16"), which helps a lot on the crappy blacktop we have here in Los Angeles. Kymco seems to use a better grade of hoses and lines than most of the mainland scooters. The carburetor and other parts are made by vendors whose names I actually recognized.

The luggage rack, which looks like it would be small and useless, is surprisingly handy. I do wish, though, that they had made it out of metal. The paint is already wearing off of the plastic. Then again, I haul a lot more cargo with my scooter than most American's, because I do not own a car.

Now the bad:

From the beginning, the scooter has had an annoying and dangerous habit of stalling unexpectantly in traffic. Initially, I tried to get it fixed under warranty. The clueless dealer called Kymco and was told that I, the owner, had probably over-filled the gas tank and swamped the evaporative emissions canister. Kymco send out a new canister, which did not fix the problem. the mechanic mentioned that KymcoUSA is "sort of hard to deal with".

Apparently many California-model Kymcos have fuel system issues because of the after-thought nature of the emissions system. It occurs to me that if the gas-tank vent line were to vibrate off the check valve, then the problem would go away with no noticeable decrease in performance... Get it? Got it? Good.

My own problem had nothing to do with the fuel system, however. Once I gave up on the dealership and the warranty process, I eventually tracked it to a defective CDI module that was overheating. So much for ISO 9001 quality control. I put on a $25 generic module that seems to have fixed the problem. All in all, my new scooter was unreliable and dangerous for about four months while I spent hours working on it.

Next time, I will just get one of the cheap no-name scooters. I'll probably still need to spend a few weeks fixing the bugs, but it will cost about 1/3 the price. I paid a lot of extra money for a scooter that I thought I would not have trouble with, and that money was wasted.

That being said, the scooter is working out for me now. I'll probably keep it for at least a couple of years before I trade it off.

Motorscooter Madness

2010-02-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

In the past month, I have added one more transportation mode to my arsenal: a 150cc Taiwanese motor-scooter. I dragged my feet for some time before going motorized. During the past ten months of living with no car, though, I realized that I had a lot of trouble with trips of between 15 and 50 miles. They were too far to ride my bicycle (if i wanted to get there on time and/or carry any amount of cargo). They were too short to justify borrowing or renting a car. If the train went close, then no problem. A lot of trips around here are only served by bus, however. Here in Southern California, a thirty mile trip across town can cross the territories of three or more transit authorities. Just working out the transfers was a headache.

Even after realizing that I needed some sort of motorized transportation, I spent several months researching various forms of powered bicycles. Electric bikes are cheap to recharge and low maintenance. Unfortunately, the good ones are expensive. Also, the batteries wear out after a couple of years. During this period, I wrote a rather chilling research paper about the environmental problems of recycling batteries. Too, few e-bikes can much faster than 30 mph--fine for downtown, but too slow to keep up with traffic in OC and the South Bay.

Next, I looked at gas powered bicycle conversions. They are much cheaper than e-bikes. I could have gotten everything I needed to convert a beach cruiser for about $250. If I was willing to cheat a little on engine displacement, I could probably build a 50 mph motorized bicycle. The only problem was, I have already owned one. I remember it as a noisy vehicle with poor handling at speed, with inadequate brakes and tires that wore out as fast as I could change them.

From an environmental point of view, motorized bicycles have engines about the same size as motorscooters. Because they have no transmission, however, they are inherently less efficient. Thus, they tend to burn more gas to travel the same distance. They also have more lenient smog requirements, so they tend to pollute more.

I was already considering some kind of scooter when I went to Thailand on vacation. In Thailand nearly everyone rides scooters. They use them to carry passengers and cargo in all kinds of weather conditions, everywhere from the freeways of Bangkok to remote country roads. Needless to say, I resolved to buy an Asian-style scooter as soon as I got home.

