LightWheels

Mar 15, 2014. Times Article Viewed: 2003

There is no better way to counteract global warming, change bad societal habits, and to respond to the negative effects of oversized, petroleum-fueled transportation modes and their threat to our economic and atmospheric survival, than to rapidly expand the use of every kind of bike and trike, especially electric-assisted ones and including pedicabs and cargo bikes. Current Federal Environmental laws, the Clean Air Act etc., require that we encourage cycling in every possible way already. Because many traffic laws, involving potentially dangerous behavior by cars and trucks, like sudden turns and excessive speed, are virtually never enforced though, these streets resemble stop and go highways, not pathways. This hazardous environment keeps most people from even considering cycles as a means of transportation, providing an ongoing, illegal, de facto ban on this activity, for them and their families.

Since our city streets have been largely turned into highways, are laws and regulations to limit cycling here calculated to reinforce that identity? It is not just a problem within urban spaces, it also affects the routes into cities, including the bridges and tunnels, many of which prohibit non-motorized vehicles. Marked highways and many other high-speed roads also do not permit any kind of bicycles to be on them, (not that it would be much fun with big trucks running 85 mph), and even “Neighborhood Electric Vehicles” are severely restricted. Is this legal? Couldn’t we use emergency lanes for slow-speed travel? Is it time to overturn the historically lower-class status of the smaller and slower? Is this an undeclared class war, where one side gets the ammunition and the other side gets 20% off discount coupons? Where is the Geneva Convention when we need it?

Fortunately, a Resolution was introduced this week in the NY City Council by Council Member Rafael Espinal [pictured above], which asks the Council to urge the State Legislature to pass their bills, legalizing electric bikes, throughout the State. This will amend the State Vehicle and Traffic laws, to allow electric-assist vehicles to be used. It is clear that for the sake of our future and because we have a moral duty to not do injury to our fellow human beings, we must hurry to expand the role of quiet, non-polluting, least expensive transportation, as the preferred means to provide for our basic human needs. Yet, those who benefit from the poisonous, bloated, unsustainable status quo will not permit this needed change to take place, if they can corrupt the political process enough to prevent it. Here is the press release:

“MARCH 11, 2014 (Brooklyn, NY)- Council Member Rafael L. Espinal, Jr., of Brooklyn today introduced a resolution in support of State legislation that would legalize the use of electric-assisted bicycles in New York. The State bill, introduced by Senator Martin Malavé Dilan and Assembly Member David F. Gantt, would amend the State Vehicle and Traffic law to include electric-assisted bicycles in the definition of bicycles and thus permit their use. “Many people would benefit from the State legalizing the use of electric-assisted bicycles. From people who make food deliveries for a living to commercial cyclists, to people who have health problems, all will benefit from e-bikes,” stated Council Member Espinal.

Council Member Espinal doesn’t understand why New York State has lagged behind and not implemented the Federal standards established in 2002 that set the parameters for electric-assisted bicycles. “It just doesn’t make sense for the State to maintain the status quo. The use of electric-assisted bicycles can have positive effects on New York’s economy and environment. It is a mode of clean transportation.” Others echoed the same sentiment. State Senator Martin Malavé Dilan indicated that it is the right time to move this legislation. “More and more New Yorkers are turning to electric-assisted bicycles as a cost-effective and environmentally responsible alternative mode of transportation. Uses for e-bikes range from the daily commute to local delivery route, but their practicality could also benefit the elderly and disabled. I can’t think of a State and City more suited for the electric bike than New York. The time has come to embrace them,” said Senator Dilan.

The Coalition Urging Responsible Biking, also known as CURB, applauded the introduction of the Council resolution and believes that it is a vital step towards getting the State bill passed. “Electric-assist bicycles are an important new, slow, safe, healthful and economical mode of transportation. We applaud Council Member Espinal’s efforts to make certain that they are available to our citizens, especially the older population, those for whom riding ordinary bicycles is a challenge, and those with long commutes and long workdays,” stated Steve Stollman, a spokesperson for CURB.

No date has been set yet for a hearing on the Council resolution but Council Member Espinal hopes that a vote can take place before Albany ends this year’s legislative session in June.”

The Yellow Taxi industry lobby is one of the most active and well-funded elements of the local Autopoly, which is composed of a variety of large interests. Their influence is legendary. This has never been a fair fight. The history of the current system begins in the 1930’s when GM and Standard Oil used over 400 secret holding companies to destroy this country’s rail infrastructure, from trolleys to interurban rail to rail freight. The way to demolish cycling as a potential rival as urban transport was easy: just design roadways to serve cars and make sure they are as fast-moving, un-policed and potentially dangerous, as they are.

Events over the last few years have given cycling a much higher profile though, and it is already a staple of TV commercials, for cars especially, as symbols of health, self-sufficiency and balance. Meanwhile, the lingering effects of a transit strike some time ago and the arrival of $4 a gallon gas, have had their impacts, along with rapidly escalating awareness of health issues and both personal and societal costs. So. in spite of the most oppressive conditions imaginable, hundreds of thousands have gotten on their bikes in this city in recent years. Bike-share has been a huge help of course, and sidewise, even given a boost to vehicle and ride-share for cars and other similar phenomena. Given proper encouragement, the number of various kinds of cycles, personal, passenger, freight, on the roads in these five boroughs could easily multiply every year, indefinitely, until human-scale transportation became the dominant mode of travel. Shouldn’t that be our goal?

Groningen, a modern industrial city in the Netherlands, has created a system where 50% of all movement is done with bikes. In China, for decades, up to 90% of the transportation in many major cities was through human-powered vehicles of all kinds. India and China are now both following our lead in wastefulness and their recent embrace of cars and motor scooters is adding incredible amounts to the total of pollutants being generated. We must remove the onus from those willing to consume only their rightful portion of space and other resources, and who are now demanding proper protection, from those determined to use many times their share of everything, often recklessly and invariably with an undeserved sense of entitlement.

Multiple-person propulsion is a beneficial evolution that can be encouraged and improved by augmenting it with lightweight electric systems. While tandems are in some use, they are pretty rare, and virtually nothing exists that permits a number of people to ride the same machine at the same time. In the 19th Century, “Sociables”, trikes for a gentleman to give his lady a pleasant excursion, while demonstrating his manly strength and care, were very popular. Potential heavy use of newer designs, useful for everyone but especially by the disabled community, as well as those who are simply having a harder time than previously getting around, justifies a heavy investment in these possibilities. There are already a few examples of machines that accommodate a person in a wheelchair and a second person using a conventional bike as well. This is just one configuration. We could be on the verge of a number of advances in the design of mass transit/multiple user vehicles and even in our definitions of these devices. Especially important are machines that are as useful, to the “Temporarily Able-bodied”, as they are to those with moderate to severe difficulties.

