Biking a Public Health Matter

I don't write about it much here, because it's so obvious, but biking is good for public health (duh!). There, I said it. Two articles reminded me of why this is important. First clean air...

The Washington area is in the middle of a carbon dioxide binge, with emissions of this greenhouse gas from vehicles and electricity users having increased at more than twice the national rate between 2001 and 2005, according to a Washington Post estimate.

Or that lack thereof. Bikes - obviously - don't create any emissions, and they're part of the reason that the news wasn't as bad as it could have been:

The brightest news came from the District, where emissions grew 6.7 percent. D.C. officials said they think the relatively low increase is partly a sign of changing behavior: Residents were leaving their cars at home and walking, biking or taking public transit.

The article also makes the point that behavior follows policy. I don't bike to save the world. I bike because it's in my own interest. If you make it in the interest of others - providing incentives and facilities - you're number of bike commuters will go up.

Some residents are taking advantage of green-friendly policies. State Department employee Ed Fendley, for instance, commutes from his home near Ballston by bicycle. His zero-emissions trip is made possible by Arlington's bicycle lanes and the showers and bike rack provided by his employer -- and his willingness to endure rain, snow and bad drivers.

And that's just CO2, there are a lot of other nasty things that come out of cars (that we cyclists get to breathe in) like Nitrogen Oxide (greenhouse gas that also causes acid rain), Carbon Monoxide (poisonous gas),  and

ground-level ozone, a major component of smog. Ozone irritates the eyes, damages the lungs, and aggravates respiratory problems. A number of exhaust hydrocarbons are also toxic, with the potential to cause cancer.

Finally, also in the duh! category - Biking fights obesity. Which is why several cities are making some of their roads "bicycle only" on weekends or special days.

Every Saturday starting May 26 through Sept. 30, bicyclists, joggers, and pedestrians will have free rein on almost a mile of John F. Kennedy Drive, the main drag through Golden Gate Park.

• New York is proposing to shut down perimeter roads of Central Park and Brooklyn's Prospect Park all summer long

• Atlanta plans to transform 53 acres of blighted, unused land into new bike-friendly green space.

• Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago are planning events to promote car-free days in public parks, most in the hope that the idea will become permanent or extend for months.

Smaller US cities, from Davenport, Iowa, to Huntington Beach, Calif., are also starting to create car-free zones, according to Mr. Welle's studies.       

Beginning this month, El Paso will detour cars from seven roads every Sunday from 7 to 11 a.m. so that cyclists, joggers, and pedestrians can use them instead.     

"City leaders were faced with a challenge: to get a poor city of overweight, sedentary people moving when there weren't any parks or [bicycle] lanes," says Robin Stallings of the Texas Bicycle Coalition. A national magazine declared the city one of the four fattest in the US, he says, "and that really got everyone's attention."

In D.C., of course, sections of Rock Creek Park are closed on weekends - that makes us trend setters (not Baltimore), but why stop with one success? Surely there are other areas in need of exercise then just NW DC.

Want to decrease the Bike/Car confrontations on MacArthur Blvd? Close the road to cars between Clara Barton and Maryland Avenue. Or how about Fort Dupont and Fort Davis Drives in Anacostia? Or any one of dozens of other streets that are underused on the weekends.

Comments

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Two years ago "environmental awareness month" where I work was celebrated by the removal of the only bikerack from my building.Out of 2500 employees, I'm the ONLY one who bike commutes year round- so I guess it made sense to remove it. They need to focus on light bulbs and recycling while they continue to SUV into work from Hagerstown & Spotsylvania County.