Unchain Chu

Energy boss Steven Chu misses his bike 12

I’m a fierce carbon tax advocate, as Grist readers know. But what most upset me about the interview with Stephen Chu in last Sunday’s New York Times magazine wasn’t the energy secretary’s disavowal of an Obama carbon tax:

Q: Many environmentalists believe that a permanent carbon tax would be the most efficient means of spurring carbon-reducing technologies.
A: Well, we’re not talking about a carbon tax. President Obama and I are not talking about a carbon tax.

Chu and biking colleagues.Chu (center) with cycling colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.We all know Secretary Chu has to toe the party line, which, for now, is cap-and-trade. No, what hurt was this:

Q: Is it true you don’t drive a car?
A: My wife does, but I no longer own a car. Let me just say that in most of my jobs, I mostly rode my bicycle.
Q: And now?
A: My security detail didn’t want me to be riding my bicycle or even taking the Metro. I have a security detail that drives me.
Q: How do you feel about adding carbon emissions to the air?
A: I don’t feel good about it.

“I don’t feel good about it”? The guy is in agony over it! Chu is an avid, lifelong bicyclist—the interviewer didn’t have to ask, Chu volunteered that fact—and now he’s sealed up in a Chevy Tahoe. Ouch!

What followed was even worse:

Q: I guess the President wants to keep you alive.
A: My wife is in favor of that as well.

Double ouch. Chu knows—he must know—that all those years he was cycling to work, nothing kept him alive as well as bicycling.

That’s right. Phone-addled SUVers may rule the roads, but Chu, like the rest of us getting around on two wheels, is extending his longevity every minute he spins the pedals. The cardiovascular exertion, the mental acuity, the sheer engagement with the world that cycling demands add more to the cyclist’s statistical life span than the risk of a fatal or disabling injury-accident takes away.

British researcher Mayer Hillman was the first to calculate, in the early 1990s, just how much the health benefits of regular cycling outweigh the actuarial loss of life from road accidents. In his breakthrough report for the British Medical Association, Cycling: Towards Health and Safety, Hillman found that even in Britain’s anti-cycling road environment, each minute of lost life expectancy from the elevated probability of crash injury or death to some cyclists was offset at least 10-fold by the increased longevity from improved health of other cyclists.

More recently, a team of epidemiologists who monitored the health of 30,000 Danish adults over a 15-year period found a 28% lower mortality rate among cycle commuters.

Let’s translate that Danish finding to the U.S. From standard life-expectancy tables, a 61-year-old non-cycling American adult, like Chu, has a 1.0% chance of dying in the next 12 months—meaning that among 130,000 such people, 1,300 will die. Whereas, according to the Danish study, if those same 130,000 61-year-olds were cycle commuters, 28% fewer of them—364 less—would die. Yet in New   York City, where I live and am one of an estimated 130,000 daily cyclists, “only” 20 of us are killed in crashes each year.

For relative oldsters like Chu (I’m five months older than the secretary, so I can call him that), we could double the cyclist deaths to 40, and still have 9 times less extra mortality attributable to cycling as avoided by it (40 vs. 364). And that’s not counting the crash risks from other ways of getting around - let alone the safety “dividend” each cyclist confers on others through the safety-in-numbers phenomenon (with more cyclists, the risk to each is diminished).

What to do? Simple. Mrs. Chu should march her husband into the Oval Office and say, “Mr. President, we ran the numbers, and sitting in that SUV is bad for Stephen’s life expectancy. Please let him ride his bike to work.” Mr. Obama, for good measure, can add a “carbon tax now” sticker to Chu’s helmet.

Charles is an activist, energy-economist and policy-analyst. He “re-founded” NYC’s bike-advocacy group Transportation Alternatives in the 1980s, helped found the Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Right Of Way in the 1990s, and co-founded the Carbon Tax Center in 2007. Charles’s writings include books, journal articles, op-ed essays and landmark reports such as Subsidies for Traffic, Killed By Automobile, and the Kheel Plan on financing free transit in New York City. In the 1970s and 80s Charles gained prominence for deconstructing the spiraling costs of nuclear power as author-researcher and expert-witness for state and local governments and environmental groups such as NRDC and EDF. A math-and-economics graduate of Harvard, Charles lives with his wife and two sons in lower Manhattan. For more, click here.

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  1. human power Posted 7:13 pm
    24 Apr 2009

    Okay, I'm admittedly a little testy on this subject at the moment since I was just attacked by a fossil-fool powered two-ton steel wheelchair yesterday, but European data on cycling mortality just does not apply in the U.S. In fact, I rode through the numbers while riding to work earlier in the week (old numbers, a few assumptions) and concluded that I was beginning to log enough miles that I will soon be looking at 40% death by car odds. (Economic recovery cannot happen soon enough for me since it will mean bumping into the oil supply limits again and, thus, fewer car-critters will be able to afford to go out terrorizing people.)In the 1890s an article appeared in the New York Times wherein cyclists were advised to only go out in groups because they were likely to encounter people who would attempt to harm them. Some aspects of our culture just never change.

