New York Times profiles cycling advocate Earl Blumenauer

January 13th, 2009 by Ron Callahan View Comments

The New York Times has a chat with Earl Blumenauer, Bicycle Evangelist and the head of the Congressional Cycling Caucus.

Blumenauer is a passionate advocate of cycling as a remedy for everything from climate change to obesity, and represents most of cycling friendly Portland in Congress.

Long regarded in some quarters as quixotic, the caucus has come into its own as hard times, climate concerns, gyrating gas prices and worries about fitness turn people away from their cars and toward their bikes.

“We have been flogging this bicycle thing for 20 years,” said Mr. Blumenauer, a Democrat. “All of a sudden it’s hot.”

He not just about bikes, however:

“..Mr. Blumenauer’s goals are larger than putting Americans on two wheels. He seeks to create what he calls a more sustainable society, including wiser use of energy, farming that improves the land rather than degrades it, an end to taxpayer subsidies for unwise development — and a transportation infrastructure that looks beyond the car.

For him, the global financial collapse is “perhaps the best opportunity we will ever see” to build environmental sustainability into the nation’s infrastructure, with urban streetcar systems, bike and pedestrian paths, more efficient energy transmission and conversion of the federal government’s 600,000-vehicle fleet to use alternate fuels.

“These are things that three years ago were unimaginable,” he said. “And if they were imaginable, we could not afford them. Well, now when all the experts agree that we will be lucky if we stabilize the economy in a couple of years, when there is great concern about the consequences of the collapse of the domestic auto producers, gee, these are things that are actually reasonable and affordable.” “

Read the full article here.

Tags: cycling, gas prices, obesity, Portland, The New York Times, The New York Times Co