www-theatlantic-com-biphm9.txt (13889B)
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It’ll also make you happier. 95 96 97 By [61]Michael Thomas 98 A collage of 12 photographs of e-bikes against a light-pink background 99 Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty. 100 October 20, 2023 101 Share 102 Save 103 104 Today’s happiness and personal-finance gurus have no shortage of advice for 105 living a good life. Meditate daily. Sleep for eight hours a night. Don’t forget 106 to save for retirement. They’re not wrong, but few of these experts will tell 107 you one of the best ways to improve your life: Ditch your car. 108 109 A year ago, my wife and I sold one of our cars and replaced it with an e-bike. 110 As someone who writes about climate change, I knew that I was doing something 111 good for the planet. I knew that passenger vehicles are responsible for much of 112 our greenhouse-gas emissions—[64]16 percent in the U.S., to be exact—and that 113 the pollution spewing from gas-powered cars doesn’t just heat up the planet; it 114 could increase the risk of [65]premature death. I also knew that electric cars 115 were an imperfect fix: Though they’re responsible for less carbon pollution 116 than gas cars, even when powered by today’s dirty electric grid, their supply 117 chain is carbon intensive, and many of the materials needed to produce their 118 batteries are, in some cases, mined via a process that [66]brutally exploits 119 workers and harms [67]ecosystems and sacred Indigenous lands. An e-bike’s 120 comparatively tiny battery means less electricity, fewer emissions, fewer 121 resources. They are clearly better for the planet than cars of any kind. 122 123 [68]Read: America is missing out on the biggest EV boom of all 124 125 I knew all of this. But I also viewed getting rid of my car as a 126 sacrifice—something for the militant and reckless, something that Greenpeace 127 volunteers did to make the world better. I live in Colorado; e-biking would 128 mean freezing in the winter and sweating in the summer. It was the right thing 129 to do, I thought, but it was not going to be fun. 130 131 I was very wrong. The first thing I noticed was the savings. Between car 132 payments, insurance, maintenance, and gas, a car-centered lifestyle is 133 expensive. According to AAA, after fuel, maintenance, insurance, taxes, and the 134 like, owning and driving a new car in America costs[69] $10,728 a year. My 135 e-bike, by comparison, cost $2,000 off the rack and has near-negligible 136 recurring charges. After factoring in maintenance and a few bucks a month in 137 electricity costs, I estimate that we’ll save about $50,000 over the next five 138 years by ditching our car. 139 140 The actual experience of riding to work each day over the past year has been 141 equally surprising. Before selling our car, I worried most about riding in the 142 cold winter months. But I quickly learned that, as the saying goes, there is 143 [70]no bad weather, only bad gear. I wear gloves, warm socks, a balaclava, and 144 a ski jacket when I ride, and am almost never too cold. 145 146 Sara Hastings-Simon is a professor at the University of Calgary, where she 147 studies low-carbon transportation systems. She’s also a native Californian who 148 now bikes to work in a city where temperatures tend to hover around freezing 149 from December through March. She told me that with the right equipment, she’s 150 able to do it on all but the snowiest days—days when she wouldn’t want to be in 151 a car, either. “Those days are honestly a mess even on the roads,” she said. 152 153 And though I, like [71]many would-be cyclists, was worried about arriving at 154 the office sweaty in hotter months, the e-bike solved my problem. Even when it 155 was 90 degrees outside, I didn’t break a sweat, thanks to my bike’s 156 pedal-assist mode. If I’m honest, sometimes I didn’t even pedal; I just used 157 the throttle, sat back, and enjoyed my ride. 158 159 Indeed, a big part of the appeal here is in the e part of the bike: “E-bikes 160 aren’t just a traditional bike with a motor. They are an entirely new 161 technology,” Hastings-Simon told me. Riding them is a radically different 162 experience from riding a normal bike, at least when it comes to the hard parts 163 of cycling. “It’s so much easier to take a bike over a bridge or in a hilly 164 neighborhood,” Laura Fox, the former general manager of New York City’s 165 bike-share program, told me. “I’ve had countless people come up to me and say, 166 ‘I never thought that I could bike to work before, and now that I have an 167 option where you don’t have to show up sweaty, it’s possible.’” (When New York 168 introduced e-bikes to its fleet, ridership tripled, she told me, from 500,000 169 to 1.5 million people.) 170 171 [72]Read: How to get fewer people to commute in cars 172 173 But biking to work wasn’t just not unpleasant—it was downright enjoyable. It 174 made me feel happier and healthier; I arrived to work a little more buoyant for 175 having spent the morning in fresh air rather than traffic. [73]Study after [74] 176 study shows that people with longer car commutes are more likely to experience 177 poor health outcomes and lower personal well-being—and that cyclists are the 178 [75]happiest commuters. One day, shortly after selling our car, I hopped on my 179 bike after a stressful day at work and rode home down a street edged with 180 changing fall leaves. I felt more connected to the physical environment around 181 me than I had when I’d traveled the same route surrounded by metal and glass. I 182 breathed in the air, my muscles relaxed, and I grinned like a giddy 183 schoolchild. 184 185 “E-bikes are like a miracle drug,” David Zipper, a transportation expert and 186 Visiting Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, told me. “They provide so much 187 upside, not just for the riders, but for the people who are living around them 188 too.” 189 190 Of course, e-bikes aren’t going to replace every car on every trip. In a 191 country where sprawling suburbs and strip malls, not protected bike lanes, are 192 the norm, it’s unrealistic to expect e-bikes to replace cars in the way that 193 the Model T replaced horses. But we don’t need everyone to ride an e-bike to 194 work to make a big dent in our carbon-pollution problem. [76]A recent study 195 found that if 5 percent of commuters were to switch to e-bikes as their mode of 196 transportation, emissions would fall by 4 percent. As an individual, you don’t 197 even need to sell your car to reduce your carbon footprint significantly. In 198 2021, half of all trips in the United States were less than three miles, 199 according to [77]the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Making those short 200 trips on an e-bike instead of in a car would likely save people money, cut 201 their emissions, and improve their health and happiness. 202 203 E-bikes are such a no-brainer for individuals, and for the collective, that 204 state and local governments [78]are now subsidizing them. In May, I asked Will 205 Toor, the executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, to explain the 206 state’s rationale for [79]a newly passed incentive that offers residents $450 207 to get an e-bike. He dutifully ticked through the environmental benefits and 208 potential cost savings for low-income people. Then he surprised me: The 209 legislation, he added, was also about “putting more joy into the world.” 210 211 This story is part of the Atlantic Planet series supported by HHMI’s Science 212 and Educational Media Group. 213 214 215 References: 216 217 [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/10/reasons-to-get-e-bike-emissions-climate-change-benefits/675716/#main-content 218 [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/ 219 [5] https://www.theatlantic.com/most-popular/ 220 [6] https://www.theatlantic.com/latest/ 221 [7] https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/ 222 [8] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ 223 [9] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ 224 [10] https://www.theatlantic.com/category/fiction/ 225 [11] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ 226 [12] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/ 227 [13] https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/ 228 [14] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ 229 [15] https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/ 230 [16] https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/planet/ 231 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