There can be a whole new class of vehicles, which enable us to remain vertical even though the strength of our limbs has begun to fade, but has not disappeared. We can foment conveyances that allow us to continue to travel, in a similar manner to the one we always have, perched on ledges, straight up, instead of crunched down into a wheelchair. We can design systems that will allow us to continue to use our own arms and legs to propel us while we are provided with some electric-assistance as well. These slow-moving vehicles can permit us to get the exercise that we need, in amounts that we determine for ourselves, and remain able to carry on with our lives without being put into the category of “disabled”.

Instead, there is an army of people who seldom wander into the outer world, who are virtually trapped within their living spaces, because there is no way yet for them to simply move about the way they once did, nearly as easily as then. In practice, most of the time, given the proper device, on our largely level land, a user would be relying principally on their own power, thereby gaining some strength and improving overall vitality. At other times, when a little boost is needed, it is provided. Arms and legs being used remain usable. The opposite, sadly, is also true.

In the late 19th century, when bikes were the biggest craze in the country, innumerable devices were built and in use which helped to expand the reach of the field. The use of heavy materials like iron and the lack of modern improvements like aluminum tubing, hi-tech lubricants, and gearing, skinny pneumatic tires, and hydraulic brakes, limited the effectiveness of many of these machines. In many cases, the principles on which they were based were sound though. Multi-person and multi-modal systems are optimal for the sake of our health and our wealth. It is time to re-build the transportation system and replace it with one that works. Pedicabs are one of the first paving stones on the path to sanity on our streets, and we need to look to the future while we also go back to Square One, to find more answers. Porter’s “Wheels and Wheeling” was a complete survey of the many forms of human-powered vehicles of the time, and contain innumerable very interesting ideas, that can now be re-examined for their relevance to this time, 125 years later.

Battery research is finally taking off. Nickel Metal-Hydride and Lithium-Ion are already here and capacitors and fast-charge options are coming on board. The potential of sugar batteries and other exotic ideas to break through and create new industries and possibilities is undeniable and Germany, Japan, and other countries, including this one, are encouraging these developments with funding and other incentives. When we are able to apply these improvements to ultra-light, human-scale vehicles, their utility is expanded maximally, because the weight of batteries ceases to be a serious drag on the potential of the vehicle to meet all of our needs. The weight problem, unfortunately, held back small, electric motor-assisted devices from progressing for many decades, because the law of diminishing returns clocked in early, and the weight of the batteries themselves became an unsustainable burden. Not any more.

Attempts to limit the spread of human-scale and self-propelled transportation, by auto-ad addicted tabloids, TV stations and others, is going to fail. This is in spite of the formidable combined power of parking lots, car companies, the oil industry, insurance interests etc. etc. because the ice shelf is breaking off in huge chunks and even though this is the coldest winter in memory, it was only a year ago, when it was 72 degrees in January, and nobody was buying parkas. People are finally getting really scared. It has taken a huge accumulation of this undeniable, visible evidence, to crack the solid wall of reassuring propaganda put out by the guilty industries. After decades of soothing lies, the fuzzy term “Global Warming” has been replaced by the much less comforting “Extreme Weather” and the deniers and doubters are scurrying for cover.

We have to figure out who are friends are and are not, especially among the public officials who are guiding this process. Some politicians are willing to assassinate the future of cycling here and the radical upgrades to our archaic, and urban-unfriendly transportation system, that they provide. They need to be called out on this, educated, and compelled to explain and change their actions. There are few remedies for what ails us, that are capable of delivering the pleasures that easy-cycling provides. Correcting the problems in our agricultural and medical systems, for instance, is going to involve a lot of pain and radical readjustments. Removing the distortions that have plagued our transportation options over the past century is, by comparison, a walk in the park, or maybe a nice slow ride through one.

The good news is that if we are successful, in our attempts to radically reform our mobility systems, we will have learned enough to consider taking on the even-tougher issues. And we will have a much better chance of dealing with them successfully, once we have developed the networks capable of resolving our transportation conundrum. Dislodging archaic, deeply-dug-in elements of our existing systems, that benefit practically nobody, but have seemingly always been there, is going to generate lots of opposition. Inertia is a powerful force.

Also, we have become so accustomed to taking the path of least resistance, that is, doing nothing, that any approach which fully engages the life-force, will perforce, involve some difficult re-programming. Regardless, we need to re-learn how gratifying it is to overcome, to struggle and to persevere. Just think about how much more satisfying it is to earn something, rather than just being given it. Maybe, in some ways, we should pity the rich. They already have everything, so there are some great pleasures here, that they are unlikely to ever be able to experience, except vicariously. What a pity.

Times Article Viewed: 2003

Mar 09, 2014.

What is taken for granted in most forms of transportation, weather protection, the potential for multiple riders, access to creature comforts and the ability to carry freight, is absent from virtually any current versions of human-powered and other minimum-impact vehicles? Tiny, 1HP electric-assist motors enable a very significant upgrade in the potential for rider satisfaction delivered by human-scale transport. If deployed artfully, these safe, comfortable and attractive little (ideally, shared) devices, can change our mobility paradigm and steer us back onto a sustainable path.

Currently, too many discussions of electric bikes, in this part of the world especially, focus entirely on the behavior of some restaurant deliverers who use these machines to help make it possible to get hot food to impatient customers, while it is still hot. The city has a host of enforcement mechanisms available to influence the various practices of highly-regulated businesses like restaurants. They have already instituted a bunch of regulations, putting big numbers and the names of the restaurants on deliverers backs for instance, and complaints against these hard-working, mostly immigrants, have plummeted. Regardless, the rapid pace of food delivery has nothing to do with our need to expand our transportation options in urban environments, clean up the air and rid our streets of oversized, overpowered and dangerous machines. Tabloid headlines ignore their importance in helping to improve the health and freedom of movement of numerous populations, including the elderly and the out-of-shape. Conflating these issues demolishes our ability to understand them and enjoy the benefits of this new technology. 

There is a very active effort, at the moment, to encourage the current electric bicycle-riding food deliverers to modify their behavior in order to lessen the criticism coming from pedestrians, magnified by the tabloids, but real nevertheless. At the same time, the City and State are being asked to fully legalize this important new form of transportation. A group, Coalition Urging Responsible Biking, CURB, is also carrying on a campaign to improve the most upsetting habits of some deliverers, to discourage riding on sidewalks,  crowding pedestrians and riding in an overly-aggressive manner. (You may go to www.NYCURB.org if you care to endorse this effort). Posters are being made and distributed and bikes are being modified into a pedal-activated mode, putting them more into line with the current NYC law, which permits this modality but bans throttle-activated models, which are really more like mopeds. Pedal-activated electric-assist bikes are bikes.   

