Staff Viewpoint: Biking better for environment, sanity
Benjamin Israel
Issue date: 10/10/05 Section: Opinions
I know it's unusual for a 55-year-old, but I bicycle the five miles from my home to UM-St. Louis. I like it. It's better for me and for the world in general. Besides I enjoy it.
One reason I enjoy it is except for crossing Olive Boulevard, St. Charles Rock Road and Hanley Road, I don't have to fight traffic. I take back streets and cut through one alley, so It's actually relaxing.
I get two kinds of reactions. Some people see me and say, "I'll bet you get good gas mileage." Sometimes I tell them that the bike cost about $300, that's about 10 tanks full of gas at today's prices. Some drivers react like I don't belong on the road. I have to watch out for them.
When I was a teenager, back in the days before cell phones, video games and cable television, I made the decision to drive as little as possible. I knew what cars did to cities.
Cars are the biggest environmental problem in the world.
What about global warming? Car exhausts may be the leading cause.
Air pollution? Car exhausts. Water pollution? One of the largest contributors to water pollution is runoff from streets-oil, antifreeze and other fluids from cars.
You could make an argument that cars caused the flood of 1993. Because cars need paved roads and parking lots, close to half the earth in cities is paved. When I was a reporter for the now-defunct West Countian, longtime residents told me that the creeks out there-Fishpot, Grand Glaize, Kiefer-didn't overflow during heavy rains before the area was developed. The ground and the plants covering it would absorb the water. As developers paved streets for new subdivisions and shopping centers with big parking lots and the government widened roads, heavy rains turned creeks into raging, overflowing rivers. What happened in 1993 was a bigger version of Grand Glaize Creek in a heavy rain.
Cars separate people. In the early 1980s, I lived in a Kansas City neighborhood where most of my friends didn't have cars. We'd see each other walking or biking pretty regularly and stop to chat. Do that in the street while in your car, and the cars stacking up behind you will start honking their horns and tempers start to flare. It's not nice.
One reason I enjoy it is except for crossing Olive Boulevard, St. Charles Rock Road and Hanley Road, I don't have to fight traffic. I take back streets and cut through one alley, so It's actually relaxing.
I get two kinds of reactions. Some people see me and say, "I'll bet you get good gas mileage." Sometimes I tell them that the bike cost about $300, that's about 10 tanks full of gas at today's prices. Some drivers react like I don't belong on the road. I have to watch out for them.
When I was a teenager, back in the days before cell phones, video games and cable television, I made the decision to drive as little as possible. I knew what cars did to cities.
Cars are the biggest environmental problem in the world.
What about global warming? Car exhausts may be the leading cause.
Air pollution? Car exhausts. Water pollution? One of the largest contributors to water pollution is runoff from streets-oil, antifreeze and other fluids from cars.
You could make an argument that cars caused the flood of 1993. Because cars need paved roads and parking lots, close to half the earth in cities is paved. When I was a reporter for the now-defunct West Countian, longtime residents told me that the creeks out there-Fishpot, Grand Glaize, Kiefer-didn't overflow during heavy rains before the area was developed. The ground and the plants covering it would absorb the water. As developers paved streets for new subdivisions and shopping centers with big parking lots and the government widened roads, heavy rains turned creeks into raging, overflowing rivers. What happened in 1993 was a bigger version of Grand Glaize Creek in a heavy rain.
Cars separate people. In the early 1980s, I lived in a Kansas City neighborhood where most of my friends didn't have cars. We'd see each other walking or biking pretty regularly and stop to chat. Do that in the street while in your car, and the cars stacking up behind you will start honking their horns and tempers start to flare. It's not nice.
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