Hello bike friends!

If any of you have been watching TV news last week (I don't usually but caught this) you probably saw human interest specials on the baby that was born in a car in Atlanta because of the massive chaos caused by the highly unusual 8 inches of snow.  Putting that puff piece aside, I thought this story, The Day We Lost Atlanta, in Politico, had a lot more interesting things to say:

The author brings together three issues that often seen as separate problems but are beginning to compound in really scary ways--massive and aging road systems, climate change, and suburban development.  Atlanta has for decades built roads and highways to serve suburban development which turn fuels more vehicle miles traveled virtually every year.  Transportation accounts for close 40% of greenhouse gas emissions nationwide--and in heavily car oriented place like Altanta, Houston, LA, much more than half the pie!

While no single weather event can be linked to climate change, the freak weather in Atlanta certainly fits the predictions of how climate change is slated cause global 'weirding' in the coming years.  So there you have it: we depend on an aging road system to support living far from where we work (what we urban planers call a live-work imbalance); the more we drive the more emissions we produce; emissions contribute to the global changes causing freak weather which stresses that fragile, over-extended infrastructure that holds it together.
The upside of this terrible feedback loop is that investing smart, more pedestrian/biker/transit friendly infrastructure has multiple benefits.  It's investment that's sorely needed for system in bad repair, reduces greenhouse gas emission, and by reducing dependence on cars helps us better prepare and adapt to crazy weather patterns.

TransForm, one of the two organizations I'm fundraising for, is working for these smarter infrastructure choices that get so many bird with one stone.

Here's one of a number of study's coming out recently that show investments made already in smarter infrastructure are working--changing behavior, and changing values, such that the younger generation want, and are able to, drive less.

So far this week--
Raised: $165 Ridden: 42 miles