The recent bill in the NYS Senate will limit speeds to 20 MPH, as the Federal law requires, so the alleged 25-30 MPH models, if there are any, will need to be retired. The State can require approved vehicles, with less than the1 HP motors that are allowed, to have proper brakes, etc. too, maybe even to have to identify labels, permanently affixed to legal models and end the confusion over this issue.  

The city is concerned about enforcement, but the regulation of food delivers’ habits, and bicycle messengers’ before them, has been an ongoing concern for decades, long before bikes became modestly-electrified. The new, stricter regulations, improved education and peer pressure, along with closer relations with the restaurant industry, will do much to correct current problems. Meanwhile, there is no question that nobody should be riding bikes on sidewalks, no matter what. Also, biking so aggressively that it actually threatens pedestrians’ health and safety, should be treated seriously. Of course, in fairness, such a campaign to alter behaviors must include far more dangerous vehicles, from motorcycles to huge trucks too. The targeting of cyclists, riding the least dangerous vehicle, while ignoring potentially fatal maneuvers by far more hazardous vehicles, in the same space, obviously makes no sense.  

Amazon and eBay have just announced same-day delivery in NYC and some other cities, soon to be many more no doubt. We know that it will be impossible for an army of vans to further clog up NYC streets with pairs of deliverers heaving packages, of everything under the Sun, everywhere, at once. The brick and mortar universe has no choice but to join the party and seriously improve their own delivery services, in order to keep up with the online onslaught. This new tsunami of traffic can only be accomplished by a giant flotilla of cyclists, many of them soon wheeling new, creatively-designed evolutions of current models. Some of these vehicles will need to be helped along by electric-assist motors. We are leaving the ICE Age. The Internal Combustion Engine and its tendency to inflate the size and weight of our conveyances to historic heights, has reached, maybe even gone well beyond, its limits and is, as a sheet of ice, slowly receding. Happily, in its place, is a bunch of fauna and other earthly delights, especially in the form of some room to get around more easily, smoothly, quickly and safely. 

The best examples of this activity currently are pedicabs. Made very popular in South Asia and the Far East, they are only a tourist-gimmick here, not serious transportation, as they have been in some countries for a century. Without an electric-assist motor, carrying three passengers, as is the habit here, in places like Central Park, filled with long hills, makes this job incredibly difficult. The only issue is the fear of some, that an electric-assist motor would turn these colorful trikes into dangerous, deadly projectiles. Fortunately, the industry has already, informally, agreed to a very safe 10 MPH speed limit, to erase such fears from the picture, so there is no reason not to begin to use this needed and highly-appropriate technology today. One benefit is that It will create a huge number of new, good, green jobs, especially for women, who are largely precluded from the profession, due to the brute strength now needed to perform the task. Creative design is an important factor here too, as a tiny motor makes possible improved weather and collision-protection and the provision of a little heat and other amenities.

The standard design of “Safety” bicycles is about 120 years old. It has turned out to be a very durable configuration, but it has not advanced in many ways until the efficiency of the lithium-ion battery freed it from the tyranny of very heavy lead-acid versions. 90+% of the populace does not ride a bike, even once, in a given year. The primary reason, aside from dangerous highway-like roads, is that we have evolved a value system that renders physical effort, unless in a gym or athletic event, unpopular. We are accustomed to easing and the effort of working up a sweat pushing pedals is not a pleasant prospect for most. Yet, we know that everybody needs a certain amount of physical activity, sometimes called exercise, to maintain good health and vitality. Finding a way to accomplish that, in a pleasant way, while also fulfilling another universal need, to get from one place to another, is a terrific discovery.  

Electric-assist bikes bring freedom of choice, give you license to determine how much effort you want to expend, at that moment, into your personal transportation. We are accustomed to either/or situations. Once you have made your choice, you are either going to be responsible for your own motive power, or you are going to relinquish it to a motor. Ebikes that are truly pedal-able cycles, that work very well even without any motor assist, were very rare until quite recently, but are now widely available. What this means is that the user is able, from moment to moment, to evaluate their situation and determine how much energy they themselves want to provide and how much they prefer to gain from the motor. 

This decision is made by you, not the machine. This arrangement puts the human species, its needs and potential contributions, first. It takes the decision-making power away from the machine and it gives it back to the person operating it. This is revolutionary. It is paradoxical too. Because you give your energy to something, you are empowered. While some cyclists may prefer a purer form of muscle-powered biking, the other 90+% of the population in this State is currently being denied legal access to those devices that would best enable them to get some healthy exercise and have an easy, un-sweaty journey, at the same time. We are also being denied the opportunity to recover our will, our capacity to choose.

This is nuts. And it’s just not fair. It is a form of bullying, a system that allows resources according to what you already have. It rewards aggression instead of accomplishment and produces a flood of white noise that drowns out the music. The difference between being carried along and moving is profound. Combining the two is a new experience for most of us and more closely resembles the natural matrix within which we all find ourselves. It suggests the next step, where we are players of music instead of just listeners, designers and sewers of clothing instead of just wearers, makers of something besides supper. We’re getting closer to the moment when we find ourselves, as a survival mechanism, becoming Socratic skeptics, who have run out of patience with the pat answers and transparent myths that compel us to be true believers, when, what that really means, is shutting down your mind. Waking up our bodies, teaching ourselves to merge human energy with mechanical forces and harmonizing them could be one sure step towards re-booting and re-balancing our entire system. So what are we waiting for? 

Mar 02, 2014

25 years ago we put on a show at the Municipal Art Society in NYC called “Going Nowhere Fast”. It covered a full range of transportation modalities and identified the problems and possibilities inherent in them, from Rail Freight to Solar Cars. It was a largely dismal survey of the state of our services, some history and some opining as to the future. During the months that it was up there, we held panels and attracted some attention to the issue, but an honest assessment of the results would conclude that it wasn’t going to make much of a difference. I’m glad we did it but its title was far more prescient than I would have wished. The same show could go up again, (and I still have all of the original 6′ tall panels,) it would be very hard to find anything that was not as true today as it was then.

The direction that we are headed has been established for at least the 75 years, since the GM FUTURAMA dominated the 1939 NY World’s Fair. Now better known as the title of a freaky but funny TV cartoon show about robots and intelligent crustaceons, this pre-war giant, 3D, moving panorama, was a full-immersion spectacle. It was calculated to sell the maximum number of cars, which, ironically, at that moment were becoming impossible to buy, since every plant was soon fully engaged in war materiel production. The picture that is painted of the world to be, was not far off in many respects too, even if the automated roadway that it promised for 1960, is only now coming into focus. The suburbs, stretching out forever, the little houses and their little yards, once the nasty war was out of the way, became the shape of our suburban universe, from Long Island to Catalina Island.

