By Melissa Segrest
Green Right Now

You’re cool and environmentally conscious. You eat organic and live green, right down to your trendy hemp shoes.  You probably even drive a Prius and subscribe to Mother Jones.

But if you live in a city of much size, to be deeply green you must pimp your ride with a folding bike.

Europeans have been making and riding folding bikes for years. Asia, long a bicycle-dominant part of the world, has found folding bikes ideal for their cities’ crowded streets.

Now America is gaining speed and folding-bike sales are growing.

A folding bike can be pricey  (some models cost well above $2,000), but you can also find one for less than $300. Increasingly they can be brought aboard buses, subways and trains, folded so small they slip into carrying bags and cause no crowding complaints. The battle of squeezing a bike into elevators, apartments and offices becomes moot when your cycle can collapse to less than 3 feet in height. (Check with airlines before assuming you can fly your bike-in-a-bag as luggage.)

The collapsible cycle’s origins are debated — some say it was invented by an American in the 1890s, others credit the French military, according to The Folding Cyclist. The folding cycles were widely used by the military in Europe during both world wars.

In the 1980s, two brands of folding bikes were born — Andrew Ritchie’s Bromptons and Dr. David Hon’s Dahons. Today, both are still big wheels in the folding bike field. Dahon is the largest, and one source says the company sold 638,000 bikes from 2006 to 2007. Bromptons are very popular in the UK and Asia.

Issues to consider before buying: How long does it take to fold and unfold? How much does it weigh? What size are the wheels?

Look at performance, speed and stability, and make sure the bike fits you.

How and where you’ll use the bike is essential to your decision. Will you be on park paths during vacations, or traversing the mean streets of the big city getting to work? Will you ride long distances or lug your bike around as much as you ride it?

Folding bikes look a little odd, which is likely part of the appeal. Some of the colorful bikes – especially when folded — look more like works of industrial art than modes of transportation.

Many have elongated posts for seats and handlebars. The wheels can be very small (8- to 12-inch) but stability is sacrificed at that size. Most folding bikes have wheels in the 16- to 18-inch range (although some come as large as 26 inches). The small wheels can make the ride a bit rougher but the bikes are lighter and fold faster. The lightest weigh about 22 to 25 pounds. Most bikers prefer those with multiple gears rather than single-speed, and those with internal gears in the hub mean no more grease on your pants.

City centers are often portrayed as grimy, polluted places. And they can be grimy, polluted places – the daily destination for thousands of carbon-emitting commuters and home to many smokestack industries.

Just don’t blame the people living there. Households closer to the urban action are, on average, far less polluting, according to research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The reason is not hard to fathom: People living in more densely developed areas drive less and are more likely to take public transportation.

“Cities are more location efficient – meaning key destinations are closer to where people live and work,” said Scott Bernstein, president of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, in a statement explaining the center’s research.

Conversely, people living in the suburbs drive farther to services, including often commuting to their workplace (in the city or another burb), which makes them less “location efficient” — and more polluting.

The Center for Neighborhood Technology, a 30-year-old non-profit based in Chicago and focused on urban living, has put together a collection of nifty maps where you can see the effects of this phenomenon in which city dwellers emit fewer greenhouse gases than suburbanites. The maps are the graphic expression of the center’s Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which suggests that families could lower their carbon emissions by living closer to the urban center, though perhaps not too close, where the real estate prices kick into hyper-drive.

The index is calculated by using regional median incomes and stacking them against the costs of housing and transportation to give “the true cost” of living in a certain place. (To see more on the methodology, click here.)

See an example of the H+T Index on the map above of the LA area, which shows the highest carbon dioxide pollution per household comes from outlying areas (shown in red) compared with the lower GHG households (shown in yellow) closer to the city center.

It makes sense, urban dwellers are closer to restaurants, workplaces and an array of services, as well as public transportation, so they’re not weighed down by transportation costs nor are they spewing much exhaust.

They’re also may be saving far more money than people may realize, says CNT president Scott Bernstein.

The group’s research has found that city dwellers may save 15 to 20 percent of their income moving to a closer-in location compared with their counterparts in the suburbs. With the costs of buying, insuring and fueling a car running around $5,100 a year in major cities, jettisoning a vehicle could make a big difference to a financially stressed family.

