Potential of Shifting Trips from Car to Bike

車の代わりに自転車で移動した場合の効果

The blog Copenhaganeize gathered data on the effects of shifting trips from automobile to bicycle.

51% of trips in the EU made using carbon fuels could reasonably be made on a bicycle.

Of those trips, the highest potential is for shopping.

As e can attest, many many trips in Kyoto are on the bike to the supermarket. All supermarkets in Kyoto are equipped with large bicycle parking lots and attendants.

To see all of the cool graphics, click here.


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Enact a US Law to Protect Bicyclists from Driver Harassment

自転車に車の運転士のたずらを違反行為へ

Elizabeth Jones commutes by bicycle (and train) daily from Baltimore to work in Washington, D.C.

In Change.org, she writes:

I am urging you to enact a lifesaving law to protect bicyclists from driver harassment. Each morning I am forced to risk my life in order to choose a healthy, environmentally friendly and fiscally responsible mode of travel in Baltimore City...

To read the entire article, click here:


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EV Sports Car Takes Test Run in Front of Kyoto Prefectural Government Building

京都発ＥＶスポーツカー、府庁で実演走行

An electric power vehicle - the Tommy Kaira ZZ - zoomed around the streets near Kyoto's elegant Prefectural government building on Monday November 12th.

The car will go on sale next fall.

The maker is based in Kyoto's Kita Ward, where the two-person convertible is manufactured. The project is a venture deal that is funded in part by Nichicon, a local company that makes capacitors.

The car will be priced between seven and eight million yen (USD $87,900 - 100,400).

On one charge, the sports coupe can travel two hundred kilometers.

Not as environmentally friendly as the old bike, but on the commute we would far prefer to be behind an EV than a gas- or oil-spewing bus, taxi, or normal car.


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Tokyo Cyclists Unaware of Rules

交通ルールを知らない東京人

In 2010, according to the Universal Traffic Management Society (UTMS) of Japan, 4,863 were killed in traffic accidents in Japan.

This is half of the number killed in 1995, in which 10,679 perished on the nation's roads.

Yet, aside from the occasional story pertaining to a dramatic accident - bus driver falls asleep, plows into barrier killing many onboard; young unlicensed kid, also drowsy, piles into a group of children and parents walking to school, killing several - this rarely makes the news.

Simple math: more than 13 people died every day in traffic accidents in 2010.

Though the share of the total fatalities involving cars and trucks is decreasing - and accidents involving cyclists increasing - the vast majority of those deaths involved cars.

Still the story emanating from the police and their handmaidens in the media is that cyclists are terrorizing Japanese road ways.

The latest from the right-wing, pro-nuclear, pro Liberal Democratic Party Yomiuri Shinbun - the newspaper with the highest daily circulation in the world -  is that Tokyo cyclists are not aware of the rules of the road.

In a shocking scoop, the Yomiuri recently reported that only "65% of people know children under 13 are required to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle."

Stop the presses.

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