The most popular scooter in Thailand is the Honda Dream, which has large wheels and uses Honda's famous 125cc GY6 engine. Unfortunately, Honda no longer sells Dreams in the US. Luckily, Kymco (who used to build scooters for Honda) makes several GY6 based bikes which are quite similar. I settled on their People 150. I decided that, since I am a bit larger than the average Thai, it was reasonable to choose the next larger GY6.

So far, I have been fairly happy with the Kymco. It does a splendid job of the mission for which I purchased it. I can load it up with ten bags of groceries, and still keep up with traffic. It does not take up much more parking space than a bicycle. The only problems I have had so far have been mechanical. It stalls inexplicably when running. Vapor lock, perhaps? I have had it apart three times now, but I am sure I will find the problem soon.

The real question, of course, is weather it is morally acceptable to buy a combustion vehicle. I have wrestled with this one, and concluded that it is a necessary compromise. A small scooter still has far less environmental impact than a car. Having the scooter allows me to borrow cars less often. Sure, I would like to live in a city where it was practical to get everywhere by bicycle and train. Los Angeles, however, is a city that was designed for driving. As long as I am stuck here, I think I will need to keep the scooter.

Suited up with homemade rain gear to run permits on a stormy day.

September Update

2009-09-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Its been more than six months and I still do not own an automobile.

The other thing that has not changed, is that I am still horrible at posting regularly to this blog. The problem is not a lack of material. Believe me, I have not problem coming up with a rant about transportation. The problem is that they usually occur to me when I am in the middle of traffic on Sunset Boulevard at 5:30 on a Friday night--not the best writing conditions. By the time I get home, I am so tired and glad to be alive that I forget to blog.

Luckily, all of this should change soon. I just went back to school. Given that I will be in front of my laptop for over 20 hours a week, doing anything to avoid typing my assigned essays, I can confidently say that more blog posts will be forthcoming.

Why Won't the Working Class Go Green?

2009-05-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here in LA traffic jams have become a sort of a tradition on the first week in May. That is, worse traffic jams than usual. Immigrants and laborers stream on the streets to demonstrate for their "rights", blocking downtown traffic for hours. It poses no problem, of course, for people like me who travel by bicycle, but all of those crowds lead one to start thinking about immigrants and the working class in general .

I can sympathize with immigrants rights. My own people were poor Irish farmers who worked like dogs for the first hundred years they were here before finally breaking into the middle class. I am not sure how much help they should get from the government; we did not get any help at all and we did alright. That is a civil rights issue, however, and this blog is about transportation policy.

There is one observation I can make about working class immigrants which is apropos to my topic: they tend to be completely apathetic about the environment. I need to make a disclaimer. All of the statements I am about to make are based on completely anecdotal evidence. I have a feeling, however, that the statistics would bear me out.

During the week I usually spend the night in the town of La Habra, California. It is not a place I would ever have chosen to live, except that it happens to be where my office is located. It is a solidly working class town with a majority Hispanic population. Most of the town was designed in the 1950's which means that the whole town is functionally obsolete. In other words, it is almost an exact carbon copy of every other working class neighborhood in Southern California.

The inhabitants of La Habra are completely and totally oblivious to environmental concerns. Every restaurant serves drinks in Styrofoam cups. No business has bike racks: most of them have "No Bicycles" signs prominently displayed. Everyone drives the biggest SUVs they can afford. Bringing your own bags to the grocery store is likely to get you stared at blankly. Riding in the slow lane of any of the major streets causes people to scream profanity at you and tell you to "get on the sidewalk where you belong."

As bad as the situation is, the really sad thing is that none of the population sees anything wrong. Its as if they just have not been paying attention to the news for the last twenty years. In La Habra (and all of the other towns like it) it is still 1989.

The middle class in North America is already changing their lifestyles, but the working class is not with the program at all. Considering that there is now more of them than their is of us, it is becoming imperative that we get through to them. How do we do this? Environmental ads on ESPN? Spanish language flyers? Maybe critical mass bike rides down La Habra boulevard? I have no idea.

