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Owen Sound in Motion Workshop

Owen Sound in Motion Workshop at the The Harry Lumley Bayshore
Community Centre, Owen Sound

Would you like an opportunity to influence the future of transportation in Owen Sound? Do we need more bike lanes? Rail
transport? Shuttle buses between surrounding towns?

Now is your chance to bring your ideas and make your views known by registering for this public event hosted by the City of Owen Sound.

Register by web, email or call Karen Klages 519-376-4530 x302

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Walkable and Bike able Communities

In my Internet trolling yesterday I came across a great video on You Tube that looks at the idea of planning for more walkable and Bike able Communities. The video looks at the community of Port Townsend in Washington state and discusses their efforts to envision a more sustainable transportation future.

This has been a topic of discussion around these parts from time to time. It appears that isolated efforts are being made to promote trail networks and occasionally the paper addresses councils interest in more bike lanes for city streets. This topic is near an dear to me for several reasons. In my previous career teaching Geography I spent a good deal of time teaching the ideas of smart growth, sustainable transportation, and more generally our patterns of land use that have been increasingly influenced by the car. If you haven’t seen end of Suburbia I encourage you to do so as the movie offers a good look at the impact of car culture in North America.

I am also quite interested in the topic of sustainable transportation locally because I get the idea of Peak Oil. This post isn’t going to be a peak oil lesson but I will try to cover the topic in more detail soon enough. For more on Peak Oil check out the End of Suburbia, or listen to my interview with the writer director, or simply Google “Peak Oil” and see what you get. I bring up peak oil at this point in part because it appears to be a driving force behind the program ” Peak Moment” from which the video below is a part.

Finally I am very much interested in the idea of more walkable/Bike able communities because that’s how I get around. Our family has been car free for over two years now. We gave up on the car while still living in Toronto, opting to take advantage of public transit options our wise choice in choosing an apartment. Location, location, location… it’s a really big part of reducing your transportation energy demands and improving your quality of life. When we purchased our first home upon returning to Owen Sound we had really only one deal breaker. The house had to be “in the valley” (as it turns out we actually bought a house on a dead end street partially embedded in the valley wall = don’t have to bike the really big hills but there’s still a bit of an incline on the way home). In hindsight this has proven to be quite a boon as well given that it adds a little more resistance to our training (oops!, I meant commute there but as you might imagine there are some pretty significant health benefits to moving about under your own power.

I’ll leave my commentary for the moment at that and let you get on with the show… otherwise I might have to start weighing in on the numerous other benefits of our reduced car lifestyle. Perhaps you have some thoughts to share? If so leave a comment below or leave an audio comment by calling 519 416 6936 (OWEN). As you can see I could likely go on about this topic at great length… if you are interested in carrying on with this discussion it only takes a moment of you time to share your thoughts/ideas not to mention give me a little more reason to dig up more resources on this topic.

Enjoy the show….

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Pedal Powered Buick

The following video is an interesting take on the idea of people powered transportation. The Shared Propulsion car was crated by artist Michael de Broin.

From the artists website

In this project, all superfluous devices were removed from an 86’ Buick Regal – the engine, suspension, transmission and electrical system – thereby reducing the weight of the vehicle whilst preserving its appearance. It was then equipped with 4 independent pedal and gear mechanisms that make it possible for passengers to form the self-propulsion group. A cutting edge transmission technology was developed to transmit the power supplied by the passengers to the drive wheels and to vary the reduction ratios between cyclists and wheels, so as to ensure their progressive coupling for start-ups. With a top speed of around 15 km/h, the vehicle’s resistance to the culture of performance is raised to an unprecedented level. The Shared Propulsion Car makes it possible for the passengers to drive on public roads with the goal of blocking traffic.

The last line in this description is a little confusing for me…”The Shared Propulsion Car makes it possible for the passengers to drive on public roads with the goal of blocking traffic”. This gives me the impression that the thinking behind the project was along the lines of of a Critical Mass bicycle ride (more on critical mass rides here).

Another way of looking at this of course would be to consider how this concept could be extended beyond the “art car” and into the realm of day to day transportation. While the stripped down Buick certainly lost a lot of pounds in it’s conversion to a pedal propelled vehicle what could we do if with started from scratch with the ideal of shared propulsion in mind?

I was impressed by the speed achieved by the Shared Propulsion car. Now consider what kind of cruising speed could be maintained in a similar vehicle if you could drop another 500-1000 pounds? (I am sure even a stripped down 86 Buick has to weigh in over a 1000 pounds? Thoughts anyone?) Four wheeled, multi pedal bikes are not necessarily a new phenomenon, however their use as a viable day to day from of transportation certainly is.

Enjoy the clip and share your thoughts on how the bigger picture here might be applied locally.

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