[Leanan]

Shopping every day is the norm in many countries, and was in our country until a few decades ago. Often from stores in walking distance.

However, you can schlepp home a lot of groceries in a bike trailer. If you have a large family, maybe not enough for a week, but then, if you have a large family, you can get them to bike with you, with their own trailers.

[tmazanec1]

Well, it is going to be tough going back to "walking distance" stores (even I am not, although I picked my location with PO in mind) I am close to it for work, though. I would hate walking home at night (I work second shift...and live alone. btw). I could do it, with my fitness improving a bit...still, there are those winter blizzards.

[Leanan]

I am walking distance from stores, too, though lugging back groceries is kind of a pain. That's why wanted a bike.

But yeah, personal safety is an issue. The guy who went car-free lived in Chicago. When the weather was bad, he rode a fold-up bike to the subway station. There's no decent public transportation where I live, unfortunately.

[earthman]

It is not possible to use a bike all the time, but the more we do, and the less we drive, the better. I like solving problems and having an attitude of "I can do this," rather than "I can't do this."

It is easy to think of reasons why you cannot ride a bike (or walk) instead of driving. Driving is easy and we have become lazy. Biking and hiking is actually more fun, though and most people have forgotten that as they rush around accumulating, or working to make money to accumulate more.

I remember as a kid the shear joy of riding a bike. I used to like to ride at night when there was little traffic on the road and the air was cool. Great sense of freedom and independence.

Distance: riding a bike some distance does require some physical conditioning. You gradually build up to it. Look at the obesity problem in the US. Many people are over weight and trying all sorts of things to lose
weight. It's a huge industry. Bike riding can help a person lose weight and get in shape. Take Lance Armstrong for inspiration...here is a guy who is supposed to be dead with metastasized brain cancer and he comes back to win...how many Tour de France races? And how many miles do they travel in 3 weeks, regardless of weather?

Shopping: with a bike trailer you could carry a weeks worth of groceries, or two small children (I think a total weight of 75-100 pounds).

We may develop bikes capable of hauling larger and heavier material...like with multiple riders.

With hills: get a bike with low gears and you can climb most hills, it just takes a little more time. Usually hills mean you get to go up AND down.

Don't know how to ride a bike? Learn. It seems easy to someone who knows, but to a first-timer, it can be challenging. A three-wheeler would be easy to start with. A trailer also stabilizes a two-wheeler.

Weather conditions and night time: here there are some significant challenges but (think solution, not "I can't.") these can be overcome with the building of sheltered or protected pathways. This would be an investment in infrastructure that encouraged year-round bicycle transportation. If the government wants to continue at all, they should think about doing this sort of construction, and consider that it will provide jobs.

Danger of riding bikes: the biggest problem is cars and vehicles that don't notice you and may hit you. It is a real problem. We can work on solutions for this as well. Riders must ride defensively and be aware of drivers...think preventative. Use bike paths and routes with the least amount of traffic. Build more safe routes. As more and more people ride bikes, drivers will be more aware of them. Risk some danger to yourself for the sake of a better world. As if riding in a car was safe anyway? Hopefully there will be so many bikes on the road that drivers will have a hard time negotiating the roads and figure they might as well ride bike! If enough drivers get sued maybe they'll start to watch out for bikes. As gas prices increase perhaps more people will be motivated to at least try a bike. And find out that they like it.

George

[nocar]

Earthman said:
"As more and more people ride bikes, drivers will be more aware of them. "

The accident statistics of countries with lots of bicycle traffic, like Netherlands and Denmark show that this statement is true.

Nocar

[Crusty_Ass]

Earthman said:
"As more and more people ride bikes, drivers will be more aware of them. "

The accident statistics of countries with lots of bicycle traffic, like Netherlands and Denmark show that this statement is true.

Speaking from the Netherlands, I can vouch for this. We have a population of 16.4 Million people. We have had 900 deaths in traffic last year. Figure out the maths for yourself. You should also realize that this country is basically one big spread-out city, very densely populated.

The US 2003 figure is 42,643. If we took the Dutch figure and multiplied that to account for the bigger population, we get about 16.200 deaths. So the US figure is almost three times as high as the Dutch figure.