The War Against the Car and the War Against Diabetes

2009-04-05T16:21:00.000-07:00

It may surprise my readers to know that I spent most of this weekend on a stationary bicycle. After all, I walk to work and use a bicycle for most of my shopping. Why would I want to spend even more time exercising?

I walk two miles each way two and from work. I bicycle every chance I get but I do not like to ride too far in the dark. Considering that I leave for work before dawn and do not get back until after dark, this cuts into my riding possibilities. All in all, I only seem to be walking and riding about twenty miles each in a typical week. That's not even enough to stay in shape. So much for giving up my car being a lot of work and exertion.

I am training for some pretty big rides right now, including a century in May for The American Diabetes Association. To feel like I am even remotely prepared, I try to get in 80-100 miles of cycling every week. Thus the stationary bike for five or six hours per weekend.

I bring all of this up for a reason, of course. That reason, as you the reader have probably already guessed, is to hit you up for money. It may seem like Diabetes has no relation at all to an anti-car blog. A little thought, however, will quickly show that there is indeed a connection. The rate of diabetes is increasing dramatically in this country. In fact, as many as 40% of Americans will probably develop the disease over the course of their lives. Adult-onset diabetes is a symptom of America's lazy, indulgent, energy wasteful lifestyle. Most people who developed diabetes are over-weight and out of shape...often because they have spent their whole lives driving cars when they should have been cycling or walking. Overuse of cars contributes to the diabetes epidemic. Take away the cars, and we will have less diabetes.

In the men time, while we work to eliminate private car ownership, the good people of the American Diabetes Association work to educate people about the disease and how to prevent it with exercise and a healthy diet. If you would like to support them, the best way is by sponsoring me in the Tour De Cure in may, which you can do here.

The added benefit is that every time we ride in a highly publicized 60 mile (100 km) ride, we have the chance to raise awareness of bicycling as long distance transportation. Next time someone tells me that five miles is too far to ride to work, I am going to point out "Five miles? I'm riding 60 miles for the American Diabetes Association". See how that works?

Electric Vehicles Are Not the Answer

2009-03-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I posted an essay the my other blog titled The False Promise of Electric Vehicles that is just as relevant to this blog. Electric vehicles are a big problem because they offer an easy solution to the problem of cars. Everyone wants to support the electric car industry because electric cars (might) emit less and (might) use less oil. Unfortunately, this stance ignores the plethora of other problems which are caused by private car ownership.

The only acceptable solution is to outlaw private ownership of automobiles, no matter what sort of power plant they use.

I wrote the essay for class so I had to tone down the rhetoric a bit. I think it still does a fair job of addressing why the government should not subsidize the electric car industry. Please read it if you get a moment.

The First Week

2009-03-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

It has now been exactly one week since my Mazda Miata blew its head gasket--one week of being car free.

Ecology Auto Parts towed my Miata away on Thursday and all I felt was an all-consuming sense of relief. Cars are like a heavy weight on your soul. Get rid of yours and see how great your feel!

They gave me $100 cash and now I am going to save about $150/month in insurance and maintenance. At the end of the year, I save $100 in carbon offsets. I need to pay for public transportation for long trips, but I was doing that anyway. I no longer need to wash, fix, or park a car. My driveway looks huge. I was a little curious to find out how much the car actually cost me over the eleven months I owned it. A little time-value analysis on my trusty spreadsheet program yielded a fairly shocking result:

My $1500 compact car cost me nearly $400 per month, not counting gas! Of course if it had survived for a few more months I could have amortized the expenses over a longer period. Even so, the cost was really too high for what I was getting out of it. Also, I should point out that I did all of my own mechanical, paint, and body work. About the only thing I paid someone else to do was change the oil. If I had had to pay labor on all of my maintenance it would have cost much more.

Of course, the first week has not been without its hiccups. I forgot to look up the bus transfers the night before to get to a doctor's appointment. I ended up borrowing a car for a couple hours so I could get there on time. Friday, I had run to downtown LA on business in the afternoon and there was no point in going back to the office, so I have been stuck with a pickup all weekend. Still, these things are minor and it is only the first week.