At the same moment, the MAS exhibit was being prepared, what the NY Times’ energy maven, Matthew Wald, accompanying us, referred to us as a “ragtag” crew of vehicle designers and builders, was making its way slowly from Washington DC to NYC. This caravan, that we labeled LightWheels, over a week’s time, stayed in college dorms and other available venues and made its way across the landscape in short bursts, setting up, in each location, for a local show and tell, and press event. Since we had the beautiful Stanford University Solar Racer as our glamorous centerpiece we attracted positive attention and lots of stories about the technologies that could change the direction of our transportation systems and put us on a more sustainable path. Electric bikes and handmade Solar vehicles converted electric cars and utility vehicles all demonstrated the possibility of non-highway-centered, or petroleum-fueled and human-scale transportation options. We even gave people a chance to try them out.

It was certainly not as impressive as the 10-day Tour de Sol events taking place in Switzerland throughout the 80’s, with hundreds of vehicles and thousands of spectators. We probably did give some impetus to those who decided to try to reproduce the European event here, the Northeast Solar Energy Association. They spent years doing an Americanized version of the Swiss event, found some corporate sponsorship, mostly from car companies, and eventually banned human-powered vehicles entirely, thus forsaking the central rationale of the original event. Our demonstrations in DC were difficult to arrange and greeted with considerable indifference but we persevered nevertheless. In the days before Lithium-Ion batteries, the burden of dragging so much lead around in order to advance the technology of personal transportation was really too much to bear, and hard to justify, and electric vehicle acceptance stalled for decades partly over this lack. There were those like Jim Warden of MIT, who worked around these limitations in the 80s and bragged of vehicles with hundreds of miles of range and other remarkable accomplishments, but even hard information about advances was so badly covered, that it made little difference. Bravo Bill Moore.

One of those who we expected to be supportive of us in DC, for all of its irony, was Jay Rockefeller, Senator from West Virginia, scion of the great Rockefeller dynasty. When I called his office I expected a rousing welcome and invitation to visit, along with the sponsorship of a reception on the steps of the Capitol. Instead, I was given a short lesson in economics and a friendly rebuff. It was explained to me that Mr. Rockefeller was, indeed, a strong proponent of electric cars. The reason for this was his understanding that these nice, big, heavy cars would consume a large quantity of electricity which would end up being generated by the burning of coal, which was mined in his state and he was strongly in favor of this. But, since I had explained to her that we had a double purpose, to promote the virtues of electric-powered mobility and the benefits to be garnered by the scaling down of our needs, to emphasize the virtues of human-scale applications of this technology in electric bikes and other minimal configurations, her interest disappeared. She was, at least, honest enough to explain to me that this was not going to require the massive consumption of coal, which was the primary interest of the Senator, and therefore he would not be interested in being helpful to us.

There is a similar disinterest in this subject evidenced by the major media. There are no bike ads or electric-vehicle commercials on TV. The biggest individual advertisers may be mobile phone companies, but overall, the Automobile industry is the biggest factor in all paid media. The bicycle industry has always suffered from an inferiority complex when it comes to heavy-duty promotion. The only exception to this in modern times is the popularity which the Tour de France had occupied, since an American became the biggest winner in the race in history. TV coverage improved and the beautiful French countryside is very photogenic, the non-stop picnic by the side of the road pleasant-looking and engaging. Of course we now know that this was not the pure athletic spectacle that we had been led to believe it was, but rather a wild, cross-country drug-fest. Cycling, an activity considered so healthy that it decorates an amazing percentage of prescription drug ads, is a victim of the same over the top, insanely competitive and out-of-proportion tendencies, rampant in every other aspect of our lives.

As transportation, cycling is in its infancy. Denmark may be the leader of the pack, but once upon a time it was Vietnam that was reknowned for the ubiquity of its bicycles. There is no doubt that this was a feature of a society with meager access to resources, a poor country where the population could not afford anything but a bicycle to get around on. It can be romanticized as a portrayal of a place with unusual balance in its habits, or one which is close to the ground and essential, rather than caught up in Western materialism. Regardless, increased prosperity has brought with it a flood of scooters and motorbikes with plenty of automobiles thrown in for good measure. Bikes are for those with no choice.

Mechanization is surely one element of the process which enables populations to begin to enjoy the comforts and pleasures that come with a consumer society. It is not a sign of cultural decline when peasants can educate their children, get their goods to market and do less back-breaking work, although factory environments can surely be life-deadening. It is, nevertheless, the slippery slope that we call “advanced” and “developed”. Those of meager means, the vast majority of all of those who are alive now, here and around the world, are constantly being reminded of the wonderfulness of all of the goods that will be their ticket to a better way of life.

Whether it is a pack of cigarettes or a new TV, the game is on, the girls in the ads are very pretty, and we will be judged by our success at climbing this ladder into status and prosperity. It is a seduction, plain and simple and more sleaze, tease and wheeze than the promised Stairway to Heaven, but at least it suggests that there is a way forward and maybe even a way out. Climbing over the bodies of your neighbors to gain elevation has its hazards though, and unless dizziness is your goal, whatever you do, don’t look back and don’t look down.

Feb 23, 2014.

It appears to me that we are turning into a world of activists, that we are reversing decades of minimum involvement by the masses in the determination of their destinies. It is happening on different continents and the response of established governments is not exactly the same, although the resistance to change is the most common response, and violence is often the result. In this country, ever since the under-reported and failed anti-war protest of ten years ago, it has been a sad period for political activism, aside from the Tea Party version. Curiously, the original, colonial Tea Party, was a bit of blame-the-victim, racist, black-bag op terrorism, with a spoonful of patriotism, and so is the current one for many of its most passionate adherents. The difference is that back then, we were rising up against protected monopolies and giant corporations, whereas the current version is largely funded by these megaliths.

We can do better, much better. If we need a theme song, how about the Automat’s egalitarian and inclusive “Let’s have another cup of coffee”?  We can organize friendly people in all the coffee shops, and let the people who have trouble with including everybody, have tea shops. We can have Starbucks and the corner diner and the morning breakfast table and they can have the crumpets. We can have meetings morning noon and night, all over town, to figure out how to take back this puppy from the beast. Confused and frightened people, looking for help are being told, ”Sharing is Socialism”. So elevators and trains must be hotbeds of Marxism, and water mains and sidewalks a sinister, devious plot, to tie us together and make us dependent.

So what is the needed response to the Tea Party? COCOA, Coffee Conversation Action maybe?  It’s not a Party exactly, (even though a little fun is always a welcome relief from the tedium), or a means to anoint the already too self-important with additional titles and privileges. Rather it’s a minimal mechanism for building an energetic, ongoing, constantly-evolving plan to maximize the chances that our species can have a healthy future on this rock. It is also an action agenda, without hysterical, lying demagogues, and without non-stop, one-dimensional self-interest masquerading itself as the common good and crushing our humanity in its path. We had sound-outs and teach-ins, but we need a continuously-refreshed framework that frees us with the truth instead of confining us in lies, open for business wherever and whenever sippers meet.

