If I'm going to be riding to and from work in the rain

I'm going to have to get some rain gear. Because biking for 45 mins in the rain in rolled up jeans is not practical!

Although I have to admit there is something about riding in the rain and getting soaked that made me feel like big kid. I'm pretty sure I was smiling the whole way home. :-)

And that's basically all I have to say about that so Mum and Mom in law, you can stop reading now.

Ok, now that they have stopped reading, I have got to get my brakes fixed. The back brake didn't work at all and the front brake was only just with a lot of squeaking and juddering. What's the deal with that? Brakes should work in the rain yes?

Ok, so moms, you probably did read that. So...um....just kidding! I totally would never ride my bike if the brakes didn't work!! Who would do that? Not me that's for sure!


(seriously though peeps - what could the problem be - cable? pads?)

:-)

My new favourite method of transportation

This is my bike. I love this bike. I love it because it has a basket in the back I can put my purse in. I love it because nothing is quick release so I don't have to worry about wheels, the seat etc being stolen. I love it because my best buddy (@resultsjunkie) bought it for me for my birthday from a second hand bike shop.

And now I love it because for the last 2 weeks, this baby has been getting me to work and back. No more 1hr, 2 bus commute. Now I have a 45 min ride. 10km each way (yes, I'm slow but it only has 6 gears and my legs are laz-y!). Half of it along Ottawa's fabulous bike paths. So instead of listening to teenagers on the bus...

"you know, I like, really love the number 33"
"totally, that's like, one of my favourite numbers. Actually, that IS my favourite number!"

Now I get to see a Dad and daughter sitting on a bench reading books. And baby canada geese. And flowers.

I put this off for such a long time because I was scared of riding through downtown traffic. Even after mapping out a really great route, it still took me a year to take that first ride.

I can't believe I let my fear get in the way for as long as I did. Carbon free transportation, that is faster and more fun. Love it.

Riot for Austerity - where we are at

Got a few bills recently so thought it would be good to do a proper tally of how we are doing in all the Riot for Austerity categories:

Electricity:
Not doing as well as last year. A number of factors have contributed to this
1. my health has not been great for the last 3 months. Getting better now but because of this we've had our electric heat in our bedroom turned up, and have been watching a lot of tv.
2. we did massive amounts of canning in the fall.
3. seems like it was colder than last year (certainly the cold weather seemed to start earlier this year).

Here's our most recent bill:



This gives us an average of 5.5kWh/day and keeps us at 17% of average (for now) for the last year.


Water:
Still doing well with water. Got another credit on our most recent bill.

Here it is:


This puts us at an average of 400L per day for the last year. Divided by the 4 people in the house, that is 100L per person per day or 30% of average.



Garbage:
Last week our totals were as follows:
Garbage: 3lbs
Compost: 4lbs
Recycling: 6lbs (was plastic and glass)

This puts us at 32% of average for the last 5 weeks (28%+62%+12%+30%+28%)/5


Heating:
We have used 1755 m3 of natural gas for the whole house for the last 8 months (we had a new meter installed in June so it's easiest for us to start from there - before that most of our bills were estimates). Divided in half that's 877.5m3 for each apartment. This puts us at 46% of average. Also I read somewhere recently that the average yearly consumption of natural gas for heating for Ontario is actually in the 4,000 m3 range (much higher than the national average I'm working with of 2,871 m3


Gasoline:
This is an estimate but here goes:

12 trips to work in the car during the bus strike: 192km
9 trips to work on the bus (yay!): 144km
1 trip to see family: 50km (divided this in half because hubby was with me)
1 trip to Toronto: 500km (divided this in half because hubby was with me)
random trips in the car: 200km

This puts me at 58.6L of gasoline so far this year or 35% of average.



Consumer Goods:
Still doing well with this.

So far this month I have bought:

1. tapestry needles (new): $2


2. 1 urban forest soap: $5

Total spent on consumer goods in the last 51 days=$111.78
This puts me at 6% of average (for now - big expenses still to come).


Food:
Have been totally sucking in the food category. Due to the health issues I lost a lot of weight (didn't really have much to lose in the first place). As a result I dropped all my rules and allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted (had to because I really didn't want to eat anything). Meant I ate a lot of non-local and overly packaged food. But I am on the mend. Appetite is back and so is my interest in cooking so I'm back on the local, homemade food wagon.
But all that to say my averages for food for the last 3 months have probably looked like this:
Local: 10%
Processed: 60%
Non-local: 30%

End the Ottawa bus strike petition

My armchair activism tonight consisted of signing Ecology Ottawa's petition to end the 40 day old Ottawa public transit strike.