Things are going great for me since I lost the car. Please, think of following my example. Living auto-light is a start, but you really do not receive most of the benefits until you are totally auto-free.

One organization in my part of the world that helps people transition to an auto-free lifestyle is Auto-Free Orange County. Check them out.

Car Free Again At Last

2009-03-22T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. I write about the evils of cars. I hate the automobile and try to have as little as possible to do with it. Despite these facts, I have owned a car for most of the last year.

I had plenty of justifications. The car, a 1990 Mazda Miata, is just about the most minimalist excuse for a car that I could get away with. It is small, fuel efficient, and used. I offset all of the emissions through Carbonfund. It seemed like I needed it for work. After all, I need to visit job sites in six counties.

Of course, all of these arguments are complete hogwash. Cars are dangerous and destructive. They consume space and money and make you lazy. Getting a car "for work only" like an alcoholic deciding it is OK to drink as long as it's just beer. Naturally I soon began using it to get to night school. From there is was a short leap to driving on the weekends.

Lucky for me, some higher power decided to intervene. Yesterday the Mazda blew a head gasket. I am not going to fix it, even though I have the skills and tools. I am not going to replace it, either. Car ownership is a dangerous trap. The hypocrisy ends here and now.

I already ride the bus to school and use my bicycle for errands. I am training for a century ride right now anyway so I can use the miles. Now from now on at work I am going to use company trucks for company business or else I will not go at all. I am car free and I plan to stay that way.

Has it Really Been Three Months?

2009-03-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

I just realized that this is my first post of 2009. Incredible! It looks like I never finished the last post, either. I meant to put in a few pithy paragraphs about the BART system with its live station attendants and ample bike lockers. Bring lots of change, though. The machines are impossible. I probably would have mentioned something about how busy the historic city buses in SF are and/or posted some pictures from when we rode the antique cable cars. Of course I never got around to any of that, so you will just need to use your imagination.

The simple explanation for my long hiatus is that I have been doing a lot of writing in other (less anonymous) venues. After writing all day, coming home to write the blog just did not seem like much fun. I can not stay quiet for long, however, about the transportation problems that this country faces. I am back, and I am ready to rant, so look for more posts in the near future.

What I Did Over Thanksgiving Break (or San Francisco vs LA from a Transporation Perspective)

2008-12-24T16:46:00.000-08:00

Finals, the holidays, bicycle repairs, and my day job have intervened but I'm finally back at the keyboard after all these weeks.

Over Thanksgiving my girlfriend and I got to spend several days in the Bay Area. Naturally (given my special interests) we spent a lot of time checking out the local transportation systems. My notes follow. The main conclusion I reached is simple however: It's not just me. Los Angeles really sucks compared to San Franscisco.

Wednesday: The Trip Up

Just making the trip posed some difficulties. We rejected plane travel almost immediately. I read Ed Begley's book Living Like Ed a couple months ago and he makes some damning points. Not only do jets get horrible millage per person, but they release all sorts of nasty pollutants into the upper atmosphere. I didn't want that on my conscience.

A train ride would have been ideal, but when I entered our times on the Amtrak site I was horrified. The only trip I could find in our time window involved multiple bus transfers and would have taken at least 10 hours. What is WRONG with Amtrak these days? Maybe things will get better some day if we manage to build the high speed rail. I know I'll ride it.

In the end we settled on driving my girlfriend's VW. Even after wrestling with the moral objections to driving an automobile almost 900 miles, we ran into trouble on I-5 (hardly unusual on our ridiculously ill-designed interstate freeway system). A truck ahead of us tore down power lines and shut down all four lanes. It took us three hours to detour around it on a series of muddy farm roads. Several other cars tried to pull off onto the shoulder and got stuck. For all I know, they're still there.

