This fall, Baltimore is scheduled for a serious carectomy. Under persistent pressure from Greg Cantori and his staunch supporters, including Sunday Streets, the city will host a Ciclovia during which pedestrians—cyclists, skaters, walkers—will dominate the streets. As in Bogota, a Ciclovia celebrates pedestrian traffic and bans cars from road travel (or, at the very least, limits it to certain lanes or sectors of the city).
Kudos to StreetFilms for helping advocate for the Ciclovia and for convincing Baltimore’s city legislators that it was a worthwhile idea.
My complaints about Los Angeles are cumulative. I appreciate L.A. as a city and love to visit, but know I’d never hack it as a resident (nor, for that matter, would I want to). I’m put off by the culture of collagen, the glitz and the greed, and the simple fact that Angelenos have little choice but to drive everywhere to navigate the sprawl. Worse, most California highways are as clogged as Harvey Weinstein’s arteries.
L.A. city councilwoman Wendy Greuel, a long-time crusader for car-free transit, told StreetFilms, “Traffic has become the number one issue in the city of Los Angeles…and we want to change that…we want to say people have options…They don’t need to be able to get in their car to get to their ultimate destination.”
Greuel is reasonable in her expectations of how Angelenos might utilize public transit. Taking public transit instead of driving even once a week would make a difference, she said. She also emphasizes the importance of creating a mixed-use, walkable city that combines residential space with nearby nightlife, amenities (i.e. groceries), and business. Ideally, said Greuel, people would have the option of walking to work.
Greuel and her supporters are striving to find ways to transform car-reliant L.A. into a city that supports public transit; a city that walks, bikes, and rides the bus. Check out the StreetFilms clip for more on L.A.’s hopes for ped-friendly progress.
Flanked almost entirely by yellow cabs, this commuter could only be in New York City. He was spotted at the corner of 5th Avenue and 58th Street by Bicycles Only, home to a series of great NYC commuter shots, including these:
These shots offer a glimmer of hope that major American cities are getting aboard their bikes, gaining speed, and may some day keep apace with more progressive, pro-cycling European cities that have so wisely shunned the automobile in favor of a smarter, sleeker ride.
Kill two birds with one stone or, better yet, forgo the rock-slinging, hop in your dually pickup, and shoot everything in sight! Max Motors, a new and used car dealership in Butler, Missouri, is offering a free handgun or $250 in gasoline with every vehicle purchase.
The incentive has garnered the dealership a ton of international media attention as well as a dramatic boost in sales. As the company's website proclaims, “We are aware of the gasoline and crime problem in America. Max Motors, the Country Dealer, wants to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.”
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't the gas and crime problems center around the fact that there's too much fuel consumption and a plethora of guns readily available?
In spite of the nation's surging gas prices, customers are lining up for the free handguns. Dealership owner Mark Muller says that sales have quadrupled since the start of the offer with an overwhelming majority taking the $250 credit towards a small semi-automatic handgun. “It's a protection you can use for a long time,” says Mueller. “With the gas card, it's only about two fill-ups.”
That last statement points to the variety of vehicles being sold - $125 to fill up a tank!?
The local Missouri ABC affiliate is running an online poll asking whether the free gun promotion is a “good idea.” 66% of the more that 8,000 respondents said “Yes.” Aint that America?
Lyon and Paris, France developed the modern bike sharing models and after the wild success of their Velo'v and Vélib programs, cities around the world are scrambling to follow suit. Barcelona, Spain has the wildly popular Bicing, Washington D.C. just launched their SmartBike operation and Portland, OR, Montreal, Canada, and a host of other international cities plan to institute bike-sharing systems shortly.
Copenhagenzine created a fabulous video about the Vélib experience in Paris:
I came across this film just after writing an article about helmet use – so it's hard not to notice that brain buckets are nowhere to be seen.
There have been many comments in our bicycle-related articles about safety and proper riding styles. Any time we post a photo of a ride sans helmet, some readers inevitably let us hear about it. They feel that presenting an unhelmeted rider sets a bad precedent.
Generally, I would agree. If I'm going to be in an accident, I would much rather be wearing a helmet when it occurs. I wear a helmet for 99% of my riding. One potential downside of helmets – they further marginalize cyclists on the road. It's as if we're tacitly agreeing that riding a bike is inherently dangerous, like we're entering a construction zone. Driving a car's quite a dangerous undertaking and most drivers aren't wearing flame-proof suits and full headgear.
Dr Ian Walker, a British traffic psychologist from the University of Bath, proved another drawback – drivers will give less room to a cyclist wearing a helmet.
Walker rigged his bicycle with a computer and an ultrasonic distance sensor. He recorded data from over 2,500 passing vehicles and alternated between riding with and without a helmet. During the study he was struck twice, by a bus and a truck. Both times he was sporting his helmet.
As much as we at Carectomy harp on car-travel, flying represents an equally insidious environmental threat. A report produced by some of the world's leading emissions-modeling labs last year paints an even bleaker prediction than expected. By 2025, CO2 emissions will rise from 670 million tons in 2000 to 1.48 billion tons; nitrogen oxide emissions from 2.5 million tons to 6.1 million tons; and the number of people “seriously affected by aircraft noise” will rise from 24 million to 30.3 million.
The report, entitled “Trends in Global Noise and Emissions From Commercial Aviation for 2000 through 2025,” was presented to the USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Seminar in Barcelona but never met public scrutiny – until the Aviation Environment Federation recently uncovered it. AEF spokesman Jeff Gazzard said, “Growth of CO2 emissions on this scale will comfortably outstrip any gains made by improved technology and ensure aviation is an even larger contributor to global warming by 2025 than previously thought. Governments must take action to put a cap on air transport's unrestrained growth."
It's becoming increasingly apparent that air travel and environmentalism are incongruous. Analysis of per person flight emissions put a flight across the U.S. on par with driving a car for almost an entire year.
Cars are the most inconvenient convenience we have. We're required to have them, but increasingly, we dislike them. At Carectomy, we're trying to figure out how to extract cars from people.
The operation is a little bit painful, but life afterward is much more awesome. If you're interested in carectomies, sign up to our newsletter, or subscribe our RSS feed below.
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Kill two birds with one stone or, better yet, forgo the rock-slinging, hop in your dually pickup, and shoot everything in sight! 
