News

I realized just the other morning that I am something of an anomaly in my hometown. I ride a bike to work, and recently I was outside my son's school saying goodbye to him (we walk to his school and I bike from there) when I noticed that I seemed to be the only parent not driving an SUV, minivan or pickup truck. Exhaust vapours hung all around in the cool morning air, but not generated by me. I see this almost every day, but that day I noticed for the first time that I seemed to be the only one who was different. I have to say that this is somewhat disheartening.

You would think with all the attention that climate change has had in recent years that people would be trying a little harder to reduce their ecological footprint, but it sure doesn't look like it. Statistics Canada recently reported that Canadians purchased a record number of larger vehicles last year, which seems strangely at odds with our supposed increased concern for the environment.

I, for one, took the One Tonne Challenge seriously, and by giving up our family's second car that used to get me to work, I save in the neighbourhood of two tonnes of greenhouse gases per year all by myself (hey, one was just too easy). I call this my "contract with the environment," and I am highly committed to it, but it wasn't easy in the beginning.

When I first started biking to my workplace, I found it slow, tiring, and strenuous. When I finally got there, I was always out of breath and sweating profusely, and so I had to spend even more time showering and changing. My new green commuting philosophy was unexpectedly difficult and costing me a lot more time than I had anticipated.

However, I also started to notice a side benefit. Notwithstanding all of the cars, I would still see a few other people on bikes or on foot, and eventually got to recognize some of the regulars who were there every day. Some of these people would wave or say "Good morning" as I passed, and I started to look forward to seeing them each day. Every so often I would stop to chat if I wasn't in a rush. And before long, I found that even though it took longer to get to work, I wasn't in a rush any more. My routine had adapted so that this extra commuting time was now just an ordinary part of my day.

I also noticed that I was getting to work much faster than at the start, and with less effort, because I was getting fit. Biking to work had led to a healthier lifestyle over all, so in the course of a year, I lost 20 pounds and muscled up considerably. Now it takes me only 10 minutes more than by car and I don't even raise a sweat unless I deliberately combine the commute with a workout by sprinting at intervals, or (believe it or not) taking a longer and more difficult route. When was the last time you did that in your car, on purpose?

Commuting on a bike is not without its costs, however. I have quite a bit of money invested in my mountain bikes (yes, I have two of them) as well as clothing for all seasons, helmets, shoes, gloves, and such. I've probably put about $3,000 or $4,000 into it, which immediately makes it sound like this is just a rich man's folly. However, if you look at what commuting in your car costs you, you will see that it won't take long to recover these costs and much more still.

The Canadian Automobile Association has estimated that the average cost of car ownership in Canada is around $9,000 per year. Getting rid of the car and heading to the bike shop with the money you save (in just the first year alone) will let you buy the most expensive bike in the store and be able to take it with you on a trip to Europe.

If you bank the savings realized by commuting on a bike (I estimate this at conservatively $6,000 or $7,000 per year, sort of like a near-$10,000 pre-tax bonus on your paycheque) you could easily redirect a cool quarter-million or so to your savings over your working lifetime.

Then there are the environmental costs. Bikes are mass-produced, and parts wear out and have to be replaced, so your bike will still create demand for energy, aluminum, steel, rubber and plastic just as a car would.

However, if you consider that my bike weighs 1/100th the weight of a mid-size car, it's pretty obvious that it demands a lot less of these resources. Lubricating oil, brake-pad wear, tire wear and junk disposal add pollutants to the environment, too, but again, less than do cars. So although bikes may not be entirely free of impact on the environment, maybe if we used them more we could get closer to the level of, oh, what was that word ... sustainability?

Besides, going to work on a bike is way cooler than just driving a car. How many cars let you jump over stuff on your way to work? How many cars let you say "Hi" to people going the other way? When was the last time you heard the birds sing or stopped to listen and watched the sun glinting off a rushing brook? This is my commute, every day, twice a day.

You can have it too, but it'll cost you -- you'll have to commit to getting rich, getting gorgeous, and saving the planet.

Todd Arsenault lives

in Fredericton, N.B.