We finally approached the city just in time to be stuck in rush hour traffic. We did finally reach our destination-a few blocks from the BART station in San Leandro. We badly need good rail service between LA and SF. I don't want to have to do this every year.

Thursday: Thanksgiving Day in San Leandro

While dinner was cooking I got to spend some time walking around the town of San Leandro (we had to do some last minute grocery shopping). Small houses, close to rail transit, plenty of stores and restaurants within easy walking distance...its my kind of place. Of course, the clerk at Von's was completely flabbergasted when we asked to put our purchases in a day pack instead of a plastic bag, but you get that everywhere.

My girlfriend's family lives right next to the Zap electric vehicle dealership. No one hates cars more than I. If you're going to have them, though, they might as well be small, electric, and chartreuse. I was a little puzzled by the presence of a Hummer in the used car part f the lot. A trade-in, one hopes?

Friday: Marin County

Marin County is one of the few places in California where life actually makes sense. By this I mean that there are more trees than buildings, more bike trails than roads, and when you go to a coffee house you're encouraged to bring your own cup. We spent most of Friday getting a complete tour from some friends of ours who moved up there earlier this year. Leave it to me to be in Mill Valley without a mountain bike.

The only drawback I can see to the town is the lack of a rail connection. Then again...you can ride your bike right to the fairy and head to the city, so I suppose it really isn't a problem.

If you every make it to Mill Valley I would unreservedly recommend Avatar's Punjabi Burritos, which makes some of the best Indian fast food I've had in years (and I live in LA so I know).

What Is an "Urban" Bike?

2008-11-07T18:38:00.000-08:00

Several of my less bike literate friends have asked me to explain this latest trend in bicycles. Basically, I would define an “urban bike” as any bicycle that survives in the urban environment. This is tougher than it sounds because the hazards are many. A bike that somehow how avoids being stolen might be destroyed by or quickly discarded because it is two heavy, too slow, or two temperamental for commuting use. In a moment, I will explain three different takes on the concept (including my own). Always keep in mind, however, that the bike that works for you is always the perfect bike. I currently belong to a bike club at work. There are about 5 active members and no two of us have bikes that similar. All of these bikes are ridden in group rides every week however in places like East LA, Hollywood, and Whittier. By my rule, they are all “urban” bikes because they work for their riders.

When the bicycle industry talks about urban bikes, they usually mean a kind of all around bicycle. These bikes are a bit lighter than a mountain bike, a bit sportier than a comfort bike, and cheaper than most road bikes. The bars are usually flat, the forks are usually rigid, and the tires are medium wide. Actually, I think this sort of bike has much to recommend it. For the last two decades most bikes sold in this country have been mountain bikes that were ridiculously unsuited to city riding. I can think of few things sillier than riding a full suspension mountain bike in the city. Most people will rarely go on single track and are best served by a simple all-around bike.

There is another paradigm which comes not from the bike companies, but from the bike subculture itself. Bicycle messengers have been common in North American cities for many years. Many of them started out with more-or less stock road and mountain bikes. As time passed however, they created a very distinctive style of bike. In the last few years many of younger riders who have never worked as messengers have adopted this style. In general, these bikes are built on light-weight frames, usually steel (the better to survive the inevitable wrecks). They tend to have drop bars, or sometimes “bull horns”. Quick release wheels and seat post clamps are shunned because they make it too easy to steel parts off the bike. A front brake is considered optional. A rear break is considered a nuisance. Most importantly of all, these bikes are single-speed or, even more commonly, fixed gear. Dérailleurs are simply not considered worth the weight, expense, and hassle.

Urban fixed gear bikes are highly optimized for aggressive riding in the thick of inner-city traffic. Their riders tend to have a high level of physical fitness and technique (or else they don't last long in that kind of riding anyway). They are certainly not appropriate for all riders. However, if you are an advanced cyclist who regularly needs to get around a downtown area in a hurry, you should probably check into them.