“If you’re at the edge, saving through conservation this way is a better proposition than increasing your income by X amount,” Bernstein said.

There also are convenience and accessibility features to living in an urban environment that can make sense to a family of any income, he continued. The point of the index is to illustrate for people that they have a choice of where to live and that the savings on transportation can make urban living a value proposition.

“This is evidence based. It’s not just a philosophy,” said Bernstein, who oversaw the review of all U.S. major metropolitan areas.

As for that gritty, grimy image of urban centers, Bernstein says that air pollution can be just as bad in certain outlying regions, when air patterns take industrial or auto emissions there. Suburban subdivisions also are frequently built near expressways, which degrades the quality of the air, he said.

Air pollution does present barriers to moving to certain urban locales, he conceded, but moving to a more accessible region doesn’t necessarily mean moving “downtown” so much as it means “urbanizing more places.”

The H + T index does not analyze other quality of life issues. It does not, for instance, assess the psychological value of being closer to urban amenities, nor does it weigh the value of better-rated public schools in suburban locations. Those are matters for a different matrix dealing with overall quality of life issues. The H+T Index is simply calculated to show the transportation cost of living in a certain location.

In the course of looking at the relative transportation costs, though, the Center for Neighborhood Technology did review carbon dioxide emissions related to vehicle travel in 55 metro areas in the United States. Overall, the researchers found that the transportation-related emissions of city folk were about 70 percent less than of those living in suburbs.

In areas where sprawl is extensive, and comes with sparse public transit, transportation costs can gobble up to 28 percent of the area household median income, the center researchers noted.

“If you’re deciding where to live, consider moving to an urban area. You’ll help fight global warming by emitting less CO2. And you’re likely to drive less, so you’ll spend less on transportation, saving up to $5,000 annually,” Bernstein said.

Copyright © 2009 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

People going green are turning to gasoline-electric hybrid automobiles like the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight or any number of hybrids offered by General Motors for transportation. But folks really serious about saving gasoline and money will want to consider the latest alternatives to gasoline-electric hybrids: sweat-electric hybrids.

The latest generation of electric-hybrid bicycles is arriving at a bike shop near you. Major bicycle makers Giant and Schwinn (who can forget the Stingray?) have recently introduced cutting-edge hybrid bikes that seamlessly harness battery power and pedal power, making biking to work easy as the breeze in your hair.

The new offerings from the bike big boys promise to nudge so-called e-bikes from the eddy of the eccentric into the mainstream. E-Bike sales in the US are projected to hit 220,000 units in 2009, up 83 percent from 2007 sales, according to the Electric Bikes Worldwide Report, 2008 Update. In Europe, sales this year are expected to hit 750,000 – three times 2007 sales.

“We’re seeing huge growth,” says Pantea Mavaddat, marketing director of Currie Technologies, maker of the Izip line of hybrid bikes.

An e-bike isn’t an electric scooter. You still have to pedal to get somewhere. But the electric motor makes pedaling much easier; making uphill rides less daunting and flat roads effortless.

“It changes your psyche,” says Brown Loper, co-owner of an Atlanta-area bike shop and sole owner of a Giant Twist e-bike.

Loper’s commute to work is just a mile and a half, but it’s nearly all up hill.

“So, even me, on my other bike, I get to work and I’m puffing and feel like I need to take a shower,” Loper says.

Columbus, Ohio. It’s not the first place you think of when green cities come to mind. Or the second or the third.

Indeed, there’s a whole string of burgs more strongly associated with sustainability. There’s Boulder with its rock solid commitment to community gardens, organic food mecca Eugene and all wind-powered Austin. The U.S. has many traditional pockets of non-tradition paying daily homage to the green spirit.

But now here comes Columbus — and Little Rock, and Raleigh, and Sioux Falls. These regular-folks towns are getting their green groove on too. They’re setting up sustainability offices, buying biodiesel buses, hosting solar car events and designing new bike lanes.

Take Columbus. Set in the middle of middle America, no one really expects it to be a green leader. But the world around is changing — no Rust Belt city needs a lesson on that — and the capital city of Ohio sees how the green future can be cleaner, more economical and seed a more robust job market.

