Mat's Commute from Mat Barlow on Vimeo.

A short film by Mat Barlow, committed bike commuter, takes us for a pleasant ride, sans the typical rush hour aggravations.  Shot from behind the handlebars, the film takes viewers with Mat as he cruises to work without a single red light, bottleneck, or highway back-up.   

If the appeal of foregoing snail-paced traffic and tailpipe fumes isn’t enough to convince you that bike commuting bests travel by car, Mat offers an arsenal of facts that should change your gears:

• Each us commuter spends more than 50 hrs/year stuck in traffic
• The cost is more than $6.3 billion in lost productivity and wasted fuel.
• 40% of all us car trips are two miles or less.
• 60% of a car’s emissions are created in the first few minutes of operation.
• Just three hours of bicycling per week can reduce your risk of heart disease by 50%
• Increasing cycling from 1% to 1.5% of all trips would save the US 462 million gallons of fuel.
• In 10 miles, bicyclists save roughly $7.50 and reduce their carbon output by ¼ pound.

Sources: My Daily Ride and Bikes Belong.

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George said:

Toxic tailpipe fumes are a major downside of riding - not enough to stop me from riding completely, but enough to ensure that I don't ride in rush hour if I can avoid it. Every time I ride a bike, I'm quite literally poisoned by car drivers, and for that reason I refuse to wait at red lights, inhaling the chemical cocktail their vehicles produce. I look at a road, and I see a sea of invisible fumes.

May 20, 2008 | url

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