Do you bike commute or want to bike commute?

If you said yes than you should read this. My former roommate Fiscus sent me a link to Rep. Earl Blumenauer taking Republicans to task for their attempts to get money intended for bike lanes and bike paths taken out of the economic stimulus bill. We can give away $15,000 tax credits to rich people to flip houses, but we can't pay for something that would leave us with something substantive that we could use for years and years to come? Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of tax cuts and a whole lot of just about anything to get the economy going. But we're going to spend hundreds of billions and we can't find room for some bike projects that would help cut down on oil consumption, get people riding and into a healthier lifestyle and also put construction workers to work?

I live in Charlotte where a Republican mayor has worked hard to add bike lanes, create a long term bike plan and add light-rail and bus service (I don't care that he once said of Wikipedia "you can edit the computer?!"). So if he can do it, then these national Republicans should be able to see the light, right? Right? Sigh, my belief that we should use facts, common sense and generally care about each other pretty much excludes me from ever being involved in politics. Still, I can't help but be filled with rage from time to time. But Blumenauer helped with that rage a little bit by listing these cool facts and making me feel good about my choice to bike commute.

Recent transportation surveys indicate that 52% of Americans want to bike more than they do now - but don't, because of the lack of safe and connected bicycle facilities.

Think about it: More than 50% of working Americans live less than 5 miles from home, an easy bicycle commute. Already more than 490,000 Americans bike to work; in Portland, 8% of downtown workers are bicycle commuters. Individually, they are saving $1,825 in auto-related costs, reducing their carbon emissions by 128 pounds per year, saving 145 gallons of gasoline, avoiding 50 hours of being stuck in traffic, burning 9,000 calories, reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50%, and enjoying 14% fewer claims on their health insurance.

Nationally, if we doubled the current 1% of all trips by bike to 2%, we would collectively save more 693 million gallons of gasoline - that's more than $5 billion dollars - each year. From 2007 - 2008, bicyclists reduced the amount Americans drive by 100 million miles.

So if you care about this issue you should take five minutes to contact your senator or representative and let them know what you think.