Eugene weekly., June 01, 2017, Page 6, Image 6

VIEWPOINT
BY JOHN HERBERG
More than a ride in the park
HUMAN-POWERED TRANSPORTATION HAS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN SUSTAINABLE LIVING
M
any of us recognize the value of bi-
cycling. It’s fun (especially under the
sun), it’s good for the health of the
cyclist and it’s good for the health of
the planet that we’re all a part of.
We appreciate the organizations that promote cy-
cling and all the awesome bike shops that sell and
maintain the bikes we ride. Some of us are even aware
of local businesses that design and build cycles, such
as Co-Motion, Bike Friday and Human Powered Ma-
chines. But when thinking of cycling, how many of us
think of it as something beyond a way to get from point
A to point B?
Those of us who are concerned about the health of
people and the planet need to start thinking outside of
the box, and bikes play a key role. Focusing on other
means of transportation is important, but our depen-
dency on fossil-fuel-based transportation goes much
deeper than that.
Almost every material product (as well as many living
items such as plants) has reached you via the consump-
tion of fossil fuels. For example, the average American
meal travels 1,500 miles to go from farm to plate.
Traveling 1,500 miles by cycle to deliver food is
not something being proposed here. Buying local is a
first step. But part of buying local is thinking about how
that local product was delivered to the store and to your
door.
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June 1, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
In the battle to fight climate change and all the other
damages caused by our dependency on fossil fuels,
bikes need to and can play a bigger role. This applies to
the personal and business communities.
Much is happening right here and now in Eugene,
and so much more could happen.
Just last year, one local business delivered more than
300,000 pounds of organic food products to local stores
and restaurants via cycles. Another business likely
delivered the very paper you’re reading. Yes, Eugene
Weekly has a good portion of its papers delivered by
bike. And if you’re living in Eugene, you can get food
delivered to your door, by bike.
The honor of cycling 300,000 pounds in 2016 goes
to Hummingbird Wholesale. That’s 150 tons of organic
food that most of us have eaten one way or another.
They did it via two trikes (built locally by Human Pow-
ered Machines) and trailers.
Food to your door is a service provided by the Cas-
cadian Courier Collective. They have been delivering
for Eugene’s best restaurants since 2013. Every deliv-
ery they do is by bike.
Pedalers Express (PedEx) — the business I work for
— performs a lot of delivery services, including hop-
ping on a bike at 6 o’clock every Thursday morning,
rain or shine, to deliver EW.
Pedalers Express mostly delivers documents, but
via our tri-hauler and trailer, we can deliver up to 1,200
pounds in one ride. In fact, on one fateful snowy day,
we delivered 6,500 pounds of flour, honey and other
GloryBee products. We average six tons a week of Glo-
ryBee deliveries to a variety of local businesses includ-
ing The Kiva, Morning Glory and Marché Provisions.
Buying local is an added bonus to the bike delivery
service. Most businesses that use it value purchasing
their products locally. Every business listed here has a
focus on local, organic products.
By the way, all the cycles used by PedEx were de-
signed and built locally by Human Powered Machines.
Bikes are much better than automobiles for the
health of our planet. There are many reasons for this,
but an obvious one is air pollution — and, more specifi-
cally, climate change.
Based on PedEx miles and the EPA’s average CO2
emissions per gallon of fuel, our services decreased
CO2 emissions by six tons for the year 2016. That does
not include the decrease of many other harmful pollut-
ants emitted from fossil-fuel-dependent vehicles, such
as methane, nitrous oxide and hydro-fluorocarbons.
It also does not include the amount of time, money
and blood spent for oil.
If our society is going to take the steps to foster liv-
ing on a healthy planet, cycles could and should play a
bigger role. Not just for individuals, but for businesses,
for communities and for the planet we live on.
John Herberg is general manager of Pedalers Express.