For those not from Ottawa, yep, that's right, the cosmopolitan centre that is Ottawa has been without public transit for 40 days.

This article estimates that nearly 200,000 transit commuters are now driving to work. They then go on to estimate what the bus strike has cost commuters in terms of dollars. But let's take a sec to figure out what the strike has cost in terms of carbon footprint.

According to the article, because of the bus strike there are 97,000 extra cars on the road. The article further estimates that each car is traveling 40km a day.

By my calculations (see below). That means that 9,564,200L of gasoline is used by these extra cars.

Subtracting the approximate litres of gasoline that would have been used by public transit (calculations below): 5,456,978 .....

means that a grand total of 4,107,222 extra litres of gasoline has been used during the 40 days of the strike. That's equivalent to the ANNUAL gasoline consumption of 3,411 people. In 40 days.

p.s. my math skills suck so feel free to double check my calculations. Hubby that means you.



Gasoline usage of extra cars:
Assuming there have been 29 working days since the strike started (I'm counting the holidays but I'm not factoring in for folks who work on the weekends so I figure it balances. Ish).

So 97,000x40=3,880,000km extra travelled per day per car
x29 days=112,520,000km extra travelled by car for the whole strike so far.

Let's say the average fuel consumption is 8.5L per 100km (that's somewhere between a Toyota Yaris and a Rav4).

That means:
8.5x(112,520,000/100)=9,564,200L of gasoline

Is anyone bored yet of math?

Gasoline that would have been used by public transit:

According to the article, nearly 200,000 folks are no longer taking the bus. And these folks are travelling 40km each day for 29 days (using the above numbers).
200,000x40x29=232,000,000km

If each of these people were doing the Riot for Austerity, they would have to count that travel at 100mpg.
232,000,000km=144,158,117 miles

144,158,117/100=1,441,581 gallons=5,456,978 litres

Free transit

Impossible you say? Crazy?

Well Hamilton city council was discussing just that last week.

The short version is that HCC received a recommendation from its Works Committee outlining ways the city could introduce free transit. On smog days only, in the summer only, or year-round all-the-time free transit.

The year-round all-the-time free transit would come at a cost to residents of, on average, $161 a year (included in property taxes).

At first I thought, everyone is going to have to pay for something that not everyone uses? No way is that going to fly.

But then I thought, wait a sec, the point of taxes is to provide services that are for the general good of society - free health care, free social services, free education. I would certainly argue that free transit should fall under that category. Offering free public transit would make taking the bus more palatable to those who aren't so keen, and would also mean that folks who aren't making a lot of money would be able to get to work and still have money for food, and if transit were free prompting more people to take the bus (figures show that there would be a 20% increase in ridership), then carbon emissions would be reduced a substantial amount.

I think its something worth talking about.

Unfortunately Hamilton decided that it didn't have time to implement it this year but would look into it for next year. Boo.

Gasoline Wednesday

Another good week for my gasoline consumption. Here are the numbers:
Bus = 41.8km
Car= 4km
Feet=20km

That works out to 0.3225 gallons of gas.

Which means for the Riot for Austerity I am holding steady at 4% for last week. Average for the last 3 weeks is 3%.

Gasoline Wednesday!

Here are the deets for last week:

Bus=16km = 9.94mi = .0994 gallons gasoline
Car=27.3km = 16.963mi = .424 gallons gasoline
Feet=16km = 9.94mi = 0 gallons gasoline *doesn't include walks for fun

So for this week I used 4% of the average amount.

And my average for the last 2 weeks is 3%.

Sweet.

Gasoline Wednesday!

Since I only decided to do this on Monday I don't have details for the whole week. Instead I can do the last 5 days. So since Friday I:

Took public transit (bus): 16km
Used a car: 3.3km
Used my feet: 14km *doesn't include walks for fun

The Riot calculates everything in miles and gallons so the calculation looks like:
9.94 miles public transit (100mpg)
2.05 miles car (40mpg)

So that works out to 0.15 gal used for 5 days.

And as far as the Riot goes that's approx. 2% of average.

Which is cool. But this was a really good week and didn't include trips to see family (which we have to drive to), or any major errands (which might have required a car).