Boston Biker has a fantastic rant titled, Let’s Make One Thing Clear, I Am Not Slowing You Down. I imagine Lewis Black on a bike, which is not an easy thing to imagine.
A person on a bicycle takes up 8-10 sq foot of road, a car takes up 100+ square feet of road. Road space is limited"¦do the math. Cyclists are not the ones slowing you down.
"But one time this guy on a bike got right in front of me and I had to go around, slowing me down!!!!"
You know one time I found a ten dollar bill on the ground, you know what happened the other 99.99% of the time, I didn't. Cyclists are not the ones slowing you down.
My search continues for political leaders who commute to work.
It can’t help when British Members of Parliament are ridiculed–on page one of the tabloid Metro–when they do bike commute. That’s what happened to Hugh Bayley, the MP for York. Baily reportedly is the “only MP out of 650 to claim the 20p-a-mile [$0.28 per mile] allowance which covers bicycle maintenance and the extra cost of eating more because energy is burned up during exercise.”
Bike Biz notes, “There’s no complaint about MP’s who claim for car expenses while on Parliamentary business.”
Still in the UK, Spencer Ivy has launched a slick campaign to get people hooked on e-bikes. (This makes Pete Prebus’ insidious campaign to addict me to e-bikes look downright innocent.)
Again, via [BikeBiz].
Bike Paths are Unconstitutional. You heard it here first–unless, er, you read it first on Bike Commuters, or DC Streetsblog.
Streetsblog (SB) interviewed Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who is a new member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
SB: I was just in an EPW Committee hearing and there was some talk about the fact that some small amount of money in the reauthorization historically gets used for things like bike trails. Some people think that's waste; some people think biking is a mode of transportation. What do you think?
Hunter: I don't think biking should fall under the federal purview of what the Transportation Committee is there for. If a state wants to do it, or local municipality, they can do whatever they want to. But no, because then you have us mandating bike paths, which you don't want either.
SB: But you're OK with mandating highways?
Hunter: Absolutely, yeah. Because that's in the constitution. I don't see riding a bike the same as driving a car or flying an airplane.
SB: How is it different?
Hunter: I think it's more of a recreational thing. That's my opinion.
On Bike Commuters, the first person to comment was Bob p., who quipped, “I must have an old version of the Constitution, because my copy doesn't even mention highways.”