[Roop]

I live in an area of Louisville, Kentucky called the Highlands where everything (stores, restaurants, bars, coffee shop, farmer's market) except my job is within walking distance. Actually as of today I am in a car pooling group with two other guys from my office who live in my neighborhood so I'll be cutting my gas consumption in at least half as I pretty much only drive my car to and from work. We're going to each switch off on driving on an alternating weekly schedule. Anyway I'm back on a bicycle for the first time in almost 10 years, I had mountain bikes when I was a kid but now have a Trek 1000 road bike. Despite the fact that this is a walkable community it is certainly not very well set up for bicycle riding. Bardstown Rd., the main road that most things in my area are on, is 4 lanes wide (2 each direction) with no shoulder and the cars fly down it, you'd need to have a serious deathwish to ride down it on a bicycle. As it is now I've pretty much been going on short (5 mile) rides to and from Cherokee Park. However, I'm planning on getting a Kryptonite lock so that I can begin actually riding my bicycle to places like the store and coffee shop. I need to get some of those padded shorts too.

[ubercynicmeister]

But it seems no-one is interested.

Oddly, the Indian govt has reached the same conclusions as myself:

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/3120.asp

If you want to know what steam can do for your Post Peak oil world, have a look at:

http://www.pritchardpower.com/

Why steam? Becasuse ANYONE with basic knowledge can repair it, and it can be run on literally any fuel.

I have calculated that the steam locomotive has a 350% advantage over the present diesels in terms of fuel costs, and (because it can be repaired in ANY repair shop that is equipped for present diesels) WITH A LOT LESS STAFF TRAINING THAN THE SD90MACS now require.

OH, well, I expect to be ignored.

[jato]

I have calculated that the steam locomotive has a 350% advantage over the present diesels in terms of fuel costs, and (because it can be repaired in ANY repair shop that is equipped for present diesels) WITH A LOT LESS STAFF TRAINING THAN THE SD90MACS now require.

OH, well, I expect to be ignored.

I thought diesel electric locomotives were more efficient and required less maintenance than steam engines!?!

[Claudia]

I don't even know how to ride a bike, and I am 47. I will probably be walking to work and hopefully allowed to keep a shopping cart of my own before I get on a bike. How long does it take to learn to ride them? How do I bike home a week's supply of groceries? Or do I have to shop every day?

I don't know how your health is, but I used to do urban backpacking for all my grocery shopping -- just used a real hiking backpack (with chest and hip straps, built to carry lots of weight easily), hiked 30 minutes to the grocery store, packed the groceries in the backpack, and hiked back. I'd go once a week or so.

I know this is obvious, but sometimes it's easy to forget that there's equipment specifically designed to help people carry enormous amount of weight comfortably while walking -- we just categorize it as recreational hiking equipmwent, not something that actually can fulfill a daily function.

Biking groceries (with a smaller backpack) worked well year-round when I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area but was less practical in snowy Boston.

[nocar]

Another "too obvious" way of walking home groceries is to use a suitcase on wheels. Or a hand-drawn cart. And to give some thought to item weight - dry milk, dried fruit are much lighter than the fresh varieties, and just as good for cooking.

Home-grown fruits and veggies are even better of course!

Wine rather than beer.

There are machines for making home-made soda drinks.


nocar

[Claudia]

Another "too obvious" way of walking home groceries is to use a suitcase on wheels. Or a hand-drawn cart.

Very true. There were two main reasons I found backpacking easier in my circumstances and neighborhood:

1. Icy (or absent) sidewalks, steep hills, can make it harder to push a cart.
2. It was easy to walk the groceries up to my no-elevator third-floor apartment with a backpack.

My grandmother lived alone in her house until age 93, never owned a car -- she used a bicycle with saddlebags for all her shopping, plus a walker at the end. It was quite a sight to see her hauling her groceries around, especially pushing the walker full of groceries up the steep driveway to her house.

There's some luck and genes involved in staying this healthy, though, even as much as her lifestyle contributed to her good health. Sending my dad out on excursions like this would be a recipe for a massive heart attack.

[ubercynicmeister]

Ahhh, TRADITIONAL steam was less than 5% efficient...BUT it could burn anything.

With a bit of physics, MODERN steam can get to about 17% without too much trouble, and with development, there are indications it could get to 30% (but that's an educated guess, and i'll say no more until it's PROVEN).

A modern diesel gets slightly less than 30% measured at the rail-head (diesel salesmen measure the efficiency at the output shaft of the motor, thus not counting transmission losses, parasitici loads, etc)

I have all this laid out on a spreadsheet, but i don't know how to attach such to these posts (can anyone help, there?)