The Durable Human

Nuts and Bolts of Bike Share

Bike share programs are springing up all over the world.  For an idea of how they work, a system in the bustling, northern Italian city of Milan provides a good example.      

You know when it's a rent-a-bike

There’s no confusing a colorful bike share bike, which is clearly marked with municipality and conspicuous I.D. number (an effective theft-deterrent).  

Touch pad control

Bike stations are conveniently located  around the city.

Kiosks contain a screen and keypad where you enter a password created when booking online. Sliding your credit card, your bike space number appears on the screen.     

Automatically unlocked, the bike easily lifts off the rack.

Three gears do the trick

Bikes are tough and sturdy, yet easy to steer. The ride is remarkably comfortable, even over bumps. Having only three to choose from takes the guesswork out of shifting gears.         

 

No spandex required

No need for special cycling clothes. People in this fashion capital wear just about anything when they ride, including business suits and high heels. You can’t exert yourself too much or go too fast amid the traffic lights and other forms of transportation. Helmets don’t come with the rental and aren’t typically worn.  

Pedal-powered!

You’ll feel angelic powering the rear and front lights. The simple ting-ting bell also did the trick. 

Best of all – the cost is only a few euros for a two-hour period – and the first half hour is free!

I give the Milan system an A-, due to some very minor quibbles. The heavy bikes develop so much momentum they’re somewhat tough to brake. While having a bungee is helpful, the metal bike basket is slippery and heavy objects are hard to secure. My husband’s new SLR camera slipped out and broke at our first sight-seeing stop. We’ll stow our stuff in a bag next time. Booking the bike was somewhat cumbersome because the system did not allow multiple bookings at one time, nor did it retain information from prior bookings.  

But, all in all, bike share is a cheap and enjoyable alternative to taxis, a good bridge between different types of transport, and a great way to burn off the fantastic pasta and frequent gelato stops.     

How Green is My Classroom

At this point in the new century, many of us do things to save dwindling resources and make better use of others. But decisions can be tricky. Where do we set the thermostat and still be comfortable? Should we eat the organic imported orange or the conventional local apple? Do we print out the PDF or read it online? Technology helps, but can complicate matters. 

Large institutions have a harder time because they must meet disparate needs and demands. Take the example of American University, a school in Washington, D.C., which recently introduced a Green Teaching Certificate. Courses are “Green Certified” if teachers communicate online, use electronic books and readings, and let students use laptops in class, among other measures considered sustainable.      

But the system is causing hiccups for the age-old craft of writing. Writing instructors and their first-year students were surveyed for a Literature Department teaching seminar aptly named “Going Green in the Classroom: Balancing Ecological and Learning Environments.” 

It turns out that faculty members all do some things green, even if not officially certified. There is general agreement that posting assignments on the document-sharing platform, Blackboard, helps everyone stay organized. But working online apparently has its drawbacks.    

Not being able to get their hands on the material is a common complaint of students.  “You can’t take notes on readings online so it makes reading harder, ” was one of several similar student comments.  

Yet, 95 of the 130 students surveyed don’t print out the readings. Three out of four don’t even read them. “I absolutely hate reading things online,” acknowledged one student. “Having a hard copy of readings is much more beneficial to my learning experience.” 

Teachers also like good old pen and paper. One didn’t mince words: “Students who do not print out and mark up readings for e-reserves are completely useless in class.”

Not having anything to write on also takes its toll on the writing process.  As a teacher understated, “The revision process is much more productive, in my experience, when students have hard copy in front of them.”

When material is printed, faculty members don’t like the university’s suggestion to make single-spaced, two-sided copies because there’s no space for notes and revisions.

But printouts—or lack thereof—have a price. One student explained the predicament: “While green courses may intend to help the environment, it really puts more of the burden of cost on the student. I am currently in 3 “green” courses and have had to use ALL my printing bucks…and have gone through two ink cartridges in order to print out all the readings I am required to do.” 

To protect students, some teachers bear the burden, but shift the cost. “It’s either them or me, and for what they pay in tuition, I’ve decided it should be the university’s paper and Xerox machine.”