The city is trying to seize those new green jobs and that cleaner air with a variety of approaches. But it has a particular penchant for biking. Driven by Mayor Michael B. Coleman (that’s him in the black jacket and blue helmet above riding to work on Bike-To-Work Week in May), the city aspires to become a national center of biking (sharing the spotlight of course with veterans like Seattle). It is planning to double its existing 62-mile trail system and intends to connect those new bike paths to each other in smart ways, assuring two-wheel commuters that biking can be convenient, reliable and safe from surrounding motor traffic.

The city’s Pedal Instead program already is winning converts at recreational events. More than 2,000 bikers used bike corrals at city festivals and Ohio State Football games last year. A Columbus report claims the bikers saved 1,000 gallons of gasoline and 18,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, though how they measured this is anyone’s guess.

Let’s just say that biking saves a LOT of gasoline. And it helps tune your  cardiovascular system while aiding the environment, a far better plan than eating french fries in your idling vehicle.

“Spreading bicycle use goes hand in hand with sustainable transportation. It’s good for people’s health and is a low-cost way to reduce pollution,” said Gary Gardner, a senior researcher for the Worldwatch Institute and the author of a “Vital Signs Update” on bike transportation released today by the Worldwatch Institute.

Gardner found that bicycle production was up 3.2 percent in 2007, and that an increasing number of cities are expanding bike-sharing plans worldwide. Paris, for instance, installed 20,000 bikes at 1,450 rental stations.

Because our cars (and houses) produce the vast majority of our personal contribution to greenhouse gases (* transportation accounts for 32 percent, and housing 35 percent),  getting people off the road and onto the bike trails seems like a great priority for cities.

So Columbus, lead us to the promised land.

(* See The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices, Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists, for more details on how households contribute to global warming and can reduce their carbon imprint.)

Copyright © 2008 Green Right Now | Distributed by Noofangle Media

Let’s face it: Solo car commuters increase both traffic congestion and a city’s carbon footprint.

In San Francisco, those gas-hogging lone drivers soon will be get a clear message to switch to greener forms of transportation, such as buses, train transit and van pools. Earlier this month, the city preliminarily approved a commuter measure requiring medium- and large-size city employers to promote — or even pay for — public transit or vanpools for their commuting employees.

It’s likely that many more American cities will follow San Francisco’s lead, particularly those cities that have signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement (USCPA), and pledged to reduce global warming pollution in their cities by 7 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2012. They will likely be scrambling to usher commuters from their cars and SUV’s and onto mass transit lines, an immediate and proven way of reducing urban smog.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was an early adopter of the USCPA and the city has an ambitious climate action plan, so it’s no surprise that on August 5, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a commuter measure that would require many city employers to promote public transit or vanpools for their commuting employees. The Commuter Benefits ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, would give San Francisco employers with more than 20 workers three options: pay for employees’ transit passes or vanpools; provide door-to-door shuttle or vanpools, or tap into the federal Commuter Checks program, which allows employees to create pretax commuter accounts.

San Francisco Chamber of Commerce senior vice president Jim Lazarus said the chamber is not always in favor of city-imposed mandates on businesses, but said it backs the latest commuter proposal. “The good thing about the mandate is that it has a net no-cost alternative for employers,” he said. Employers would save on their payroll taxes by implementing option three of the proposal, pre-tax employee commuter accounts. “There’s flexibility and that’s a positive thing,” Lazarus said.

The Commuter Benefits plan aims to extend the same mass transit benefit that most municipal employees receive through programs like the federal Commuter Checks to the private sector, Mirkarimi said. Municipal employees can already avail themselves of employer-subsidized transit discounts, and the Commerce’s Lazarus said many do.

A city-mandated downtown plan for 55 new high rise buildings requiring employers to educate employees about non-car transit options resulted in 92% worker participation in Commuter Checks: 3,000 employees traveling to work in some way other than a single-occupancy vehicle.

But the federal pretax benefits program is “not well utilized in the private sector,” Mirkarimi said. “Our city’s workforce use of this benefit pales in comparison to how many could be using it.”

With gas averaging well over $4 in San Francisco, the potential numbers of transit benefits users could be big. Jared Blumenfeld, who heads the city’s Department of Environment, estimates another 50,000 to 75,000 transit riders may enroll for commuter benefits.

