by Bike Courier | Apr 7, 2022 | Uncategorized
As one who was arrested here in Louisville in 2019 for climate change civil disobedience, Peter Kalmus’ article struck home. “…Nothing has worked. It’s now the eleventh hour and I feel terrified for my kids, and terrified for humanity. I feel deep grief over the loss of forests and corals and diminishing biodiversity. But I’ll keep fighting as hard as I can for this Earth, no matter how bad it gets, because it can always get worse. And it will continue to get worse until we end the fossil fuel industry and the exponential quest for ever more profit at the expense of everything else. There is no way to fool physics….”...
by Bike Courier | Apr 6, 2022 | Uncategorized
This process of deception, witnessed in Louisville’s OH River Bridges Project, is repeated nationwide every year.(Source: Strong Towns) “The standard approach for engineering projects is well-established. A team of technical experts determines that a project needs to happen. They get whatever authorization they need to move forward in evaluating options. They put together options, most frequently three of them. The first is the “do nothing” approach, the hated status quo that most everyone agrees is intolerable. The second is some lavish, over-the-top approach that seems ridiculous. And the third approach is the baby bear; not too big and not too small, in contrast with the others it will seem to be just right. This is all part of a sales job, including the anchoring effect of juxtapositioning the professional’s preferred alternative between two unappealing options. I have called these “dumb, dumber, and dumbest” on occasion. Engineers and project planners use the public comment process to go through engagement theater and simulate that they actually care about the feedback they are receiving, earnestly considering it instead of what they are really doing: working through the process to overcome opposition so they can move on to the building phase of the project (because that is the favorite phase).”...
by Bike Courier | Mar 25, 2022 | Uncategorized
“Every transportation decision is a climate decision, whether we recognize it or not,… Not only do we have to cut emissions from transportation on our roads by making it so that you don’t have to drag two tons of metal along to get to where you need to go all the time, we’ve got to prepare for the climate impacts that are already happening.” (speech at SXSW- south by southwest – March 2022)Bikes weigh less than two tons. Buttigeig noted that the transportation sector is the US economy’s second leading source of greenhouse gas, behind the energy sector. Is it a slight of hand that electric vehicles will shift more of the greenhouse gas emissions away from transportation and to the energy...
by Bike Courier | Mar 22, 2022 | Uncategorized
Instead of investing in regional public transit, retrogressive leadership chose to invest in a 1950s transportation model – two more interstate bridges and many acres of new interstate roadways. Now retrogressive leadership is urging KY & IN governors to use federal infrastructure funding to eliminate tolls on the bridges. Better to keep the tolls and redirect the funds to public transit....
by Bike Courier | Mar 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
The Securities and Exchange Commission may force companies to disclose climate risk. But, at what level? The SEC breaks down emissions into three categories (Scope 1, 2, & 3). Scope 1 – emissions generated by the companyScope 2 – emissions from the energy consumed, like electricity for exampleScope 3 – emissions generated by a company’s suppliers and customersScopes 1 & 2 hold companies responsibility for disclosing embodied energy (the sum of all the energy required to produce any material, goods or services – including the mining, manufacturing and transporting.) Scope 3 seems to hold companies responsible for disclosing emissions from the use of their products.Investors, consumers and the public deserve to know the risks....
by Bike Courier | Mar 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
Saturday morning, 19 March 2022…At the corner of Baxter Avenue and Cherokee Road cars lined up at Church of the Advent. The occupants queued to pick up boxes of free food. Each car represented a family that had to choose between filling the gas tank and filling the grocery cart. …Arrival at the bike shop on Market Street (between First and Second streets) required an approach from the west. For several decades all six lanes of Market Street have been one way, dedicated to moving cars quickly eastward – out of downtown.…The Louisville Downtown Partnership https://louisvilledowntown.org/ emailed a survey to downtown residents and businesses. The survey asks for recipients to share their perceptions of downtown as it is, and their visions of downtown Louisville as it should be. Those three occurrences of the morning are intimately related. Louisville’s land use and transportation is fatally flawed when filling the car’s gas tank is more important than filling the grocery cart. Louisville’s land use and transportation is fatally flawed when moving cars quickly out of town is prioritized over making a green, quiet, walkable city with excellent public transit. Louisville’s land use and transportation is fatally flawed when surface parking lots dominate...
