Deprogramming Car Brain

In some circles, “car brain” refers to being so used to our current car-dependent culture that you can’t imagine anything else.

On a drizzley and cold night, I drove my electric (+3 points) car (-5 points) by myself (-10 points) 1.9 miles (-5 points) to our local arthouse theater to see “Why We Bike”. The program was 40 minutes of short videos followed by about an hour and a half of panel discussion.

This was put on by Reconnect Rochester, our local urbanist group who are working to make Rochester accessible for everyone. Here’s some more of their content on YouTube where I first found them.

Facts

• The all-in social cost of driving a car is $0.15/km. The all-in social cost benefit of riding a bike is $0.16/km.
• While biking is up to 10x more dangerous mile-for-mile than driving with our current infrastructure, when you count its health benefits it winds up being between 5 and 20x better for your health than driving. It’s super hard to get past the first phrase of that sentence but it is important to do so. Let me help, let’s try this again.
• When you count health benefits, biking winds up being between 5 and 20x better for your health than driving. That’s better.
• Biking promotes local small businesses. New York City found that converting one parking spot to bike parking generated 3.6 times more spending at local businesses.

Quotes

• About carbrain outcry when roads are transitioned to mixed use  “We don’t design bridges using comments on Facebook, why are we designing our roads this way”

Laws

Laws can be cuffs or wings.

• New York state just passed a law requiring that learning how to relate to pedestrians and bicyclists be part of drivers ed. Think about all the years where they weren’t.
• Buffalo’s progressive bike policy requires developers to provide bike parking by converting one out of every built 20 parking spots to bike parking.

One thing the panelists came back to again and again is biking promotes joy and community. A community full of bikers means healthy small businesses and loads more interpersonal connections. So try taking that bike out, even if winter is breathing down your neck.