That’s the Coffee Conversation Action Agenda, COCOA². Namely: Move over a little so there’s room for everybody and when it’s freezing out there, who doesn’t need something hot to drink to help take off the edge? No matter how cold the facts get out here, friend, in the coming days, please remember what your Mom told you about what you had to do if you wanted to get into Heaven, and make mine hot Cocoa thank you, not hate-filled Cuckoo.

The ’60s are portrayed as “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll”. This is not inaccurate as much as it is incomplete. I would add “Exploring, Questioning and Demanding Proof”. Faced by the prospect of being drafted into a war that seemed totally unjustified, which was being sold as a Modern Crusade, against both Militant Buddhism and Atheistic Communism, members of my g-g-g-generation needed to process, and act upon, each of these three oxymorons, of stupendous contradictory magnitude, simultaneously. Fortunately, we baby boomers had the help of psychedelics and other multi-dimensional lubrication or the stresses created could easily have sent the entire of us down the Rabbit Hole for good. Of course, we had Gracie Slick as our travel agent and Vietnam vet, Country Joe and the Fish, winding us up with the “I feel like I’m fixin’ to die rag”, so the luckiest among us never got lost in the maze or fooled by the cover story.

We expected that the realizations being experienced by nearly everyone, the appreciation of the importance of Civil rights and even more subtle questions like gender-equality and Women’s rights, would inevitably lead to more honest and equitable society. All forms of music were being listened to and combined within a single song or album as East met West and everybody shook their behinds in what felt like your own special way. Many will argue that the ideals revered in the ’60s, tolerance, peace, free expression and love of your fellow-creature, obscured the more serious issues like survival and crime, but the dramatic increase in political participation and activism was a sign of health and vitality in a largely self-satisfied society.

The sixties gave us a whole population unwilling to accept its prerogatives and privileges at the expense of their fellow-creature, who questioned every single verity and turned a lot of them into cartoons that gave them the status and perspective needed to understand them.

Feb 16, 2014

Oddly, when charts are made, measuring the use of energy and its production, the most important form of it, human-power, is ordinarily excluded entirely. Fueled by calories, most available from rooftops, yards, fields, and window-boxes, truly locally-grown foodstuffs, we require only muscle-power, with a little help from our fiery neighboring star, to prosper. We’ve pummeled her with abuse and continue to, but Mother Earth still pushes forth new life unceasingly, regardless. As for us, the machines, people, give us water and something to chew on and we are amazingly productive devices. It is not just salty sweat being manufactured either, it is also brilliant labor-saving insights that are being generated. Think about how hard life would be without N.Tesla’s AC current, his induction motors and electric starter in your car. It is our good fortune that homo sapiens have been gifted with an infinitude of skills and constructive inspirations spread, albeit somewhat unevenly but still universally, amongst us. How lucky can a species be?

Were we, as a whole, to develop the means to have easy and free access to this rich pool of resources, we would certainly find ourselves on the critical path to our most fulfilling destinies. By unleashing this phenomenal storehouse of wealth, composed of the sum of the vast knowledge gained by all of us, through our jobs, our experiences, and adventures, we thereby enter the Age of Abundance and leave the Age of Scarcity behind. Unfortunately, we have spent centuries, weighed down by an incomplete picture of biology, weather and such, searching for better answers to our questions, rationing our goods, providing them only to those with the means. This is our history.

Now that we are able to produce a virtually infinite amount of anything, it is only through the systematic waste of resources, especially the human ones, that it has been possible to maintain the myth of scarcity within an obscuring cloud of overabundance, for the last several decades. While the armed conflict has been the most effective way to destroy the value of both the material world as well as the living one, a century of overconsumption has left its mark on every activity. Meantime, those with factories want them to run continuously, so the first task becomes convincing everybody both that they need this thing, beyond reason, and the last, that they should not share it with anybody else. Planned obsolescence and raging fashionability will do the rest. The Waste-God must be served or the wheels of commerce grind to a halt and we are done for, or so the market says or curses if you will.

While bike-sharing and other attempts to get a grip on this suicidal drive are gaining serious traction, this good news for almost all of us is anything but that, to those whose activities provide them with huge profits from the generation of waste. The military establishment, for instance, will fight like mad to preserve their benefits for themselves. They are able and willing to do this in spite of the damage it wreaks on their fellow-creatures, and sometimes even on themselves, but they can not stop their destructive ways, because they have no way to sustain their current lifestyles without these profits. They are addicted to the ability to have their way, to superimpose their view of reality and their bankrupt value system on a pacified public. They are supported by those who pretend that the numbers tell the story and can never focus down closely enough on what is on the ground, to include it in their world-view.

One feature of our profound misuse of resources is in the prison system. A famous wag once claimed that if you steal a loaf of bread, they will put you in jail whereas if you steal a railroad, they make you a US Senator. A friend of mine was featured on CNN this morning, being granted bail for the crime of being a heroin addict and being accused, falsely it turns out, of supplying Philip Seymour Hoffman with his fatal overdose. This fellow, Robert Aaron, is renowned within the city’s musical community as one of the most accomplished and talented musicians around. He is also one of the nicest and most modest and generous people you might have the pleasure to meet. He is the polar opposite of the stereotype of a junkie, the useless slouch, dangerous and untrustworthy person. He works constantly, sometimes for very small pay, often to help aspiring artists to establish their presence. He plays in scores of styles and on a dozen instruments. Wyclef Jean, who he arranged for and played with for a decade, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and hundreds of other musicians, have improved their offerings due to his attentions. Now he is facing prison and our loss of access to his gifts, because of his current need for his, admittedly often self-destructive, medicine. The system is ready to relegate this fine, non-violent, talented person to a bare cell, where he can no longer help anyone to realize themselves, or to enlighten us. A total waste. (Contributions to his bail fund are welcome.)

Meanwhile, prisons have become an “industry”, with profit-centers and ROI charts. The society with the highest rates of incarceration is also the one which has the greatest propensity to reduce everything to numbers, to de-humanize and disguise what amounts to institutional torture. Sure, those who harm others must be held accountable in order to reduce this kind of activity, but is punishing and causing pain to people a way to improve them or is it just a form of rough vengeance, a page torn from the stone age?