A few months ago, when I felt recuperated enough from my injuries to begin riding again, I was faced with the need to choose a bike. I have owned dozens of them over the years and worked on hundreds for other people, so I had a pretty good idea of what I needed. Unfortunately, I had one big constraint: I only had about $100 to blow. Lucky for me, I almost immediately found an early '90s Nishiki at the goodwill for $30. I repacked all the bearings, put cushy commuter tires on it, and chopped the original steel bars into bull horns, and threw away the back brake (it drags on the new tires and I never use it anyway). I had enough money left over to get a good pair of break levers and some bar tape. (I put on both levers so it wouldn't look lopsided).

My bike doesn't look like much (a big plus, because bike thieves are less likely to notice it). I have been very happy with it, however. It keeps up quite easily with my friend's nice road bikes, not to mention Hollywood traffic. My only beef is that, at 25.5 lbs, it is a little heavy to carry up subway staircases. I plan to swap on more allow components as time goes on. So far, I have resisted the urge to convert it to a single speed/fixed gear. I can't say what will happen as I get in better shape, however.

I realize that my answer to the original question of “what is an urban bike” lacks brevity. I hope, though, that I have at least demonstrated the range of possibilities within the class.

West Hollywood Halloween Parade 2008

2008-11-01T15:46:00.000-07:00

Last night my friends and I went to the West Hollywood Halloween parade. Oddly, the event is not a parade—more of a huge costume party in the middle of Santa Monica boulevard with many thousands of participants, food, cover bands, and dance music. What a blast!

One overwhelming observation gripped me: I like Santa Monica Boulevard eminently better without cars. With the roadblocks up we were able to walk right up to shops that we can barely get to by car (because of the impossible parking situation). More than that, its just a much friendlier place when it isn't blighted by the automobile.

The obvious question is, “why don't we just close it off for good?” Santa Monica did it with the 3^rd street promenade and created a shopping and entertainment mecca for the whole west side. Why not West Hollywood? Why not every town in the country?

I noticed another phenomenon. As soon as the barriers were up pedestrians started reclaiming not just the Boulevard, but all of its cross streets as well. Only a few of these streets had officially been closed, yet people suddenly felt like they could begin walking in the middle of the street again. The lesson is, once you get cars off your main arterial streets, you can take back your town.

Lets do it. Keep pressuring your city governments to put up bollards and close main thoroughfares. We need more downtown walking malls. Get the cars out of our cities—for an event or forever—and everyone will be the better for it.

Big SUV? Get a Commercial License

2008-11-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

Our goal is to get all cars out of private hands. In the beginning, however, it might be worthwhile to target the most dangerous, the most environmentally damaging, and the most outright obnoxious cars. In other words: the biggest cars.

As I travel the streets of Southern California, I have noticed an interesting correlation: the least competent drivers always want to drive the biggest SUVs and vans. This makes them feel a lot safer, but puts the rest of us in a state of constant risk. How many times have we all nearly been forced off the road by some ultra wide vehicle whose driver can not keep it in their own lane? How man questionable right turns have we made on red lights because (tall and opaque) SUV in the left turn lane has pulled it all the way into the cross walk, blocking our view?

When these vehicles get in a collision, the results are devastating. Kinetic energy is directly proportional to mass. At a given speed, a vehicle that weighs twice as much will transmit twice as much energy to the object with which it collides.

I will not even address the driving habits of red-neck jack asses in jacked-up pickup trucks.

My point is, bigger vehicles are harder to control and more hazardous for other road users. The people who want them most are usually the ones who should not have them.

Environmentally, it is clear that larger vehicles are more damaging. The use a lot more material, all of which will eventually need to be recycled or otherwise disposed up. I would direct you to Katie Alvord's excellent book Divorce Your Car (New Society Publishers, 2000) for a discussion of the direct and indirect costs of manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing of cars. It is likely that most of these costs are proportional to weight.

