Here's a quick bike vs. car factoid I saw taped to the counter of a sporting goods store last week:

100 calories will propel a bicyclist about 3 miles. It will move a car about 300 feet.

Source: Worldwatch Institute

By the way, a large orange contains roughly 100 calories.

It turns out that there are more Amtrak options available to get to Sacramento than the one I previously described. You just need to know how to play the system, and purchase a ticket from Chico to. . .Davis. Considering that in my previous post, I forgot to take into account the $72 fee for parking my car in the "Economy Lot" for a week at Sacramento Airport, I may just try this next time. Thanks to Greg F. for the tip. Read on. . .

The new bike map published at the beginning of the summer by the Butte County Association of Governments is slick. Laminated plastic slick. Colorful slick. Impressive slick.

The front features a street map of Chico, the reverse shows bike routes for both upper and lower Bidwell Park. Both sides are jam-packed with legends, safety tips, suggested scenic loops (including the ones depicted above, and even the locations of eight different bike shops.

The maps are currently available at each local bicycle shop, the university, and the BCAG office.

The most eye-opening item of note is the fact that the number of solid red lines appears to be equal to if not greater than double the number of blue lines. What does this mean? The red lines are designated bike routes--not lanes (blue), and not paths (green). This means that on these streets bicyclists don't even get a white line to separate them from the 4-wheeled entities.

But it looks slick on the map.

Many have called the United States the greatest country in the world, but our inter-city public transportation system is, well, a joke.

Nothing better illustrates this than the challenge of getting from Chico to the Sacramento Airport via bus or train. The Amtrak schedule provides a single travel option: Show up at the Chico train station at 3:50 in the morning, and then 2 hours, 25 minutes later you arrive at the Sacramento station, where you then hoof it two blocks to the bus station at 4th and L streets to catch the 7:08 a.m. bus to the airport, where you arrive 14 minutes later. At least the train ticket it cheap at $25 (the bus is another $1.50). Total travel time to the airport: 3 hours, 32 minutes.

Another other option is taking North Valley Shuttle, a van service which departs Chico for the Sacramento airport four times daily and takes 2 hours, 15 minutes. It costs $52 one way.

Finally there is Greyhound. It costs $33 to take Greyhound from Chico to Sacramento, departing at 11:25 a.m. or 7:10 p.m. It takes 2 hours, 15 minutes to get to 7th and L streets in downtown Sacramento, where you would again have to walk down to 4th Street to catch the shuttle bus to the airport.

For some perspective, I think back to when I had the opportunity to live in Switzerland for a couple of months in the small village of Lenk (population 2,300). This sleepy ski and dairy town lies at the foot of the Bernese Alps. It is on the rail-route to nowhere. In fact, the tracks end there; Lenk means "turnaround place."

It takes 3 hours, 8 minutes to travel by train from Lenk directly to the Zurich Airport, including two transfers. It is 131 miles from Lenk to the Zurich Airport, as compared to 85 miles from Chico to Sacramento International. Though the price of a one-way rail ticket is higher at about $70 US, this is still $10 cheaper per mile to Zurich than the North Valley Shuttle is to Sacramento. But the key difference between Swiss travel and American options is that the trains leave diminutive Lenk hourly starting at 6:30 a.m., with the last train leaving at 8:30 p.m., giving one maximum freedom and flexibility in arranging their travel itinerary.

In additional to being more fuel-efficient--Amtrak reports 39 passenger miles per person--travel by rail is much more relaxing (provided you don't have to be at the train station before 4 a.m.), and offers ample opportunity to read, write a letter, play cards etc.

On that note, I am off to Sacramento Airport to spend time with my wife's family in Arizona for a few days. My wife left a couple days before me; she took the 5:30 a.m. shuttle and had three hours to kill before her flight.

I will be driving myself: Cost of gas one way = $12.60, Driving time = 1 hour, 40 minutes.

I will not be reading, writing letters, or playing cards en route.

We purchased our first bike trailer last week, a sparsely-used 10-year-old Burley in near perfect condition. It has a payload capacity of 100 lbs, which further reduces our need to drive a car. We paid $250 for it, just over half of what it costs new. With the help of commutesolutions.org, I calculated that if we use it in place of the Subaru Impreza for 379 miles then it will pay for itself, when personal, environmental, and social costs are all taken into account. Here is the math:

Direct Costs
Fuel (based on $4.55/gal, 25 mpg): 18.2¢/mile
Maintenance and Tires: 5.3¢/mile

Indirect Costs
Accidents (government-paid cleanup, lost economic activity, etc.): 4.6¢/mile
State and Local Construction, Improvements and Repair: 1.1¢/mile
State and Local Highway Maintenance and Operations: 0.6¢/mile
Parking (commercial and employer-paid, including government tax): 6.4¢/mile
Waste Disposal (highway cleanup, tire and oil removal): 0.3¢/mile
Air Pollution Damage (health costs, crops, trees, materials, etc.): 5.3¢/mile
External Resource Consumption Costs (economic trade and natural resource use): 3.2¢/mile
Road Noise (property value decrease and abatement): 1.1¢/mile
CO2 Reduction (motor vehicles only): 0.5¢/mile
Water Pollution and Hydrologic Impacts: 1.7¢/mile
Transportation Diversity and Equity: 0.7¢/mile
Barrier Effects on Pedestrians and Bicycles: 1.2¢/mile
Land Use Impact Costs: 7.4¢/mile
Roadway Land Value: 3.2¢/mile
Congestion Costs: 5.4¢/mile

Total Cost Per Mile: $0.66

Purchase price of bike trailer
divided by
Cost of operating a vehicle per mile
equals
Number of miles required to use my bike trailer in place of my car to offset purchase price

$250/$0.66 per mile = 378.8 miles

That's just under 8 miles a week for a year. I think we can handle it.

