FLCC> Commuting and Climate Change

[Daniel Kidney]

I was going to peg this on to my Tuesday sum up, but figured few would even
make it to the end of my cornering talk, so here it is folks, climate
change, large as life! Love it or hate it, it's here. I like that it has
made April dry for me, ultimately I may regret it when the garden doesn't
yield. Anyway, I was looking for something catchier than just "commuting"
for a subject, but commuting is what I'm really getting after here.
Concerned about the environment or not, bikes are prettier than cars, plus,
if we get people out of their cars and build little houses and shops on the
parking lots, then no one will have to go so far between things (because
they won't need to drive by so much parking lot space) and then more people
will be able to use bikes to get where they need to anyway! This is the idea
at least.

Recently I attended the monthly meeting of a group called Tompkins
Sustainable. Transportation was the theme of the evening. Bikes almost took
a back seat at the event, shamefully, but a seat filled by some fiery folks.
RIBs was there, so was BPAC. BPAC is something I never knew about before:
the Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Council (to the city of Ithaca). Talking
with members of the council I found that they high hopes for bicycles as a
means of transportation in Ithaca, but with little evidence of public
interest coming to their office, they held little power over the city budget
to improve and promote commuting by bicycle. For a city so painfully hip as
Ithaca, the commuting cyclist population is not all that significant. Many
of the streets are less than friendly to cyclists. At this meeting BPAC
discussed ideas as grand as closing some streets to cars and having them
only open to bicycles... currently the City doesn't see the public interest
though to justify such projects.

I know that many of us ride more for sport than transportation or morals,
but I think that our involvement with the community could certainly be
improved. We already have excellent free clinics in the Spring, but the
publicity is mostly within the club and Cornell Cycling. I would like to see
us more as a group promoting local cycling, especially commuting, not just
racing. When I brought up the FLCC with the BPAC folks they were certainly
aware of us, but felt that we weren't really involved in commuting and
promotion thereof so much; I know the former isn't true (maybe some of us
don't wear our flashy suits when commuting and aren't pegged as FLCC) and
the latter doesn't have to be true!

Honestly it is quite late and I need to work early, but I've been meaning to
write the list about this and wanted to get the ball (or the wheels) rolling
on this. If you are interested in letting the city of Ithaca know that there
really is interest in a more bike friendly city, Kent Johnson is the head of
BPAC (the aforementioned Bicycle folks) and said he'd love to hear more from
cyclists about our wants and needs, especially in the bicycle transportation
sector. His email is kjohnson at cityofithaca.org and his office number is
274-6528.

Let's get some more bikes out there, and fewer cars!

Daniel
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