Active Transportation/Transport Actif

This week we have a guest blog from The Daily Bike/Le Vélo Quotidien, a blog run by Ruepublique member Maclean. Maclean's blog talks about his life as a cyclist and why more people should join him in using their cars less and their bike more.
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Cette semaine nous avons un blog invité de Le Vélo Quotidien/The Daily Bike, un blog par Maclean, un membre de Ruepublique. Le blog de Maclean parle sur sa vie comme un cycliste et pourquoi plus de personnes devrait utiliser leur voiture moins et leur vélo plus.

'One of the recurring themes RuePublique likes to entertain is that of promoting active transportation. They do so for a number of good reasons.

Transport actif  is basically anything that amounts to some form of exercise while getting you around, and can be more than just good for the heart: it often is thoroughly economical and equally practical too. By definition, transportation by motorised means does not qualify as active transportation, but to be fair all modes of transport lie along a spectrum, if you will, where some forms of vehicular transport involve much more activity than others: Running to catch a bus, or walking the stairs up from a metro like Lucien l’allier are, after all, somewhat active indeed. On the far end of the spectrum there’s passive transportation: moving about with as little effort as possible. It’s a sort of Faustian dream come true, but of course it comes at a huge expense.

Without dwelling too much here on the well-documented negative effects that the convenience of the personal automobile has had of the fabric of urban communities; or on the drawbacks that accompany urban/suburban sprawl; or on the global implications of our dependence on petroleum and of the consequences of emitting greenhouse gasses on a global industrial scale, suffice it to say that active transport is one of the key tools in the “green tool-kit” that most urbanites are at least physically, intellectually and possibly psychologically capable of embracing.

Indeed, if we are genuinely serious about “tackling” climate change, or promoting healthy lifestyles by reducing pollution and increasing physical activity, embracing active transport is a no-brainer. And to be fair, mainstream programs like the Bixi initiative represent a good first step. But to make a real difference we’ve got to inspire more people to go much deeper into active transport and leave their cars parked at home. So in fact we should settle on a number, eventually: a percentage of traffic as a target. That way we can measure our success in real terms, and once we get there we can truly assess the impact and benefits of the changes.

Let’s aim high. Let’s get some 30% of cars off the road, and get those thousands of people onto bikes (or at least onto buses), in all kinds of weather, with all kinds of technical adaptations that will accommodate this with the greatest degree of convenience as possible.

But of course, before we get there, we have a lot of work cut out for ourselves. Not only are we talking about a massive publicity campaign that will require help from industry, and from all levels of government, but we are also talking about accommodating a whole new faction into the existing culture of cycling. This means not only asking car-drivers to accord more space on a regular basis, but also asking seasoned cyclists to foster a welcoming atmosphere for the great number of novice cyclists who will be struggling, for a time, up a fairly steep learning curve. Those seasoned cyclists are a privileged few who get away with a lot because they slip through the cracks of the traffic laws and bylaws. But if we collectively succeed in converting to bicycle-based day-to-day operations (ie. a significant increase in cyclists on the street on a daily basis, all year long), we will have to have a much more established set of ground rules. Drivers and seasoned cyclists alike are going to have to accommodate the masses and the potential chaos.

This is no small challenge. Biking is scary to a lot of people : from anarchist bike couriers to monster SUVs and snow removal trucks, there’s a lot to be afraid of. …Not to mention those novices who do dare to, say, ride a Bixi occasionally; they are often quite dangerous in their own right!

But as far as I’m concerned, this is the only way forward. The requirements not only of our moral and legal obligations under the Kyoto protocol, but also of the new realities of economics and Nature’s limits that are now just beginning to press down upon our global economic systems, are such that we will have to make these and/ or similar changes across the board, eventually. In no way should the world of future be envisioned as one fuelled by the same means as our recent past. You could wait for technology to change its course in due time (but don’t hold your breath), or you could embrace the established “old” technology of cycling that is proven, reliable, and fun.'