Today’s happiness and personal money experts have no shortage of advice on how to live a good life. Meditate every day. Get 8 hours of sleep every night. Don’t forget to save for retirement. Their opinion is not wrong, but there are few experts who will tell you that one of the best ways to improve your life – to throw away the car.
A year ago, my wife and I sold our car and replaced it with an electric bike. As someone who writes about climate change, I knew I was doing something good for the planet. We knew that passenger cars account for much of our greenhouse gas emissions.16 percent To be precise, in the United States, the pollution emitted by gasoline-powered cars does more than just warm the planet. may increase the risk of premature death. We also knew that electric cars were an imperfect solution. Although electric cars cause less carbon pollution than gasoline-powered cars, even when powered by today’s dirty electricity grids, their supply chains are carbon-intensive, and the materials needed to make the batteries are Many are carbon intensive. In some cases, brutally exploit workers and do harm Ecosystems and sacred lands of indigenous peoples. E-bikes’ relatively small batteries mean less electricity, less emissions and less resources. It’s clearly better for the planet than any kind of car.
I knew all this. But I also saw getting rid of my car as a sacrifice, something for belligerent and reckless people, and something Greenpeace volunteers did to make the world a better place. Ta. I live in Colorado. Riding an electric bike will make you freeze in the winter and sweat in the summer. I thought it was the right thing to do, but it wasn’t fun.
I was so wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. A car-centric lifestyle means high car payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas costs. According to AAA, owning and operating a new car in the U.S. costs more than fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and more. $10,728 per year. By comparison, my e-bike costs $2,000 and the recurring fees are almost negligible. Factoring in maintenance and a few dollars a month in electricity costs, we estimate that you could save about $50,000 over the next five years by getting rid of your car.
My actual experience of riding my bike to work every day for the past year has been equally amazing. Before selling my car, my biggest concern was driving it in the cold winter months. However, as the saying goes, we quickly learned that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad equipment. I wear gloves, warm socks, a balaclava, and a ski jacket when I ride, but it’s rarely too cold.
Sarah Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary who studies low-carbon transportation systems. She’s also a native Californian, and now commutes by bike to a city where temperatures are near freezing from December to March. She told me that with the right equipment, you can do it on all but the snowiest days, days when you don’t want to be in the car. “Honestly, even the streets were chaotic back then,” she says.
And I like it, but many E-bikes have solved that problem for those looking to ride a bike, who were worried about arriving at the office sweaty in hot weather. Even when it was 90 degrees outside, I didn’t break a sweat thanks to the bike’s pedal assist mode. To be honest, there were times when I didn’t even pedal. I just used the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed the ride.
In fact, a big part of the attraction here is e Part of the bike: “Electric bikes aren’t just traditional bikes with a motor. They’re a completely new technology,” Hastings-Simon told me. Riding a bike is a fundamentally different experience than riding a regular bike, at least when it comes to the difficult parts of cycling. “It’s very easy to cross bridges and ride through hills on your bike,” Laura Fox, former general manager of the New York City bike share program, told me. “Countless people have come up to me and said, ‘I never thought I could ride my bike to work. Now I have the option of not having to come to work all sweaty. , it’s possible.” (When New York City introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled from 500,000 to 1.5 million, she said.)
But commuting by bike wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was downright fun. It made me feel happier and healthier. Having spent the morning in the fresh air instead of in traffic, I arrived at work a little more energized. study rear study People who spend long commutes by car are more likely to have poorer health and lower levels of personal well-being, showing that cyclists are most at risk. happiest commuter. One day, shortly after I sold my car, I hopped on my bike after a stressful day at work and rode home through the fall foliage. I felt more connected to the physical environment around me than when I was traveling the same route surrounded by metal and glass. I sucked in air, my muscles relaxed, and I laughed like a giddy schoolboy.
“E-bikes are like a miracle drug,” David Zipper, a visiting scholar and transportation expert at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. “They have many benefits, not only for the riders, but also for the people who live around them.”
Of course, electric bikes won’t replace every car on every trip. In a country where sprawling suburbs and shopping streets are the norm instead of protected bike lanes, it’s hard to hope that e-bikes will replace cars the way the Model T replaced horses. It’s unrealistic. But we don’t all need to ride an electric bike to work to make a big difference in our carbon pollution problem. recent research We found that if 5% of commuters switched their transportation to e-bikes, emissions would decrease by 4%. As an individual, you don’t even need to sell your car to significantly reduce your carbon footprint.Half of his 2021 U.S. trips were less than 3 miles, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics. By taking short trips on electric bikes instead of cars, people could save money, reduce carbon emissions and improve their health and wellbeing.
State and local governments say electric bikes are a no-brainer for both individuals and groups. Now we are subsidizing them.. In May, I asked Will Torre, executive director of the Colorado Department of Energy, to explain the state’s rationale. newly handed out incentives The plan is to offer residents $450 toward the purchase of an electric bicycle. He dutifully detailed the environmental benefits and potential cost savings for low-income people. Then he surprised me. The bill is also about “bringing more joy to the world,” he added.