The federal program works like this: The employer buys Commuter Checks – vouchers used to pay for public transit or vanpooling – and either gives them to employees free of charge as an employee benefit, or allows employees to purchase them using a pre-tax payroll deduction. Because the amount employees spend on transit or vanpooling, up to $115 a month, can be deducted from their paychecks before taxes, their yearly taxable income is reduced by the value of vouchers purchased. That can translate to a savings of up to 40% on transit costs.

Mass transit commuters save even more than that, however, through the direct and immediate savings on gasoline and car maintenance. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) estimates that with a gallon of gasoline at $3.90, a person can save about $8,000 a year by switching to mass transit, according to a July report by the APTA.

And that’s not even accounting for greenhouse gas savings.

”It really goes beyond saving a few dollars for employers and employees; it’s a city response to an energy crisis and also to the global environmental crisis,” San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi said. The measure was approved by a final vote of the board yesterday but must be signed by the mayor to take effect.

Employers don’t have to wait for a mandate to offer commuter benefits to their workers. Businesses nationwide are taking initiative to offer sometimes-innovative commuting options. Siegel and Strain, an Emeryville, California architecture firm, reimburses its employees at the current federal automobile rate of 58.5 cents per mile for bicycling to off-site meetings.

Compare that to the state of California rate of 4 cents per mile for state workers who bike on government business, or even The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s suggested 10 cents per mile reimbursement rate, and you have a nice incentive, and even “a scone at the bakery on the way back to recharge,” said Siegel and Strain associate Marjorie Smith.

Smith said that while it’s nice to be reimbursed for wear and tear on the bike and calories expended, what she really likes about the program is that it institutionalizes bicycling as transportation. “Having the support of the organization behind it acknowledges that bicycling is a valid way to get around,” she said.

This type of program is a win-win for both employers and employees looking to reduce their environmental impact and improve their health. “We’ve been looking at ways to further green our business,” said Nancy Malone, a principal at the firm. “One of things we’ve been looking at is transportation. The idea came from someone relatively new who asked if we reimbursed for bicycle riding to the job site.” The firm decided to go with the auto reimbursement rate because the distances ridden “won’t be huge”, and if employees drove, the firm would have had to pay the same amount.

“Most of the people that ride their bikes really are dedicated to it and really enjoy it. If people are happier doing that it’s certainly a plus for everybody,” Malone said.

Siegel and Strain, with 18 employees, will make a relatively small impact on the planet by supporting carbon-free travel. But the trend includes much bigger companies too. The League of American Bicyclists, which recognizes municipalities for actively supporting bicycling, has a new plan to give awards to bicycle-friendly businesses. The applications are still being reviewed, but director Bill Nesper mentioned a couple of companies in the running:

• Calvert -- The Washington, D.C. investment company reimburses up to $500 for the (one time) purchase of a bicycle and reimburses up to $120 annually for the purchase of shoes for those employees who walk to work.

• Google – Provides on-site bike repair, a fleet of company bicycles for on-campus and off-site meeting commuting on its Mountain View, CA campus, and, free, company-branded bikes for some employees in its Europe, Middle East, and Africa offices. The company also makes a donation to charity for every day that an employee gets to work under his or her own power (biking, skateboarding etc.) A Google spokesperson says that more than 2,500 employees participate in the Self-Powered Commuters (SPC) program worldwide.
  

Many other programs and resources support city-backed climate plans, and public transit and bicycle commuting, including:

• Cool Cities — In this Sierra Club-Sponsored program, Cool Cities are cities that have made a commitment to stopping global warming by signing the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. Begun in 2005, the Cool Cities campaign empowers city residents and local leaders to join and encourage their cities to start smart energy solutions to save money and build a cleaner, safer future.

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Best Workplaces for Commuters — As it says, this is a list of employers with commuter-friendly policies.

• Seattle Climate Action Plan — Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels initiated the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, and Seattle’s Climate plan is the model for cities nationwide. The campaign provides online tools and tips for getting started on climate action.

• The City of Seattle website provides a good explanation of commuter benefit programs and also offers a page of links to transportation resources for those who want to find carpool programs or find out more about city bus and train options across the country.

• American Public Transportation Association’s Public Transportation Savings Calculator lets you see for yourself how taking transport saves you money.

• San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Employers Commuting Guide helps employers decide which commuting options they could offer, based on location, number of employees and other factors.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media