That is, until winter arrives.

Most winters, I can honestly say, I’ve been a wimp. I put the bike away and take the bus or walk to my destination. Last winter was the first time I ever rode a bicycle in the snow to get to the store. It was surprisingly easy, but I didn’t really have a bike in condition to do it on a regular basis – so I filed it away in the back of my mind.

Over the course of the summer of 2008, I collected a few bicycle frames, wheels, parts and whatever bicycle related items I could scavenge when people cleaned out their garages. I found a fairly intact department store mountain bike – I’m usually fairly picky about these because of their low-quality manufacturing and questionable design decisions. This one I saved with the intent of putting it on the heavily salted roads in Ottawa. It’s a bike that I can get to the store with, but can leave covered in slush outside without concern about how badly the water and salt are corroding the parts.

Here we are, part way into January and I’m still riding it nearly every day. I even took it out twice yesterday during the massive snow fall we had, just for kicks. I’ve discovered not only is it a great workout, it’s fun and easy! The roads are usually kept clear for the cars, so riding on those is not much different from riding in the rain. The snow, when it’s powdery presents little challenge to cut through in a low gear.

I guess people just aren’t used to the idea – I wasn’t until recently, so I guess I can’t blame them. These same people would likely go skating or skiing in the same weather however, so the name calling is a little undeserved. I think the neighbor that called me ‘brave’ was really only searching for a polite term because I’d shoveled her walkway that day.

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A paradigm shift isn’t happening overnight, either – but it’s slowly entering Western conciousness. SUVs are being dumped for a fraction of their purchase price by status climbers who realized they can’t afford to fill up the tank daily on these monstrosities any more. Some people are still driving them around, so these prices haven’t hit the pocket books of those with abundant finances yet.

A few more bicycles are on the road now. I’ve not taken the public transportation recently, but I’ll bet the busses are starting to gain new riders as well. This happened last price jump, and it wasn’t this high. It was the test run I think. Push the market value up, get people used to the idea, lower it a bit to regain consumer confidence, then slowly raise it again. It’s like sitting in a pot of water and slowly raising the temperature – eventually the water’s boiling fatally but it was done gradually enough that nobody noticed.

The solution however, is right in front of our noses – and people are starting to consider it. Walk, or ride a bicycle! It works in Europe. Too many people will hop in their cars to drive < 5km to the store for a loaf of bread. That’s easily walkable in 15 minutes, or five on a bicycle – and you’d get some exercise at the same time. I’ve done it in the rain, I’ve done it in a blizzard – I don’t own a car and never have.

However, most of us car-free bicycle riders are still being looked at as the crazy ones. That’s OK. We know you’ll come around eventually if the pricing trends continue. Think of it this way – prices for produce and consumer items will rise due to increased transportation costs – so high gas prices affect drivers twice as much as cyclists. Just some food for thought.

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Nearly everyone I meet gives me this dumb pie-eyed look when I explain that I don’t own a car, don’t have a drivers license and frankly have no interest in obtaining either. I’ve spent the majority of the past nine years living in Ottawa, Canada’s fourth largest metropolitan city.
The bus service is adequate for my needs, despite fare increases over the past years is still vastly cheaper than an automobile, besides which it’s healthier to walk or ride a bicycle.

According to this page by the US EPA, the average passenger car emits approximately 5,400 kilograms of pollutants per year. Since most of my travels would consist of my being the sole passenger this would be squarely on my shoulders. I’ve been hard pressed to find exact data regarding how much city bus emissions per passenger are, but the estimates I did find place it at 66% less. This means that I personally am contributing at most 1,600 kilograms of pollutants from transit. I’d like to think it’s less since I walk or cycle whenever I can do so.

Let’s factor in that gasoline sells for over a dollar a liter here in Ottawa, and automobile insurance (which is mandatory) is also a few hundred dollars a month. Cars, like any mechanical device have parts which wear out and break. They need maintenance and replacement parts. Eventually the entire vehicle may require replacement. Heck, they’re at least a few thousand dollars to obtain one in working condition, and most people I know have owned several in their lifetimes. How is this device saving me time? Most of my paycheck would go to operating and maintaining it! I can ride the bus for about a day’s pay per month. Now that’s saving me time, since at the absolute minimum I’d be losing over a week’s pay per month for the ‘convenience’ of a darned car.

I don’t need to go through several levels of testing to ride the bus, and the initial investment for a bus pass is about $10 for a photo ID. Drivers licenses take years, at least three tests, and several hundred dollars to obtain.

When I travel around on the bus, I glance out the window now and again to make sure I’ve not passed my stop. If I was driving a car, I’d have to be paying constant attention to not only my vehicle and it’s speed and heading, but all others around me including pedestrians. I’d have to watch the traffic lights, street signs, random debris on the roadway and various weather conditions which change quite often here in the capital.

I’ve actually dozed off on the bus. That’s death in a car! I can sit down, let someone else worry about these annoyances, listen to music on headphones, read a book, text message on my phone, daydream, whatever.

So, in reality I’m saving time, money, effort, stress and the environment all at once. Understandably if I lived in a less urban area it would be a different situation.

But I don’t – So why ruin my life for what would amount to merely caving to peer pressure spawned by industrial marketing?

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Umm, guys, the lake is filled with toxic petroleum ooze. What about whatever might have been living in and around the lake, like between the tracks and the lake? What is it going to be doing to the water supply in that area? I think $7.5M being offered as a take-it-or-leave it deal before the Alberta Environment commission has finished it’s analysis of the spill is one of those classic corporate sleaze moves like you see in the movies.

I hope this is not the direction Canada is going – destroying and selling off everything simultaneously. I’d hate to think what this country will look like down the road if that’s the case.

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1. Don’t leave the water running. Turn off the water when brushing your teeth or washing the car. Fresh water is one of our most precious natural resources.

2. Flick off the light when you leave the room. Power plants burn fuels to create energy for your light bulb. Burning fuel makes carbon dioxide that adds to global warming. The less energy you use the less they need to make, and you’ll save on your energy bill.

3. Print on both sides of the page at work. It’s easy to change your printer settings – you’ll use half the paper and save trees.

4. Wash your clothes in warm or cold water. It works just as well as hot in your washing machine and cuts back on energy use.

5. Ditch the paper cups. Bring in a glass to keep at work instead of using the paper ones by the water cooler.

6. Use the right settings on your appliances. Many appliances, like your dishwasher and refrigerator, come with energy-saving settings. Make sure they’re turned on.

7. Turn off your computer at the end of the day. A monitor left on overnight uses enough energy to print 5,300 copies.

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That’s right, I voted for what I believed in. I gave my buck-seventy-five without hesitation. They only got 5% in my riding, but that’s a start. I voted Green last election, and I’ll vote Green next election.

As it turns out, Conservative candidate John Baird won the Ottawa-Nepean West riding with 40%, followed fairly closely at 35% by Liberal candidate Lee Farnworth.

Oh, and feel free to borrow the image above… Just give me a link back for credit if you do. I think I’ll come up with some other nice badges of similar ilk.

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As a final note – it seems I was pretty much right with my predictions, with the exception of the Green Party getting a seat. I must admit I added that as optimism and did not want to jinx things out of paranoia.

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