Mobility

Sustainable Mobility

What Matters Most

Here are the top 5 things you can do that will make the biggest difference in the area of sustainable mobility:

buy a car with the best mileage possible for your needs, and keep your tires properly inflated to maximize mileage
get a bike and put baskets on it
when traveling a distance, consider taking the train
draw a circle about 2 miles out from your home and see how many of the places within that circle you can get to without a car (40% of all trips are less than 2 miles in length)
think about an electric bike or scooter

Human Hybrid Vehicle Project This is a potential project idea at this point. Tom and Maureen are exploring the idea and it's potential.
Getting to Green Comprehensive look at how the auto industry has moved in a green direction. One quote from the title article comes from Lawrence Burns, GM's 'Mr. Environment' - this should resonate with all GLGIers: "No matter what vehicles Detroit and its rivals develop, Mr. Burns says that ultimately car buyers will decide whether the environment wins. “Unless you get consumers involved in this mission, it’s not solvable,” he said."
Here's an interesting activity for you. Walk Score let's you type in your address and gives you a walkability score for your home. I typed in our address here in Troy and got a score of 38 out of 100, meaning not a walkable location. Not surprising. Our daughters just moved into a condo in downtown Ann Arbor yesterday and so I typed in their new address - their score was 98. Again not surprising. Neither of them uses a car to get to work or school. Try it - the results may surprise you.

> 90% of all travel in the U.S. is by car; 4% is by all forms of public transit (Green Living)
it costs Americans an average of $8,400 per year to own a car (Chris Balish)
if every new vehicle averaged 40 MPG we would save more oil than we now import from the Persian gulf (Green Living)
the USA is the largest per-capita consumer of oil and largest per-capita producer of carbon dioxide (Green Living)
in Michigan alone, the highway lobby spends 10x the amount of money on legislative races than do mass transit and rail interests (Green Living)

3-wheel scooter With gas prices going up, Italian scooter company Piaggio, most famous for its Vespa line of scooters, has seen sales of its bikes rise 20 percent in each of the past five years. Now the company is bringing over an odd-looking product that it hopes will attract two groups of riders: the hip who want the latest in scooter technology and those who are simply afraid of falling over.

cicle.org Cyclists Inviting Change Thru Live Exchange: Bike Now. Site promotes bicycling and gives tips for making bicycling a part of your life

Bicycling Life This site wants to spread the "Good News about bicycling as a means of transportation and recreation in everyday life." Covers all kinds of issues such as riding in traffic, riding skills, riding in hot weather and winter weather, bike equipment and how to do your own repairs, etc.

Icebike Think biking is only for fair weather?? This site will convince you otherwise! Great for those of us living in the Great White North.