Showing posts with label O'Malley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label O'Malley. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Plan on Pedaling

One of the ways Maryland is trying to improve transportation is to support bicycle riders and pedestrians, especially in the more populated towns and cities. There is a lot of progress to be made, since Maryland ranked 39th in the nation for bicycling when the O'Malley administration decided to do something about it. What they came up with is a 20-year plan with the vision that "Maryland will be a place where bicycling and walking are safe, practical, and inviting ways for people of all ages and abilities to complete their everyday travel."

Much of what they are doing deals with bikeway construction. You can use the interactive map to find roads that are good for cycling. There aren't that many in my area, but one way for me to use the map is to find bike roads in populated areas where I might need to spend a day and take my bike along for intracity travel, rather than worry about parking costs or bus fares.

Regardless of how many bikeways there are now or in the future, bikes are going to be a primary means of travel and roads less and less dangerous as gasoline becomes more scarce. In the upcoming rearrangement of our economy, bikes will be more valuable than gas-powered cars. Until then, stocking up with bicycles and bike accessories would be a good investment strategy.

I'm not talking about gathering a collection like that of the late Robin Williams. He loved bikes for recreation and sport, but utility will be, by far, the value proposition for bicycles in the coming age. In that vein, there is a class of bicycles known as "cargo bikes" that will be used for short haul cartage in lieu of cars. There are enough makes and models of cargo bikes to make any collector happy, though they tend to be expensive.

My dream machine would be an electric-power assist bike like Felt's Tote'm. You might fall for it, too, by watching Felt's short video. My closest distributor is Parvilla Cycle up Annapolis way.

Before I shell out four grand for an electric bicycle (which may eventually prove essential with all the hills in my neighborhood), I will try to work my carrying capacity up by putting a front and rear panniers on my comely, but heavy Schwinn Wayfarer.
 Image result for Schwinn Wayfarer
A step up would be to get a lighter weight cargo bike.

Yes, there are alternatives to cars. We aren't going back to the stone age.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Cultivating the EcoMind

STEM extracurricular programs seem to be all the rage these days, but the environment gets a modicum of educational attention on our continent by way of an annual Envirothon.  Engineering (the 'E' in STEM) includes consideration of the context directly affecting the artificial system of interest.  One aspect of these contextual influences is that associated with the natural environment.  Some understanding of the environment is essential, therefore, to design of engineering systems, but the engineering perspective typically assumes that we can surmount or circumvent environmental forces by adjustments in the system's design. However, an environmental perspective of our human systems' contexts would lead to designs more harmonious with nature.  (Have you ever noticed that Environmental Engineering is usually all about how to clean up the messes we make on our planet?)
I am, therefore, pleased to note that the environmental literacy standards that Maryland instituted for its childhood education programs just won Silver in the 2015 Future Policy Awards of the World Future Council, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UNICEF.  These were the first such standards adopted by any of our states and serve to counter the narrowing of curricula caused by the No Child Left Behind law.  Other states are taking notice and coming along as well. 
If, by wild chance, Martin O'Malley becomes our next President, I hope he won't forget to carry with him the environmental legacy endowed to Maryland by his governorship.

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