I started road cycling almost six years ago. I was a teleworker with flexible hours at the time, so it was easy to sneak out during the middle of the work day for an hour-long ride a few times a week.
At the beginning of 2013, I started a new job that required normal office hours. I live on the west side of Tucson, and the new gig was around fifteen miles away on the south side of town. Rather than give up those mid-week rides, I decided to try riding the bike to work a few times a week.
I’m fortunate to live in Tucson and Pima County for a number of reasons: the mild winters and the progressive political landscape among them (yes, Raúl Grijalva is my congress critter). Both of those reasons helped me start and maintain a year-round, bike-commuting schedule for almost five years now.
The local governments do a pretty good job of investing in cycle-friendly infrastructure. Where possible, they attempt to create bicycle lanes on roads where they don’t exist when the road is improved or maintained.
The regional governments have also created a system of mixed-use paths around the area. The most prominent is The Loop, an excellent network that mostly parallels the region’s rivers (more accurately, the region’s usually bone-dry riverbeds). Residents can and do walk, jog, and cycle the paths, or socialize on the path-side facilities. The network is also a boon to commuters: The Loop allows me to cycle to and from work completely segregated from motor vehicle traffic for 11 of the commute’s 16 miles.
To encourage commuters to consider bicycling, along with other alternative modes of commuting such as walking, public transport, and ridesharing, the Pima Association of Governments created the Sun Rideshare program. The program allows users to match with nearby commuters interested in ridesharing or cycling together.
Program users can also enter commute data, such as the number of times they’ve commuted, the distance, and the mode (such as bike, bus, etc.) and the system calculates the distance, calories expended, reduction in carbon dioxide emission, and dollars saved. For instance, since I joined the program in 2014 (about a year and a half after I started commuting by bike), I’ve saved 10,433.1 miles of personal motor vehicle travel, 4.10 tons of carbon dioxide emission, and $5842.52 in cost. And burned 323,425 calories.
I and several other bike commuters at work invited the association to come speak to the company in 2014 about the program, to help answer questions such as how to get started, and I’m happy to say we convinced several colleagues to give it a go. We now have a fairly stable core of five or six regular bike commuters and a few more occasional riders.
In addition to the environmental benefits and cost savings, I get a guaranteed four hours of cardio a week (not counting the weekend fun ride through the deserts around Tucson). My GP is always thrilled with the numbers on the tests for my annual physical.
On a personal note, I haven’t regretted a moment of it. Yes, winter mornings can be dark and cold (I’ve gotten to the office on more than one January morning with the water in my bottle turned to icy slush), the summer heat brutal, the late summer monsoons punishing, and fellow commuters (both motorists and fellow cyclists) sometimes cranky. The rush I feel after that hour though, when pulling up to the office in the morning or the driveway at home in the afternoon, makes it worthwhile. I realize my particular situation provides me this opportunity, and it will not be a workable solution for everyone.
Finally: yes, after nine years of membership at Daily Kos, I have finally screwed up the courage to publish a diary. Apologies for any newbie mistakes.
Saturday, Nov 4, 2017 · 11:17:58 PM +00:00
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Doonhamer
I thought I’d update this to address a point that came up in the comments: the actual purpose of the diary, which, upon re-reading, I see that don’t actually state explicitly.
Well, when I started the bike commute, I was unaware of resources such as those provided by the Pima Association of Governments that help workers transition to alternative forms of commuting. So if there are readers who are tired of the drive to and from work by POV and might want to try something more healthy and environmentally conscious, such as public transportation, or ridesharing, or biking, I encourage you to check whether local government or other organizations might provide help and encouragement to do so.
I’d also like to say thank you for the Community Spotlight exposure; unexpected but very welcome.