Everywhere I’ve lived - smack-dab between DC and Baltimore; just north of Frankfurt, Germany; and now Denver - people complain about traffic. And for good reason! I-95 and 295 traffic north of DC is out of control! German autobahns are famous for their "staus". Almost every afternoon Google Maps notifies my phone that my area has ‘higher than normal traffic with delays up to 25 minutes’ here in Denver. Traffic sucks the fun out of life! Sitting in this traffic comes at tremendous personal cost:
“But, Jeff, I see you driving up to the mountains all the time! You get stressed out in traffic, and I bet you’ve even cut someone off before!!! What gives?” All the above are fair and true about me and my habits. That said, I’ve recently been reading about the HUGE variable costs of driving ← those that come even after you’ve paid for your car in full, and am making a conscience effort to use my car less. What happens if I used my car only when I need it?
“But biking is dangerous and I don’t have a good route to bike to work!” I hear you, I was under the same illusion until I did some research. Statistically biking is not as dangerous as we think. When you combine those statistics with the health benefits of propelling yourself through your environment with your legs instead of sitting in a glorified recliner, the safety argument falls away. Additionally tools, such as Strava’s Route Builder - which uses Strava's EXCELLENT global heatmap to help you find popular routes - ie. safer, smoother roads or bike paths - to your destination. After running this personal experiment for the last month I’ve found:
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December 2018
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