One teacher has a partial workaround: printing handouts for in-class use only. “I number them (making no more than ten—and requiring them to look on with a classmate) and collect them at the end of a class period.”

Laptops present another quandary. “There’s no way they’re not gonna check Facebook!” despaired a faculty member. Many students readily admit checking email and doing other “personal research” in class. The distraction factor is so high, one out of three teachers ban laptops. That’s fine, says a student, because some people don’t have one. “I think there should be some degree of understanding if the course is ‘green.’ ”

Beyond the ethical dilemmas is the irony that classrooms assigned to most AU College Writing Professors aren’t equipped with computers (but do have projectors). The Literature Department recently received its first scanner. But if the scanner is used so materials can be copied, then paper-using has only been perpetuated.

In the end, for faculty and students alike, decisions about eco-rules are personal and pragmatic. “As much as I would like to help the environment and not print out all the readings,” one student lamented, “the most effective way of learning is to read the paper copy and highlight and take notes rather than attempt to read on a computer screen.”  

A teacher questioned the very nature of going green. “Blackboard is a great resource, and I like the way it has allowed me to save paper, etc., but it does not appear to me intentionally or pointedly green.  All of this is peanuts compared to the real carbon footprint of driving to and from school.”

It would be instructive to know whether Lit is the only AU department, or AU the only school, which struggles with green policies. If you have some experience—please share your thoughts.

Take it from The Pack: think Local first

Let’s have a show of hands.  How many of you try to eat locally-grown food?   OK – that’s a pretty good number.  How many keep your money in local banks?   Hmmm – not too many.  Now – whose 401K is invested in local companies?    Anybody? …Anybody?   

You must be like the folks in northern Virginia who invited economist/lawyer/wonk/author Michael Shuman to come and speak.  Shuman asked them the same questions and they answered the same way – and they call their group “Sustainable Reston”!  

Well, it’s time to wake up and smell the money.

Shuman says dollars showered on local business grow the local economy. It’s like water runoff.  If rain falls on lawns and gardens, it soaks into the ground and is sucked up by thirsty plants. But the rain that falls on hard surfaces like sidewalks and streets, runs down the drain, is shunted away, and the plants don’t stand a chance.     

In his book, The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition, Shuman has solid reasons why local business almost always spurs superior economic development.  For one thing, hometown businesses don’t pack up and move away.  They can be counted on to be there for the long term. Second, locally-run businesses spend more of their dollars locally.  A study done in Austin shows that if two bookstores each make $100 in profit, the national chain store returns $13 to the local economy, while $40 is churned back into the economy by the local shop. Local businesses are typically small and lean, so they have a healthy influence on the community. Because their facilities are usually more compact than sprawling factories, they enhance smaller, walkable, more livable communities.

A case in point, says Shuman, is the nation’s only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team.  The Green Bay Packers is actually owned by a bunch of Wisconsin Cheeseheads.  According to Aaron Popkey, Packers Manager of Corporate Communications, 112,120 people have shares in the team. Over half of them live in Wisconsin. The arrangement has paid off richly for what was once the obscure, out-of-the-way town of Green Bay. Training Camp alone nets the local economy $30 million a year. Because so many people have a vested interest in keeping the team at home, “there is very little chance we would move,” Popkey understates. The shareholders have to vote to send the Pack packing. 

But how does the average town become more self-reliant?  The answer, says Shuman, is to come up with crafty ways to drum up business while maintaining positive cash flow.  In Bellingham, Washington, for instance, coupon books which give discounts at participating local merchants are wildly popular. Coupon holders save money and the merchants make more.  He says towns also need entrepreneurial business models, which include the ability to create local stock exchanges or community funds to buy and develop land, as hedges against Big Box pressure.   

How can the average consumer make a difference? “It’s easy,” says Shuman. “Think local first.”  When you go out to eat – at least consider the home town restaurants along with the national chains.  When you need to buy something, remember the mom-and-pop store before automatically running to Target.    

Who knows?  Besides saving money, you might even save the world. After all, Shuman says, the global financial crisis was “the result of a separation of money and place. Local self-reliance is a key piece of the world solving its own problems.”