We do the same thing to older folks, who have slowed down or whose skills are less needed because of onrushing automation or outsourcing. Couldn’t schools make room to allow those with a lifetime of learning, to be enabled to pass that valuable information down to the next generation? At the end of the 19^th century, with industrialization taking full hold, innumerable hand-crafts were rendered obsolete and its skilled practitioners put out of work. Wood and metal workers with centuries of development contributing to their production of useful and beautiful products were rendered irrelevant, because there was a machine that could do it almost as good, or even sometimes a little better, at a rate thousands of times faster than their hands could match. An army of illustrators, fine artists, could no longer afford to fill their brushes and pens with India ink after the technology of taking and printing photographs took hold. Their loss? No, ours.

With clothing, imagine the work needed to handpick raw material, process it into yarn or thread, weave it into the fabric and make it into a garment, compared with our mechanized version of mass production, engineered by giant machines. Delivering a complex and finished piece of clothing, made by handwork only, is still the rule in some parts of the world but only the very poor or very rich have access to this system. The ability of machines to be so productive has been a mighty boon to our assumptions about what we are due and we have become used to having it all. A closet and dresser filled with garments that once would have taken a regal sweatshop to provide us with, could, until quite recently, only have belonged to a member of a noble family but instead, these former luxury items were bought for a pittance from a huge chain store. We are drowning in products but we have lost our self-identity as producers.

Likewise our food. If you had been a member of the royal family of a 19th-century empire, the presence of fresh fruit in the colder months or any foods out of season would have indicated a truly elite status. In fact, the range of ordinary products available to the masses, from soft cushioned toilet paper to a shelf of 100 exotic spices from around the world, were not easily acquired by even the most privileged members of any society in former times. Yet, we take them all for granted, without half a thought. The technologies that made it possible to live like a KIng, on a pauper’s ransom, have accustomed us to a level of comfort and ease that were unimaginable heretofore. One consequence of this is our unsupportable assumption that we should be able to have unlimited access to everything. Along with this sense of entitlement has come a lack of concern about the origins or consequences of this condition. One of the seemingly inevitable results of overabundance is a lack of understanding of or responsibility for the downside of this equation.

When it comes to transportation, the most egregious examples of imbalanced activity are to be found here. A stretch Hummer is a potent symbol for all that is wrong with this picture. It is instructive that the origin of this abomination is to be found on the field of battle. It is a weapon in the form of an automobile. We can combine its purposes as a life-protecting device into one of a life-destroying one and these identities merge and blend into one another seamlessly. It is wonderful to feel impervious in a dangerous world but our vulnerability is always with us, no matter what.

We spend a lot of energy projecting strength, and swagger with a coating of suave will always be a crowd-pleaser. Displaying this on the outside is often a cover for a lack of inner confidence and durability on the inside though. The cure for elitist, top-down definitions of our value and nature, is much more bottom-up, creative and life-affirming phenomena. Block parties without the tube socks. The stakes keep getting higher and the time to repair the breach shorter. I keep thinking that this is something about the importance of music, and its main components, like harmony, tone and pace, style and rhythm. Meanwhile, if we do have to sing for our supper, I think we should at least be able to pick the tune, and choose the main course, and be treated like guests, not servants.

You can hear some of my songs, free, on http://www.SteveStollman.com/ produced and with musical accompaniment by Robert Aaron, on all wind & string instruments and keyboards.

Jan 26, 2014.

I’m not sure what Disqus is, but I know it eats comments. One of the pleasures of writing pieces like this is the responses that it can provoke. Sadly, often nothing is said in response to the 2000 or so, of what I am willing to admit are sometimes intentionally-provocative words, that get thrown down on these pages every week. This, in spite of a thousand or more visits. The length of those visits is unknown and they may be mostly quick hellos rather than deep conversations, still, it has been the case, some weeks, that a half dozen or more visitors have decided, after they have finished reading, to make their feelings known at the bottom of the page. Sometimes these have been very complimentary and friendly and other times not. This is normal, to be expected, and include plenty of disagreements or differences of opinion. Truth be known, regardless, I wish every one of you would say something, even if it was minimal, give an opinion, state a fact, but…

For some reason, Disqus, the mechanism employed to capture and display comments on EVWorld, likes to show them when it feels like it and otherwise keeps them secret. Odd but true. Since this is my 20^th contribution in a row to this blog, which has become a regular feature of my life for a bit, I will admit that I miss the occasional barbs and bouquets. I wonder if they were taken out to a lonely field, like in an episode of the Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire, and dispatched in the tall grass, or given a more dignified end, perhaps in a restful archive by the sea, or slowly floating cloud. I have seen them come back to life a few times too, only to disappear once again, an agonizing flashback to what might have been and actually was, but is no more.

I had a job once, which may have been my best one ever, being the head waiter, really doorman, at the Village Vanguard, a jazz music club in Greenwich Village for the past 500 or so years. As this was a place that many luminaries made it a point to record at, it had a heady bill on, almost continuously. At this time it was a couple of famous musical giants, bassist Charles Mingus and saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, each with their own groups. Since both of these fellows could be described as Demi-Gods of their craft, some of the greatest artists of our time in any field, I wish I had spent more time listening to their mutterings and exclamations, but I do remember one. Mingus was notorious for his displeasure at the bad, which is to say inattentive, the behavior of his audience. This was a club, with drinks and a small amount of food, no hushed concert hall, but the sounds made there, at times, were as amazing, transporting and important, as any made anywhere.

Regardless of the fact that this was a basement joint, in a raucous neighborhood, Mingus would simply stop the music, if there was too much noise and too little appreciation that this was the finest music on the planet being performed before them. In one such episode, after he stormed off the stage, I remember “The Hawk”, as he was popularly known, nattily dressed, standing ramrod straight but not very tall, approaching the great bass player and telling him, “You have to play them quiet Charles”, in a sympathetic but chiding voice. The point is, if I expect more people to make more comments about my writing, I’m going to have to “Play them noisy”, more openly daring them, that is you, to join the picture and establish a presence.

I notice that a few weeks ago, Popular Science decided to abandon their comment function altogether. Too many little spats and petty problems probably, which took up space and discouraged others with more substantial points to make, from even participating. Who wants to get lost among the slings and arrows filling the air, aimed at nobody in particular? I’m sure their legal department was pelted with controversies over libel and patent infringement and other matters which soaked up time and bled expenses. It is a sad day though when scientific and technical inquiry can not be matters for lively discussion and widely varying points of view. Fortunately, there are still many many thousands, maybe millions, of online forums on every imaginable subject to help promote healthy controversy and fact dissemination. Generating directories, that rate them according to their relevance and popularity, needs to be a priority, and that process is, thankfully, well underway.

