Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Commuting by Bicycle


Every so often, I commute from home to my office by bicycle. I almost always really enjoy the ride, and I have an almost entirely pleasant route to take. I ride from my house through some beautiful neighborhoods for a few miles. Then, I hop onto a bike trail that takes me along a creek for seven or eight miles. The worst part of the commute (worst = most dangerous and unpleasant) is the one mile between the bike path and my office.

That first part of my route is in the city. The second part is on a dedicated bike path. The final part is in the suburb.

I'm no expert in the history of urban and suburban development, but here's what I think. Urban areas, which were designed and engineered in the days when more people would walk to where they needed to go, are easier to navigate on a bicycle. Suburban areas, though, were designed in the days when 'regular' people were beginning to be able to afford cars; and more recent suburban areas were designed in the days when having a car is the norm, when it's unusual to not have access to an automobile.

Suburban areas were designed with cars in mind ~ to ease the traffic flow for cars by creating fast-moving arteries that could handle lots of traffic. These arterials do a great job of moving automobiles very efficiently. However, they make it considerably more dangerous to navigate on a bicycle.

We've built our road system around the assumption that everyone will have a car, and that those who don't will work to get a car.

Recently, social media has provided for me some interesting food for thought. I've been learning about the new(ish) bicycle superhighway system built in the city of Copenhagen. It may be because I've lived my whole life in USAmerica, but it's somewhat inconceivable that a government would invest so heavily in infrastructure for cycling.

It turns out, though, that at one point, Copenhagen was just as clogged with automobile traffic as any other city. A few decades of investment in cycling infrastructure has led to 50% of people in the city using a bicycle all the time for transportation.

One difference between Copenhagen and most cities in our country is that they've decided to value cycling; and further, they've decided to value the health of their citizens. We don't do either.

When we assume that everyone will, by default, commute by automobile, we're assuming that most people will be overweight and unhealthy because they sit in their cars for far too great a percentage of the day.

We further exacerbate the problem of obesity and early-onset diabetes by the ubiquitous access we provide to ridiculously cheap and ridiculously unhealthy “food” (a topic for an entirely different post).

Copenhagen has chosen to invest in cycling infrastructure. The result is that more people cycle. The result of more people cycling is that fewer people are obese or overweight (which leads to reduced healthcare costs). I would suspect that Copenhagen's investment in the health of its population is also paying off in lower prevalence of mental health problems, decreased dependence on foreign oil, and a greater sense of individual and communal satisfaction and well-being.

We in USAmerica have made the default assumption that most people will be unhealthy. We make the default assumption that there will be a continuing increase in the prevalence of asthma and other respiratory ailments caused by the increase in pollution from tailpipe emissions. We make the default assumption that because more people can afford to travel by automobile (and pay for the requisite insurance, upkeep, and fuel costs of an automobile), that we're better off.

I'd like to challenge those assumptions. Of course that may well mean challenging everything we hold as sacred in our society.

Of course the solution to our problems is more complex than simply getting everyone to ride a bike. I mean, cycling isn't some sort of magical activity. Though, when I first learned to ride, it felt like it … in fact, sometimes cycling feels magical even today.

$0.02

Monday, September 10, 2012

Faster Pastors, Ragnar Relay, and Malaria Relief


There's a point at which the relationship that two people have with each other changes. Sometimes it's after they've been friends for a few years. Sometimes it's through particular shared experience. Sometimes it's the result of embarking on an adventure together.

Last weekend I undertook an adventure ~ an experience that was an adventure, and at the same time a very particular experience that I had the privilege of sharing with some of my colleagues (and I feel honored to have been part of this adventure with them).

So, here's what we did: one of my pastor friends convinced eleven other Lutheran Pastors, myself included (we call ourselves the Faster Pastors), that it would be a good idea for us to run the Ragnar Relay ~ a 189 mile relay through the Colorado Mountains.

We did this because it sounded fun … and also because it gave us an excuse to encourage people to make financial contributions. We have been encouraging people to pledge and give money to the ELCA MalariaCampaign in support of our efforts.

So, to raise money for malaria prevention and treatment, we committed to spending 48 hours (or so) in close proximity with one another (six or seven people in a mini van for the weekend). We committed to encouraging and supporting one another in our celebrations and in our struggles. We committed to looking at each other, and listening to each other, and smelling each other. We committed to eating and drinking together ~ for these couple days, we've made a commitment to being community together.

Because we made these commitments, we had the opportunity to have an amazing experience together. But what was more fun (for me at least) was to tell people what I was doing, and then watch for the look of surprise or amazement or “you know you're crazy, right?” on their face … at which I had the opportunity to tell them that we were raising money for the ELCA Malaria Initiative.

See, malaria kills approximately one person every 60 seconds … but it's tremendously preventable and treatable. $10 buys a medicated bed net that prevents mosquitoes from infecting a person while they sleep. And when people are infected, $2 buys a treatment.

So we did this crazy thing to raise money for malaria relief. During the course of the entire event … not just the 29+ hours we were running, but the time before when we were raising money and awareness … we were building community.

Sure, there was the community in the vans, and the community build with and among the other participants. But hopefully we've also built community with people across the globe ~ children of G-d whose malady is more obvious than our own maladies.

And hopefully our efforts have gone a little way toward relieving the malady of malaria in other parts of the world, and the malady of affluenza, wealth, and greed here where we live.

$0.02