Exercise, Not Emissions

Many of you are already on-board with taking to your daily commute on 2 wheels, but the popularity of cycling to work, to errands and more is taking off the world over.

More pedal, less metal.

Now with campus and traffic...

I was in Chicago today and dropped into my favorite bike shop in the city, Uptown Bicycles. It got me thinking about biking within an urban setting and how to get folks who are new to biking acclimated and prepared to bike in an environment where there are more than just cornfields around (say an increase of 30,000 students, a third who are new to the campus, and any parents and friends of these students).

So scouring the internet, I found this handy article: http://www.good.is/post/bike-commuting-and-living-to-tell-about-it/. There are some handy tips, especially since he's talking from his experience in NYC.

On a side note, I'm thinking about how to vamp up some education programs for members of the Bike Project. Any suggestions on what one may want to see in classes or programs, let me know. Of course, this happens outside of dissertation thinking but I'll squeeze it in when I can.

salon.com's globalization blogger offers "one more reason to ride a bike"

Andrew Leonard, author of a blog called "How the World Works" over at Salon.com, wrote a great piece Sunday in praise of one specific consequence of bike commuting: riding a bike shows other people how easy and fun it is to ride a bike, perhaps inspiring them to ride a bike in turn!  Here's my favorite part of Leonard's piece:

You may be wondering why I decided to share this tiny urban cycling vignette. In the big scheme of things it's not all that important. But it brightened up my day like a ray of afternoon sunshine breaking through a blanket of San Francisco Bay Area fog and I just had to share the glee. Real human contact with a complete stranger is much rarer in our lives than it should be. And any time someone decides to ride a bike instead of driving a car is good for them and does the world a favor. And might even be good for someone else too, who isn't riding a bike ... yet.

If you're a newcomer to Chambana looking for a great used bike, stop by one of our shops during open hours and check out what we've got!

next wednesday: bicycle infrastructure webinar

From an email to the Champaign County Bikes discussion listserv:

On Wednesday, July 21 at 2pm CT, the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP) will present a webinar on Bicycle Boulevards and Neighborhood Greenways. Morgan Johnston of Facilities and Services at the University of Illinois has graciously arranged for access to the webinar in the conference room of Public Safety Building on campus at 1110 W. Springfield Ave in Urbana (NE corner of Goodwin and Springfield). The webinar is free and open to all that are interested.

I have used bicycle boulevards in Portland and Berkeley and I believe that they would make a great addition to the bicycle infrastructure we have already started to build in Champaign-Urbana. They are particularly attractive to people who do not want to bicycle on busier streets and they allow side-by-side bicycling that is so useful for families bicycling an essential for introducing young bicyclists to on-street bicycling.

One Less Car hits (virtual) shelves

Zack Furness, a Cultural Studies professor at Chicago's Columbia College, has written a book called One Less Car: Bicycling and the Politics of Automobility. (It's published by Temple University Press. Click the link to order a copy for $24.95 from AK Press, who are doing good work for the cause of anarchy.) Furness will be donating all royalties from the sale of One Less Car to community bike projects in Pittsburgh and Chicago.

Furness will hopefully be coming to Champaign-Urbana in the fall on his promotional tour, but in the meantime, check out his book.

"biking on the cheap"

Yes, it's kind of hidden, but we do have a wiki.  Besides hosting various organizational docs, the wiki also contains cycling info, some C-U specific, some good for anywhere. 

My favorite are the links collected under "Advice - Biking on the Cheap."  There you'll find links to instructions for all sorts of DIY bike projects, like making your own LED lights, fenders, panniers, studded tires, messenger bags, repair stands, and even porter racks, such as this one from bikecommuters.com:

(photo from bikecommuters.com!)

how can employers encourage bike commuting?

This article from Inc. magazine offers some answers, along with check-lists to decide how best to incentivize bike commuting.  Bikes aren't just good for the environment; they promote employee wellness (and happiness) too!  As the article puts it

There may be several reasons to encourage your employees to seek alternate transportation to work. Whether it's carpooling, taking public transportation, walking or biking, the benefits of not driving a car everyday are substantial. The most notable benefit is the reduced strain on the environment. Cutting back on driving not only reduces our countries dependence on crude oil, but also reduces our carbon footprint. However, by taking an extra step—and asking your employees to ride a bike to work—your company will have pride knowing that its also contributing to the physical health and well-being of the employees that participate.

Besides the checklists, the piece also offers some helpful links like this "Employer's Bike to Work Guide" from Bike Iowa.  The lessons in it are good for here, too.  We're fortunate to live in a place where commuting by bicycle is just as easy (or even easier!) than commuting by car.

If you run a bike-based business in C-U, we'd love to hear from you -- and perhaps to write about you.  Get in touch!

tax credits for bicycle commuter

Now that you're biking to work, persuade your employer to offer the Bicycle Commuter Act tax credit!  A university in Pittsburgh, PA just made news when it began offering the credit.  From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The benefit is a $20-a-month credit for people who make a "substantial portion" of their commute by bicycle, to pay for purchases, repairs, storage, upgrades or helmets (padded shorts and tight shirt are excluded from the reimbursement). The employer can reimburse employees based on their expenses, offer regular monthly payments or devise some sort of voucher system.

Similar benefits are allowed for transit and parking, but they allow up to $230 a month. The bicycle benefit can be applied only in those months during which an employee does not file for transit or parking benefits.

Some members of the United States Congress have started to call for equity in tax credits offered to bike commuters:

To that end, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who had pushed for the benefit to be a much higher amount, has introduced legislation called the Green Routes to Work Bill, or H.R. 3271.

The bill calls for equity in the benefits, so that biking, transit and parking would have the same cap, which would make it easier for bike commuters to afford a new helmet or pay for fenders. It also would allow for workers to use the credit for multimodal transportation. For example, taking the bus part way and the bike the rest of the ride might qualify both up to the total cap.

Anybody know of employers in C-U that offer these credits?  If so, props to them!

want to bike to work but can't imagine how?

Then you should check out this comic about bike commuting, created by Bike PGH!  It's kind of Pittsburgh-PA-centric (note the Pennsylvania keystone logos on page 12 & 13!) but the lessons in it are good for anywhere.

The obnoxious driver who yelled at me to "get on the *&%$ing sidewalk!" on University yesterday afternoon should check out page 14 on Taking the Lane and Sharing the Lane.  And everybody should learn about vehicular cycling.

Don't forget that tomorrow's C-U's Bike to Work Day!

tuesday, 4 may: c-u's very own bike to work day

If you're not already biking to work -- and, really, it's been so nice out that you should be -- next week's C-U Bike to Work Day might be just the motivation you need to get started.  Next Tuesday, 4 May, a generous group of sponsors (including The Bike Project) will hold our micro-urban shangri-la's celebration of car- and carbon-free commuting.

From 7-10am, C-U Bike to Work Day will have four stations set up around town featuring coffee and other treats for old and new bike commuters.  The stations will be located at

• Downtown Champaign - Neil Street & Main Street
• Downtown Urbana - Main Street & Vine Street
• University of Illinois - Engineering Plaza (Green Street across from the Illini Union)
• Savoy - Savoy Recreation Center (Prospect Avenue and Graham)

You can register for C-U Bike to Work Day here.  You can find out about the third and last in a series of classes on Bike Commuting 101 here.  And if you'd like to volunteer to help staff one of the Bike to Work Day stations, you can sign-up here.

...and you can click here for a great website all about commuting by bicycle!