The North Texas Clean Air Coalition has a Commuter Challenge for "Ozone Season 2009". When you register, you are asked to identify your primary transportation mode (difficult for a truly multi-modal guy like me, who uses up to six modes in one day). Below are your mode choices:
Usual Mode of Commute Transportation:Bicycles and inline skates (which they wrongly list using the trade name Roller Blades) are lumped together as one mode. Now, I have long proposed some sort of legal recognition of the use of inline skates and other personal mobility devices in selected public right of ways. It's a tricky issue, and a source of disagreement with some I respect highly, but the growing use in the streets of everything from electric wheelchairs to Segways makes some recognition (and control) preferable to the current state of affairs. But my position IS NOT AND NEVER HAS BEEN to reduce the legal status of bicycles one bit (something bicycle advocates seem all too willing to accept).
Info?
Bicycles are legally classified as vehicles, with all the rights and responsibilities of other vehicles (except where they are being chipped away by so-called bike advocates). In-line skates are classified as "toy vehicles" (a classification that so-called bike advocates are rapidly pushing bicycles into).
I encourage you to sign up for the Commuter Challenge, and to use the comments box to correct their classification.
3 comments:
Why does it matter what they think? Just ride, baby.
I've been using their website to log my commutes since May 2008 and have never yet noticed a comments box (and I really LOOKED tonight). I'll have you know that I've either cycled or roller bladed 4428 commute miles.
The site's got many other problems besides the one you cite - to name a few, they give you fictional extra mileage if you do things like go to work after 10AM, brown bag or eat in the cafeteria, or stay home (none of which accrue any benefit if you're on your bike). They have recently changed the boxes so you don't get credit if you call in sick or take vacation.
I use it for three reasons - Bell Helicopter gets kudos (even though they only list a plant I don't work at), there are no ads, and it's exportable to Excel which IS handy.
Which raises the question - when roller blading up Westport from Alliance Airport, what lane position would work well and will drivers still cross the double yellow line to pass? The principles remain valid, even if a skater assumes a pedestrian approach easier and can't take as straight a line...
I will add my voice to the criticism (and gleefully out myself as one of those who does not believe inline skates are legitimate vehicles).
Not only have I taken exception to the combination of "Bicycle/Roller Blade", but their alternative transport log is too limited in its scope. One must enter a set number of miles, which apply to an entire week. There are some days when I make side trips, attend meetings in the evening, stop off at a favorite watering hole, etc. What about utility trips to the grocery, hardware or other stores? As it stands now, I either have to completely discount this mileage or wait until the end of the week, add up the total mileage, divide it by five and enter it as an average.
As with the latter limitation, the invariable "departure" and "arrival home" designations do not allow for daily fluctuations. The numbers apply only to the whole week.
PM makes a good point about mixed modes, as well. Some days I ride a train for a portion of my commute. There s no way to indicate this mode.
One kudo: I do like the brown bag lunch category. :-)
A final criticism: Being limited to a two week logging window is idiotic. I only discovered this resource, by chance, in early March. Thus only a very small fraction of my contribution has been logged - even though I have several years of data.
I think the idea is laudable and has a lot of potential, but, in its present incarnation, it is far too limited in terms of accuracy and scope of vision.
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