Walking and Biking For Exercise
Now that New York City's MTA has gone on strike, an awful lot of people are finding the need to do a bit more exercise than usual.
I think The New York Time's article requires registration. You can find CBC's article here. An article from Bloomberg discusses the Taylor Law which prohibits the MTA from striking (and I think the actual group that's out is actually a subset of the MTA called the NYCTA). Also, Time Magazine has an article accompanied by some good pictures (the Times article also has good pictures).
I'm sure there will be a lot of sore muscles, aching feet and groaning people over the next few days. Part of me wants to say, "I told you so." In the end, the issue for those needing to walk or cycle to work is the question, "Are you adequately conditioned to be able to do it without putting unreasonable demands on your body?" If you are in reasonable shape, walking from Penn Station to your Manhattan office (both NJ Transit and LIRR deliver their riders to Penn Station) should not be very difficult for most people above 4th St and below 60th St. Unfortunately, many people aren't in reasonable condition. Add to the deconditioned people those with medical conditions that preclude them from walking of cycling and you find a great many people being force to drive into the city. To prevent total gridlock, the city has announced a 4-person per car rule - in my opinion a wise way of limiting the number of vehicles coming into the city in the early part of the day (it only applies to a part of Manhattan and last only until 11 AM.
At the time of 9/11, and again with the New Orleans flood, the issue was raised about how people get out of a city in the event of a transit shutdown. The contingency plans are a step, but nothing will replace having people who can move themselves without cars. Clearly, the lesson has not gotten through. I think the billboard companies should post on unused billboards the question, "Could you walk home if you had to?" Only when most of the population could honestly answer, "yes", can we consider ourselves reasonably ready for another terrorist attack. We each have an obligation to be able to answer, "yes", to that question.
I think The New York Time's article requires registration. You can find CBC's article here. An article from Bloomberg discusses the Taylor Law which prohibits the MTA from striking (and I think the actual group that's out is actually a subset of the MTA called the NYCTA). Also, Time Magazine has an article accompanied by some good pictures (the Times article also has good pictures).
I'm sure there will be a lot of sore muscles, aching feet and groaning people over the next few days. Part of me wants to say, "I told you so." In the end, the issue for those needing to walk or cycle to work is the question, "Are you adequately conditioned to be able to do it without putting unreasonable demands on your body?" If you are in reasonable shape, walking from Penn Station to your Manhattan office (both NJ Transit and LIRR deliver their riders to Penn Station) should not be very difficult for most people above 4th St and below 60th St. Unfortunately, many people aren't in reasonable condition. Add to the deconditioned people those with medical conditions that preclude them from walking of cycling and you find a great many people being force to drive into the city. To prevent total gridlock, the city has announced a 4-person per car rule - in my opinion a wise way of limiting the number of vehicles coming into the city in the early part of the day (it only applies to a part of Manhattan and last only until 11 AM.
At the time of 9/11, and again with the New Orleans flood, the issue was raised about how people get out of a city in the event of a transit shutdown. The contingency plans are a step, but nothing will replace having people who can move themselves without cars. Clearly, the lesson has not gotten through. I think the billboard companies should post on unused billboards the question, "Could you walk home if you had to?" Only when most of the population could honestly answer, "yes", can we consider ourselves reasonably ready for another terrorist attack. We each have an obligation to be able to answer, "yes", to that question.
posted by Scooter at 11:03 AM
1 Comments:
You have been tagged to create the following post because Your a Runner Who Rocks!!!
Tazz
Instructions follow:
Based on Mark's blog runners meme..... http://completerunning.com/running-blog-mark/index.php/archives/2005/12/15/runners-who-rock/
1-Create a post titled Runners Who Rock.
2-List three runners who rock and tell us why they rock. Make sure you provide a link to their blog!
3-Tell those three runners about the meme and tag them so they can keep it going.
4-Link to runners who rock and to the blogger who tagged you so we get a ping and can keep track of all the participants!
Post a Comment
<< Home