By now I am sure that many Chicoans have seen the electric utility vehicles that roam around the CSU Chico campus. But more intriguing are the two GEM cars that I see occasionally around town, especially the 4-door white one with the black fabric doors.

I go back and forth between the value of a $15,000 golf cart versus a fully loaded bike with trailer. You can do a lot with a bike. Two bikes, including trailers and attachments, can take a family of four pretty much anywhere in town. A Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market will reveal dedicated individuals pushing the envelope of what a bike can handle, both in terms of kids and groceries.

But the 4-door GEM e4, made by Global Electric Motorcars (a subsidiary of Chrysler) does have its niches. When compared to a bike with trailer, it is faster, safer, and has definite advantages in inclement weather, especially when young children are taken into account.

Once more with the gasoline math.

This time its not hypothetical, its personal.

I took a sub job at Pleasant Valley High School yesterday, which, according to Google Maps, is 3.4 miles from my house, a 10 minute drive mostly on Cohasset and East Avenue at less than 35 mph.

Round-trip is 6.8 miles.

At 24 mpg, I would burn 0.28 gallons of gas getting there and back.

At $3.80/gallon, it would cost me $1.07 to travel just under 7 miles.

Did I mention that it is a pleasant 20 minute bike ride along Lindo Channel to get from my house to PV?

I saw the second most awesome mailbox yesterday (the most awesome one is pictured above).

It is not what the box looks like, but rather, its location--on the west side of the bike path between East and Lassen.

Hanging out by this mailbox will probably lead you to the most awesome mailman (or mailwoman) in Chico.

The public is invited to review and comment on the newest iteration of the Chico Area Bicycle Map that is currently being developed by the Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG). The map is in DRAFT form.

For me, the map brings up two key points about the bicycling landscape in Chico. One, Chico has tremendous potential to become a truly bike-oriented community. And two, we have a long way to go. For example, we have a great bike path that runs west from Bruce Road along Little Chico Creek, ending just as you cross under Highway 99. And then? The logical next step would be to designate Humboldt Avenue as a bike route into downtown, but for some reason this element is not a part of the City of Chico Bike Plan.

The map itself is looking pretty good. It will be a generously sized (22" x 28"), double-sided affair with a lot of information. Perhaps too much, as the various bike and bus routes are painted yellow, red, blue, and green on the map, which is a bit more than my 1980's-brainwashed mind can handle. But that's just me.

The map can be viewed online at the Butte County Association of Governments (BCAG) website and hard copies are posted at the following locations and can been seen during regular business hours:
• CSU, Chico, 400 West First Street located in Kendall Hall 107
• Cycle Sport located at 222 West 2nd Street in Chico
• Pullins Cyclery located at 801 Main St in Chico
• BCAG offices at 2580 Sierra Sunrise Terrace, Suite 100 in Chico

Comments and suggestions will be accepted through February 8. The development of the map is scheduled to be completed by May 24, 2008.

It is all-too-easy to get the SUV blues as I bike around town, dodging one gas guzzler after another, each with a single occupant who always seems to be chatting it up on his or her cell phone.

But just when I think we are doomed, I turn on to Broadway and I am encouraged by the bikes in the bike racks. These aren't just any bikes, mind you, these are bikes with baskets. Or trailers. Or saddlebags.

In fact, I often think that bicycles in Chico that lack some sort of basket are in the minority.

Awesome.

Looking for a bike basket or trailer? Can't find one on Craiglist in Chico? Not surprising, as they are in such high demand here. But here is a simple tip: Try the Bay Area. The next time you or a friend make the trip down, search Craigslist ahead of time. I plan on bring back ten or twenty and selling them up here and making a killing.

On a related note, I read in an article the other day that a bike is 53 times more fuel efficient than a car when comparing food calories to gasoline calories. Intrigued, I did some online research to see how accurate this was.

What I found was that a lot of people have spent a lot of time playing eco-math:

http://gotoes.org/bikestuff/index.htm
http://kenkifer.com/bikepages/advocacy/bike_co2.htm
http://constructal.blogspot.com/2006/03/whats-mileage-on-that-bicycle.html
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/question527.htm

But let me summarize: When you take into account the amount of energy that goes into making and maintaining a car vs. a bike, as well as the amount of energy required to manufacture and transport respective fuels for a car and a bike (gasoline vs. a breakfast burrito), and then take the average weight and biking speed of an American cyclist, and factor in the fact that a Prius is five times more fuel efficient than an H2, you will find that. . .

. . .a bike is indeed much more fuel efficient than a car.

Finally, my thoughts go out to Ed McLaughin and his family. As recent transplant to Chico, I have yet to meet him, though from what I have read our community owes a lot to his efforts.