Obviously, larger vehicles waste much more fossil fuel, which should be a concern to everybody. Likewise, they release many more pollutants into the atmosphere. In the US they are required to meet much laxer emissions standards than normal cars.

There is a simple way to attack the drivers of thees dangerous and wasteful vehicles. Most states currently require commercial drivers licenses for vehicles above a certain gross vehicle weight (GVW). In most states this kicks in around 10,000 lb GVW. A rather simple change in the motor vehicle code would redefine commercial vehicles as being any vehicle over 6,000 GVW. This would include most large SUVs, full sized vans, and pickup trucks. See here for a list of vehicles.

The change would require that anyone owning one of these vehicles would need to register them as commercial vehicles (which typically costs more and requires more paperwork than private vehicles). Their insurance rates would probably increase. Most importantly, they would be forced to obtain commercial licenses.

Most people who actually need to drive these vehicles for work probably already have a CDL, or could get one fairly easily. It could provide a useful barrier, however, for the sort of driver we have been speaking about.

The federal Department of Transportation (DOT) has guidelines for the issuance of a commercial drivers license. In general applicants must pay extra fees, take an additional multiple choice test, pass a road test in a commercial vehicle (which usually requires a special appointment), pass a comprehensive physical (which they must repeat every two years), and undergo a federal background check.

All of these requirements are perfectly reasonable for someone who wants to operate a vehicle heavier than 6000 lbs. Indeed, they are rather modest considering how dangerous, dirty, and environmentally damaging they are. Hopefully some day we can outlaw them altogether. For now, we can change the laws to make them harder to operate.

The War Against The Car (Introduction)

2008-11-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

In 2006 I was a casualty of war. The war I refer to is the struggle of ordinary people like me against the forces of big oil and the automotive companies and the car culture they have created to enslave humanity. I dared to walk along an American road and was run down and crippled by the enemy, a car. Ironically I, who have been car light or car free since I was 15, was forced to use a car extensively for the next two years because of my injuries. Only recently have I returned to the bicycle as my primary means of transportation (supplemented by trains and the bus). The war goes on. I am back on active duty. I still think we can win.

I am not speaking metaphorically. This is a real war. Many people on both sides have been killed by one of mans deadliest weapons—the automobile. Real violence erupts all the time. In the last two weeks two drivers have screamed threats of bodily harm at me because they resented the fact that I was driving in traffic. Even though my left arm is still crippled, I realized that it was my duty to stand and fight. Luckily, they proved less willing than me to suffer physical injury for their beliefs. Had they had superiority of numbers I'm sure I would have suffered a severe beating.

In the last few weeks I have been trying to assess the direction of transportation activism in this country. I'm pleased to see that the ranks of bicycle activists, transportation reformers, and mass transit advocates have swollen in the wake of the latest gas crises. Terrific! They are my brothers in arms and I salute them. Unfortunately, their strategies are critically flawed.

The usual argument goes like this: "If we improve mass transit, build bike paths, improve the bikes themselves, and educate people about fitness then they will all abandon their cars and flock to our side." This will not work. Here in Los Angeles we have one of the largest and biggest bus and subway systems in the country, yet LA is the very heartland of the evil car culture. Bike paths are great for a nice Sunday morning ride, but they don't tend to go to any of the places we work or shop or live. Bikes are already awesome. People are lazy. As long as cars are cheap and assessable they are going to drive them. The fact that they are destroying the planet and endangering the lives of themselves and their neighbors will always be secondary to their own comfort and convenience.

The the only way to fight the car culture is a head-on attack. The only way to eliminate cars from the road is to make them hard to acquire, expensive to drive, and eventually illegal to own or produce. In my next few entries I will explore ways to attack the car culture. Few of them will be easy. In fact, most of them will take a lot of time, money, and courage. This is a real war, remember?

I also reserve the right to slip in a few useful bicycle or woodworking shop tips and perhaps an amusing fire sprinkler anecdote or two—just to lighten the mood.