Published by the Colorado Daily 3/?/95
AS THE MILLENNIUM TURNS by Evan Ravitz
(still 5 years ahead of its time)
Too bad Evan Cantor decided to lash out at me and the "bicycle-only
community" straw-man he invents in this space Feb. 23. I
began my column last November 8 -election day- thusly: "We
need transit. But not city ballot issue 2A. And not the politics
that produced it." 2A was defeated 2 to 1. Calling my writing
a "continuing diatribe against public transportation"
is bullshit.
Actually, I like public transportation and ride it whenever
I'm going too far or haven't time to ride my bike- to Denver and
Gunbarrel, chiefly. What I object to is that over $12 million
a year goes to local Boulder transit but less than $400,000 goes
to cycling. The $400,000 is mostly wasted on Bike Week, complete
with bike polo, and other hoopla and paper. Cycling is still,
with a cyclist death a year and all the hassle and danger, some
four times as popular as the bus (City Modal Shift Study).
I objected strenuously to Council's and Transportation
Division's attempt to double the local buses, which now carry
an average of only 5.5 people on a 43-passenger bus (RTD "Riding
Checks"), while giving only lip service (no money) to cycling.
It's a question of balance, Cantor. Come down to the Mall this
summer and I'll give you a tight-rope-walking lesson.
There is a place for big buses- regional routes, and main
city trunk routes- where there are enough riders to actually save
fuel and pollution, instead of exacerbate it as now. Evan says
the buses he rides to work (at CU) "are generally full".
This mean that he rides the Broadway bus at rush hours. I have
averaged all trips for all routes from an inch of RTD "Riding
Checks" paper, but use your eyes. The average for the Broadway
route 202, RTD's best, is 8.7 passengers on a 43-passenger bus.
This was the inch of paper that GO Boulder had "accidentally
recycled", it was so embarrassing. It took about 10 phone
calls to get it. There's a place for some mid-size buses and the
rest of town should be served by on-call shared cabs, which the
private sector is ready to provide, when government gets out of
the way. Call it appropriate-size technology.
Cantor admitted on the phone that he's never looked at any official
studies on transportation. He misunderstands those I've quoted:
I did not assert that "the Eco Pass program is serving
40,000 people", as he writes. There are 40,000-plus "free"
tax-subsidized bus passes including 24,000 CU, 2,150 High School
and 14,000 Eco-passes, but they are sparsely used, so his
attempt to question my math fails. CU's Bus Pass Survey shows
that only half the random sample had used their pass even once
in the 4 weeks previous!
There are now 3 studies- 2 City, 1 University- that show that
all the bribery (with our taxes) to ride the bus is decreasing
cycling and walking more than decreasing driving. The 2/13/95
Denver Post states that "nearly two-thirds of HOP patrons
interviewed in a recent survey said they would have walked or
biked if the city shuttle weren't operating." Only 14% would
have driven alone! The CU Bus Pass Survey showed (before the HOP
started), that of those who used the pass at all, 58% said they
would have otherwise walked, biked or 'other'. Only 25% would
have driven alone. And the brand-new Modal Shift Study shows that
cycling, which increased rapidly from 1990's 9.8% of all trips
to '92's 12.7%, is now down to 12.0%, while the bus is up to 3.3%.
Cantor calls this "the wildly successful Eco Pass and student
bus pass programs"!
Cantor goes on to disparage Davis, California as a model
(25% bike to work there, over triple our 8%.) He says it's the
warm climate of Davis. But our 8% in is September, our best cycling
weather! We can triple our cycling when the sun shines,
which is some 300 days a year here. Transportation Director Weisbach
admits he has no similar bus success to point to! But Weisbach
in a letter to Council and I, and at several meeting deliberately
misrepresents the potential of cycling. He writes: "[Bicycling's]
role will be restricted (for most people) to trips of 2 miles
in length or less". Yet the 1993 Boulder Valley Employee
Survey on Pg 7 shows that the average bicycle commute here
is 3.6 miles one way. Weisbach and his Florida consultant
Charlier have told me several times they will continue to assert
their "opinion" in spite of the facts! No wonder: they
can't build an empire on cycling as they can on busing. We buy
our own bikes and ride them ourselves.
Cantor ridicules the idea that "Boulder's population
is comprised entirely of 29-year-old cross-country skiers",
which nobody asserts. However the US Census shows that our median
age is about 30, another reason this town has unique potential
to solve far more of its traffic problems by bike. I've written
extensively on how City practices impede us, from targeting cyclists
and pedestrians for enforcement "crackdowns" while 85%
of motorists speed, to building expensive road narrowings which
violate AASHTO professional standards for road widths and endanger
cyclists who are forced into the path of cars. Ad Nauseum.
Cantor ridicules the "ultra-light, full-size 100-
to 300-mpg 'hypercars'" I wrote of as "Star Trek"
technology. He didn't read my 1/11/95 column where I quoted extensively
from the January Atlantic Monthly magazine article by none
other than Rocky Mountain Institute founders Amory and Hunter
Lovins. They are credited with convincing many electric companies
to fund conservation measures rather than building new powerplants,
and have won numerous awards. They say this is 1991 technology
that just needs to be commercialized.
Do your homework before attacking we who do, Cantor. You
can get lots of City studies from the Citizen Assistance office
at 443-CITY. You paid for them. Don't parrot the self-serving
PR of Transportation Division. And don't poison the public debate.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau said over 220 years ago: "Keeping
citizens apart has become the first maxim of modern politics."
Is Cantor a naive and uninformed (and fairly nasty) citizen or
an aspiring politician?
Evan Ravitz is the chair of
Bolder Bicycle Commuter's Transit
Committee, director of the
Voting by Phone Foundation and board
member of the Boulder chapter of the American Civil Liberties
Union. He performs on the tightrope summer evenings on the Pearl
St. Mall as Evan from Heaven. Reach him at 440-6838 or evan@welcomehome.org