Making Way for Bikes

Peak Moment 88: City Councilor Scott Walker of Port Townsend, Washington is working to build a walkable, bikeable community where the car is not essential. As a result, the town has designated many undeveloped streets and "connectors" as non-motorized routes. He says, "Build safe, convenient facilities for walking and biking, and they sprout people." Watch Janaia test ride Scott's electric bike, which "flattens the town" as if there were no hills.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• electric
• bicycle
• transportation
• urban
• planning
• land
• use
• pedestrian
• port
• townsend

[SuperOlds88]

so what do the areas that have 6 or 7 months of snow and ice do? or when you live 30 or 40 or more miles from work? or you simply cant ride a bike for whatever reason. There are 200 years of oil on the North Slope, and the oil in North Dakota is just starting to get going. Its a shame that man has been blamed for this "global warming" which has cycled for eons. Make Al Gore ride to work, he has helped keep this stupid idea going.

[peakmoment]

There is no one right answer for every situation - bikes, electricity, food, anything.

In terms of oil, even the International Energy Agency acknowledges we've reached the end of Cheap, easy-to-get oil. From what I've read, North slope has a few years of oil, and N.Dakota is very very expensive to produce.

We'll always have oil, it just won't always be this cheap.

[agglutination]

Whoever moderates this channel, I salute you for calmly and respectfully responding to irate comments. Good on you.

[Suppa1976]

@SuperOlds88 They can do what i do. -Have separate wheel-sets with winter-tires on them! One should have a strong chain to go with that, like the Shimano HG-93 chain. (I have no affiliation with Shimano) Using a strong chain will prevent unnecessary wear on especially the rear sprockets. This will allow You to simply swap the wheel-sets in the fall or spring without getting ''chain-slip'' on the sprockets.

[ogicabp4u]

going green, riding bikes, conserving energy, finding alternative means etc is ALL good...BUT we need to do it on a exidious scale if we want to maintain , improve and expand our horizons.

Space exploration and technology WILL help us to do this in many ways on a global scale.

I agree, if we dont make the transfer from a TYPE 0 to a TYPE 1 civilization in the right way we could destroy ourselves in the process...if we to it in the right way we will flourish.

BTW great show keep it up.

[peakmoment]

All of the processes you describe take a lot of energy -- and so far all of our space exploration is based on cheap fossil fuels. That increasingly expensive energy will need to convert our infrastructures to electricity right here.

Yes, it's good to think outside the box. Another way to think outside the box is to question the way we've gone about things in civilization -- exploiting the planet and people, social inequality, agriculture bolstered by warmaking. What's outside that box?

[ogicabp4u]

Also pollution on the planet earth is the cure on mars heating the atmosphere up to temperatures that can sustain human life. Now we may have a use for all that pollution! Also if space elevators get off the ground (lol) we may actually be able to control elements of the weather!!!

This is , of course , wishful thinking. But you need to think outside the box to find the solution to the problem inside the box.

We sent a man to the moon...so Im sure we can overcome these hurdels.

[ogicabp4u]

U misunderstand my statement. By going into space we can expand our capacity and regenerative abilities. For example solar panels have upto 20x higher gain in space. If we manage to develop space elevators with a superconductive carbon fiber nanotubes then this energy can be beamed back down to earth.

Also manufacture on the moon of alloys allows 20x stronger ones to be produced by processes impossible on the earth. Imagine compression on earth at 20x what is now possible. 20x more energy :)

[peakmoment]

Now-global civilization is causing huge problems in environmental degradation, increasing social injustice and resource depletion, and more. If we cannot solve those problems here, why pollute space with them? We desertify areas and then move on. Now the chickens come home to roost: we need to make it work right here. It's our challenge and opportunity.

[ogicabp4u]

space travel is an important part of this 'peak moment'. A lot of problems on the ground can be solved 'up there'. to solve the problems of this planet we have to get off it.