And that's in "Real-time" not counting the  "Effective Speed" (total time minus your wages to pay for that transit mode) which would show a much larger winning gap.

BY Chloe Rosenberg and Sarah Armaghan
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Friday, May 22nd 2009, 12:39 PM

And they're off! Competitors take off for the Transportation Alternatives' annual commuter race.
When it comes to getting around the city, two wheels are still better than four.

For the fifth year in a row, cycling ruled the road in Transportation Alternatives' annual commuter race Thursday, with a biker beating a straphanger and a cabbie.

It took librarian Rachel Myers 20 minutes and 15 seconds to pedal 4.2 miles from Sunnyside, Queens, to Columbus Circle during the morning rush.

"Woo hoo!" the 29-year-old Brooklynite shouted, pumping her fist in the air. "Just goes to show that bikes rule this city!"

Subway rider Dan Hendrick - who hopped the No. 7 in Sunnyside and transferred to the No. 1 at Times Square - arrived 15 minutes later.

Hendrick, 38, usually rides the rails to work at the New York League of Conservation Voters, but he may be switching to pedal power.

"Twenty minutes saved is a lot in the morning," he said. "I could really use that time to get a latte or something."

A yellow cab rolled up to the finish line 27 minutes after Myers, costing passenger Willie Thompson $30 and precious commuting time.

"I always thought [cabs] were the fastest," said Thompson, 30, a nonprofit e-marketer from Flatbush, Brooklyn.

"But it was so slow, it was brutal. I'm exhausted from sitting so long!"

The bike, of course, is also the most environmentally friendly option with no carbon emissions, compared with 2pounds for the subway and 6pounds for the cab.

Wiley Norvell of Transportation Alternatives reminded commuters that with more than 600miles of bike paths in the city, cycling is more efficient than ever.

"I think there's no commodity more important to New Yorkers than their time," said Norvell. "And clearly, if you've got somewhere to be in a hurry, riding a bike is the way to go."

Product Service Systems: The Future of Mobility Services
Sarah Kuck - www.Worldchanging.com
May 13, 2009 8:15 AM

From Zipcar to CityCareShare, I-GO to Citywheels, carsharing companies have been offering urbanites access to share-cars for decades. Now, some people are riffing on these models, tweaking the collaborative services and using them to play by their own rules. Innovative individuals are harnessing the power of information technology to set up personalized, on-demand hubs, turning their own cars into share-cars, and more. Here are a few of our favorite examples:

Read more : www.worldchanging.com/archives/009760.html

Bike riding is often faster than driving in urban areas, especially if you look at the effective speed (the speed you travel minus the hours you must work to pay for that mode of travel).

Average actual urban car speeds are 15-21 mph in real-time (or only 5-11 mph effective speeds for an average wage worker), versus average bike speeds of 10-16 mph (and about the same in effective speed) since bikes are very  inexpensive to own and operate (about $300/yr vs. a car at nearly $10,000/year).

So effectively, bikes are as fast, or faster than, motorized vehicles with the added benefit of zero emissions, less parking garages needed, thousands of dollars saved and thousands of calories burned (Fitter, faster and nearly free!)

So the big question is: Why does bicycling account for only 0.4% of trips in the Baltimore area whereas it’s now 40% in Copenhagen and Amsterdam (cities with worse weather by the way)?
More to the point: Why aren’t you riding your bike to work?

Even if you can’t ride to work, theres a great chance you can ride DURING work! We now have a “Company Bike” to use for local appointments/errands in business cloths, no biking gear needed. The bike is an Amsterdam style (Torker) with 7 speeds, mud and chain guards and hub brakes for safe stopping. It's a great employee wellness tool.

Someday you may find, as we bike commuters have, that getting Fitter, Faster and Financially Free is just a handle bar and a big smile away!

We believe that Reducing car use by INCREASING walking, biking, carpooling, public transit, telecommuting, and flex scheduling are very smart choices.

Maryland is still using outdated concepts in its futile attempts to build its way out of congestion. Prime example is the $3.2 billion 18 mile Inter County Connector. There is little doubt it will encourage car use and sprawl. We’ve come to accept single occupancy vehicles as a given with few genuine efforts to change that behavior. Instead, we keep accommodating increasing numbers of vehicles rather then reducing the need to use them in the first place. That’s like doing multiple heart bypasses over and over again, instead of addressing the underlying reasons and preventative solutions to our collective heart disease. Walkers, bicyclists, telecommuters and mass transit riders are the ‘good cholesterol’ that prevent those clogged highway arteries, while motorized traffic is the fat and cholesterol that causes congestion, clots, and eventually gridlock (a heart attack).

Bike Maryland is confident we’ve found a solution, and like all nonprofits, our task and burden is in getting people to change their behaviors towards that solution. We believe most of us share the same values of less traffic congestion, safer roads, and therefore more livable communities.

Our task is to find ways for more people to drive less, or at least drive more safely, so that walking, biking, carpooling and public transit can flourish. We all win – Drivers and transit users get to their destinations faster and safer; walkers and bicyclists feel safer and enjoy their trips more. We all save gas, money, aggravation, the environment, and even our own health. Let’s look at Maryland’s current situation (from the 2000 US Census rounded off and updated to 2005) and Bike Maryland draft

• We’ll ‘grade’ the state, the public, and ourselves based on these goals.
• We still need to translate these percentages into number of car trips and lives saved, traffic delays avoided (time and money saved), pollution reduced as measurable outcome of our work…..Our State has tons of data but no real goals much less accountability in meeting them…YET! We recognize that single occupancy trips vary greatly by region (in urban areas it’s as low as 60% in rural areas 85%)and will make allowances for that.
• We believe that by increasing the percentages of trips by alternatives to motor vehicles (Many Less Cars Bike Maryland At A Time), we will experience benefits that include better health, cleaner air, less noise, less congestion, money saved and fewer road deaths and injuries.

Goal 1: Less Cars – 2% reduction in Maryland SOV trips by 2010
How - Increase the percentage of trips by other modes
Objective 1 - Increase car and van pooling by 2%
Objective 2 – Increase the percentage of bicycle trips by 1.3%
Objective 3 – Increase the percentage of those who walk/run to their destination by 1.2%
Objective 4 - Increase the percentage of transit trips by 2%
Objective 5 - Increase the percentage of telecommuters/Flex timers/Part-timers 2%

Goal 2: Safer Streets (in support of Goal #1, Less Cars)
What’s the number one complaint to police departments statewide? — Speeding cars
What’s the number one killer of kids and young adults (ages 3-33)? —Speeding cars
What’s being done about it? Not much –some cameras here, some bumps there, not much at all —Howeve PACE CAR has the potential to empower individuals and communities with rolling traffic calming.

Goals: Percentage (%) who currently

Footnotes

Percentage (%) of those who drove alone (including margin of error) SOV Trips