Sure, there is plenty that is of little weight or value in the mix, but also a lot of important information, that is now having a much easier time finding its way to the public. In balance, the flood of new information is a boon to honest inquiry, even if it is also hard to sift through and the major outlet for loony stuff too. The filters that have always been there, to separate the wheat from the chaff (and too often, to serve the chaff and call it wheat), claim a high degree of reliability for their product. It used to be that if you read it in the paper it was true. The TV had the same power, to grant, to their presentations, an aura of certainty and finality. It was rare that they actually deserved such confidence, but there wasn’t much competition. It is clear, in many minds, that the opposite is now the case.

We are having to be much more discerning, to question the quality of our sources, to come to rely on certain ones because of their proven track records. We have been lied to and misled too often, and by experts, to simply accept what we are told without a high degree of skepticism. Our gratitude must go out to the Bill Moore’s of this world, who devote such a substantial portion of their life on this planet, to trying to figure out what matters and what is true, because it is beyond the ability of each of us to do this for ourselves. I opined in one of my previous pieces about the way in which the commercial media serves the interests of its advertisers rather than its consumers. The movement away from that integrity-sapping formula, is what is needed, and demonstrated by EVWorld and many other worthwhile and truth-seeking web sources.

The Underground Press of the 60s and 70s forced the aboveground press to pay more attention to differing viewpoints. I was proud to be its distributor for a time here in NYC. Unfortunately, the shrinking of the printed press has left us with somewhat fewer of them as potential sources, even while the world of apps and blogs has multiplied the total of potential resources, all reachable free, easily and electronically, by a factor of infinity. The increase of Localism is partly a realization that common conditions, even those prevalent on a broad scale, can often best be affected by the collection of individuals, in physical reach of one another. This has been most conspicuous when it comes to food issues, especially in areas where there is local production of some kind. The addition of community gardens, roofs and other projects in urban spaces is growing rapidly too. Interest in the origins of what ends up on your table is surging and CSAs and variations on them are spreading every day. The connections between the most mundane daily concerns and the big questions, the ones that supposedly matter most, become more apparent every day.

The Chicago SEED, the Atlanta Great Speckled Bird, the L.A Free Press and all the rest of the Undergrounds were totally independent and self-reliant operations. The late ’60s generated much interest in the ways that governments functioned or didn’t, on account of the war primarily but for many other reasons too …

Oct 13, 2013. Article Viewed 1482 Times

The Permian Extinction took 95% of all living species. It is thought to have been caused by the release of a great store of methane from its oceanic vault, following volcanic activity in Siberia, powerful enough to warm the seas sufficiently to trigger this momentous killing event. Being subjected to natural forces this significant is impossible to avoid completely since we are simply temporary boarders here not the hoteliers. Voluntarily bringing about a catastrophe of this magnitude though, which is widely predicted to mirror the former calamitous scenario, is beyond madness. Yet, this is the path we have been put on, and we ought to be a lot unhappier about it than we are.

Ward McAllister, a social chronicler of the late 19th century, calculated that 400 of the most important swells of the time could fill Mrs. Astor’s ballroom and this became known as the ultimate measure of status, not dissimilar to the Fortune 500 perhaps. I suppose the same tiny number of exceptionally privileged people are the very ones who will be invited onto the Heavenly Biosphere, ready to re-populate the earth and assert their ultimate superiority by surviving the catastrophe that all of them have been so strategic in bringing about. A few may suspect, between cocktails, that this was the plan all along.

The US is now the world’s top energy producer, according to the WSJ and MSNBC’s caffein-addled Joe expects the effect of this is going to be “staggering”. No doubt he means that we are in a stronger and better situation, no longer completely at the mercy of some sheik in sheep’s clothing or Russian oil Czar. Missing from the equation is the contribution made to the total by human energy, hands, and fingers, human power, muscle power, fueled by calories from food instead of barrels of oil or tank-loads of liquid gas or rail cars of coal. Every time something is lifted, or pulled or pushed or bent or chipped or scraped by hand, energy is expended and even in a world that has been industrialized to its limit, there is still a huge proportion of “work” performed by mere homo sapiens using their bodies and sweat to bring about the needed result. When energy sources are measured, nuclear, petroleum and coal with a few renewables thrown in, is all that is spoken of, although all of our original arts and crafts are still alive and essential in the mix. Deep down we know that human transport, by walking our 10,000 steps a day or pushing the pedals on a bike is an essential aspect of preserving and enhancing our lives, not a cumbersome burden. Ease beckons though, and we vegetate.

When analyzing economic data a good deal is made of the cost of materials and the cost of labor. Factoring in the cost of the education of the people doing the work or their degree of satisfaction with their lives and their efforts is seldom mentioned, even though it might be, in the final analysis, the most important element of all. Human-powered equipment, designed to be operated on the human-scale, like bikes, some farm equipment, for that matter most kinds of computer and assembly work, comprises a huge proportion of the work being done every day around the world. While there are other power sources being used, electricity, animal, water, etc. the indispensable element has always been and remains, for the moment, the human one.

Regardless, since the trend over time has been to replace the human-powered with the mechanical or electronic, we have now reached the point where we can automate so deeply that the danger is that we are seemingly running out of the need for people altogether. Unemployment is not just a feature of an economy not operating at full speed, it is a permanent condition since we are no longer in need of very much maintenance and supervision for these machines. They are even being taught to repair themselves. It is not just factory workers, even doctors and lawyers are being rendered less useful by the day as every task, no matter how complex or difficult, is being assigned to an app or mechanical robot to deal with. Meanwhile, we busy ourselves with the increasingly trivial, social networking that concentrates on keeping you in close touch with your host of friends while the rest of the population learns to ignore you as well as you ignore them. Is this still a society, or just a bunch of random pieces of the flesh who have lost interest in forming themselves into a picture, who have learned to love their fragmentation as much as they once reveled in their connectedness?

Meanwhile, water downstream from a fracking operation in Pennsylvania is showing alarming levels of radiation, 200 times the normal. This is a minuscule problem of course compared to what is happening in Fukushima Japan, where water containment vessels are springing leaks and an immense pile of still radioactive material is perched precariously atop destroyed reactors and the government is having as much trouble containing the information about the risks which are now growing more treacherous continuously, as the engineers are having to try to do the seemingly impossible task of cooling off this hellacious fire. I thought that conservative politicians and political conservatives, in general, were risk-averse, eager to protect their treasures from eroding in value or putting their lives and futures in jeopardy. Actually, science-denial, the foundation of any belief system that relies upon magic and superstition, is essential to most myth-making institutions, be they religion-based, profit-making, pleasure-intoxicated or simply power-addled and unable to let go.

If the price of oil goes down sufficiently, this form of extraction, currently destined to destroy a serious portion of our dwindling clean groundwater supply, is no longer viable. So here is another powerful reason for one arm of the energy industry to keep oil prices as high as possible to protect its other arm. Can’t let the price get too high of course or too many people will switch to electric or hybrid cars and damage the market. These calculations are crucial to the foreign policy and economic decisions of scores of nations including “Superpowers” like Russia and the US. It is a mystery to me, why we would let a small handful of self-centered interests dominate our common interests, except that they’ve been doing it for what seems like forever. They spend a lot of money to convince us that they are our friends and appear to do a simply terrific job of doing that, but innumerable Gulf of Mexico critters would strongly disagree with their campaign of self-congratulation. Melting the Arctic so that a fleet of oil tankers can shave some miles off their long journeys is easily the worst bargain in the history of the planet earth, and we are being told that we are the “beneficiaries” of this chilly gift. Hardly.

Since energy is so important in the production and movement of foodstuffs, the consequences of price manipulation affect the price of other necessities as well. It is no wonder that people feel powerless in the face of forces so strong and seemingly uncaring. It is not just foreign policy and other great matters that seem beyond our understanding or influence, it is even the skies above our heads that are filled with mysteries. Rumors of such dangerous and secret practices as climate manipulation through the seeding of clouds with aluminum and other potential toxins swirl about, still considered unproven but with more convincing evidence accumulating daily. The undeniable loss of the livability of the breathable portion of the atmosphere to pollution and political and economic expediency, begs the question, “Who is watching the store?” and how come the back door got left open and the shelves are bare?

Frankly, I don’t think we can solve this problem through more talking and petitioning and complaining. If we have the capacity, species-wide, to take on these challenges by applying our creative talents to the case, there is some possibility of emerging bruised but intact. Look at SharingUmbrellas.org and let me know what you think. There are artists and craftspeople and designers and builders who can bring some new thinking to the fore and raise our aspirations sufficiently to make a difference. I fear that unless we are able to provoke the makers and the dreamers to enter the fray and deploy their talents, we are destined to tumble over the cliff we are being led to, clutching our smartphones to our breastbones and screaming “No bars, no bars, no bars”.

Your thoughts?

Commentary Viewed 1482 Times

Jul 22, 2013. Article Viewed 6541 Times

Now that the NYS legislature has ratified its identity as the lamest State Legislature in the country by once again failing to pass a bill legalizing electric-assist bikes, the campaign to reverse this mindless course is already beginning. Since this part-time governing body suspends all activity during a Summer recess that does not end until the New Year, there is plenty of time to strategize and plan for the next Sisyphean assault on Albany Mountain.

Unfortunately, there are two distinct approaches being taken by the two bodies and that must also be resolved. Ass. Gantt is convinced that adults must be forced to wear helmets on these machines, in spite of the urging of NYC’s, NYS’s, and all the National bike groups’ insistence that, as with ordinary bicycles, this decision needs to be left up to each adult person to make for themselves. That is in addition to the numerous scientific studies from both here and abroad that prove that requiring helmets is, on balance, a very, very bad idea. One important factor is that it reduces the number of riders so substantially that it makes it much more dangerous for everybody else. Counter-intuitive but true. Also irrelevant to your own personal decision whether you want to use one or not, but this is a perfect case of “Don’t confuse me with the facts, I’ve already made up my mind”. He also insists that nobody under 16 years of age be able to ride as a passenger. This inexplicable limitation means that an electric-assisted bike can never function as a family vehicle, one of its greatest potential uses. In contrast, the Senate bill simply reflects the Federal requirements, one horsepower, 20 MPH, etc. Reconciling these two bills will require prodigious effort, made more difficult since we are still saddled with a Medieval, top-down political system, with leaders as Barons and Committee Chairs as Dukes. Maybe an e-bike jousting tournament would catch their attention.

Speaking of Royalty, it appears that the exiting Mayor of NYC, Mike Bloomberg, was the person who applied the coup de grace to this year’s attempt to bring mobility sanity to the Empire State. It seems that the bike-share program in NYC, one of the Mayor’s pet projects, is achieving major success. A million rides and no serious accidents later, the nay-sayers are holding their tongues for the moment. While over-large docking stations and pervasive outdoor ads are aggravating some citizens, even reporters are being charmed by the ubiquity and utility of these lumbering devices. Unfortunately, Mr. Bloomberg, before the popularity of the bike share system had been established, decided to shield himself from some of the nasty tabloid editorials equating electric bikes with the riding habits of the energetic immigrants hauling hot food around the town to their hungry and anxious customers. To keep from being labeled rabidly pro-bike, while these same car-ad filled excuses for journalism lambasted him for bike lanes, bike share, e-bike deliverers, etc. etc. he decided to defend his reputation by trashing e-bikes.

Strategic? Certainly. Hypocritical? At least grossly inconsistent. Reversible? He won’t be in office next year. It is really a shame that another year must be wasted. Both branches of the legislature, this year, wrote bills which were then taken to their “third reading”, which meant that they were ready to be voted on. Then, from what is being said, the Mayor used some of the brownie points he had accumulated when he decided to personally donate considerable sums of money to a variety of Republican State politicians. The leverage that this provided him was enough to put an umbrella in the spokes of this pro-bicycle legislation, a strange action by the most pro-bike elected official ever in this part of the world. It might have made more sense for him to lean on his Police Commissioner to enforce traffic laws and lessen the bad behavior of some hard-driven piecework laborers, rather than penalizing a host of older cyclists who would like to extend their enjoyment of this healthful activity by getting a little help from a tiny electric motor.

While in France and Germany there are already large experiments with electric-assist bike-sharing, here in the U.S. such programs are all tiny experiments engineered by some smart college students. What better way is there to demonstrate the new pleasures that environmental responsibility will afford us than bringing on the rides, everybody’s favorite part of a carnival or fair? Those looking to raise both awareness and levels of activity around a host of important matters, like extreme climate change, can not find a more accessible subject around which to generate participation, maybe even have some fun. The fact that the alternative to sane transport is oil wars and repo men only enhances the relevance in engaging what was once considered wimpy and marginal. Cycling in its many guises, including the commercial varieties that cargo cycles and pedicabs can bring, points up the absurdity of banning human-scale electric vehicles in a place like New York City, that is over-run with badly maintained, ridiculously over-sized trucks, hazardous to all human life, even when they are not moving.

Who does not want to replace as many of these monsters as possible? How can it be done without some motor power, to supplement human power, which is, however, often, all that is really needed? It is our mind power which is lacking, because we simply can not imagine another world in which sanity has been restored to this element of our lives. When this revolution comes however, don’t expect to hear about it on car and oil ad-supported television or in automobile ad dominated tabloids like the New York Post. And beware of politicians who are cowed by their smarmy misleading editorials, which do nothing but broadcast undeserved contempt for hard-working “others” on their “other” vehicles and their extreme undeserved love of themselves and the status quo, no matter how destructive, irrational or unsupportable, it is.

Commentary Viewed 6541 Times