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  2. Rip Van Winkle's avatar

    Rip Van Winkle Posted 9:02 pm
    24 Apr 2009

    I honestly think you're reading too much into it. The need to keep him safe isn't about SUV's somehow being inherently safer than bikes, it's about being able to have a security detail on him. If he was on a bike, what would you do, put Chu and several secret service on a multibike?

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  3. human power Posted 11:18 pm
    25 Apr 2009

    I also see one little problem with your number of cyclists in NYC. If your number is generated the same way it is in my town, where the official estimate is 8% of the population rides, it is bogus. It does not reflect the number of riders, it reflects only 100% minus the number of people who NEVER ride. Thus, on a typical FAll, Winter, or early Spring day, the number of trips in my town done by bike are less than 1% of the official number of cyclists. During the wet 2/3 of the year I often encounter more city trucks driving on the "bike" paths than bikes. So, you may have 130,000 people who sometimes ride in NYC, but you have to multiply that by the fraction of their annual transportation needs they are meeting by bike, which may be as low as 1%.Sorry to be such a downer, but people need to know what they are getting themselves into if they commit to environmentally friendly transportation. Bike really is the new black.

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  4. Charles Komanoff's avatar

    Charles Komanoff Posted 6:33 am
    27 Apr 2009

    Kitwana -- I see your point. But if you take another look at my post, you'll see that what really set me off was Mrs. Chu's unwitting reinforcement of the prevailing view that cycling is dangerous. I believe the numbers make clear that, as a general rule, what's truly dangerous is to not cycle. And, yes, Chu could be accompanied by a couple of cycling security agents, instead of being driven by one or more.Human Power -- I think your admonition against using European mortality data is misplaced. The Euro differential ("odds ratio between mortalities for cyclists and non-cyclists," actually) that I used largely reflects cardiovascular and other factors that should apply anywhere. I then compared that against actual cyclist fatality data for NYC. Why do you feel that's problematic?Human Power again -- My number on NYC daily cyclists is a 365-day average that I've been estimating  painstakingly for a decade-and-a-half. It starts with official (NYCDOT) "screenline" counts which I adapt in various ways to reflect seasonal factors, 24h vs. 12h bike usage, and cycle trips that don't cross the screenline into the Manhattan Central Business District. Please contact me off-list if you'd like me to send you the spreadsheet with all calculations and assumptions. Please also, next time, do a bit more checking before jumping to conclusions? Thanks.

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  5. Raamster Posted 5:13 pm
    29 Apr 2009

    Not to poke too many holes in your statistical reasoning, but don't the Danish numbers already include the number of outright deaths from cycling?  So wouldn't the number or deaths avoided by health improvement then be even greater, before the cycling deaths were subtracted? If so, the comparative factors would tend to bolster your argument even more.
    How dare you shortchange yourself, Charles! And besides, couldn't Mr. Chu stoke a tandem so he could still be chaufferred by a professional?  That way the guards (sorry, Protective Services,) could get their exercise, and control 'encounters'.  Let Chu Ride Too!

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  6. 4152 Posted 12:37 pm
    30 Apr 2009

    Suggesting that the security needs of a cabinet level official can be satisified by having him ride a bike through the city while trailed by a couple of agents on bikes is simply absurd. This is the sort of posturing that makes enviros look silly. 

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  7. Raamster Posted 3:56 pm
    30 Apr 2009

    Mr 2, the risk is that an admittedly progressive administration would not seek to set an example of the best kind using one of it's own, an example that could vastly outweigh such risk as is demonstrable and anticipable to his personal safety; as opposed to popularly assumed risk estimations, which are typically grossly distorted by over-estimation. In an era where average Americans are over-fed, under-exercised and without health insurance or a job that can provide it, growing a garden and riding a bike work together. Unless one bought that big house two counties over from that underpaying job.I would not expect Mr. Chu to know how to defend himself while wheelborne.  We'll leave that to the professionals.  This is why I suggested that he ride the back seat of a tandem. And isn't this only a problem if you happen to agree with the Administration's energy policy?

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  8. Charles Komanoff's avatar

    Charles Komanoff Posted 9:39 am
    06 May 2009

    Right on, Raamster, re your tandem suggestion and your dissent from Protection-mania Americana. You have to wonder, if the U.K. opposition leader can cycle-commute (and have his bike swiped!), why can't a U.S. cabinet minister do the same? (Thanks to my cousin, BW, for the Tory leader tip.)As for adjusting the Danish mortality figure for cycle fatalities, it's too little to bother, at least for this discourse. Plus, I like to keep a bit of numerical margin in my hip pocket, so to speak. but thanks for the suggestion.

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  9. akelso Posted 7:58 am
    19 May 2009

    At least he was able to ride in on Bike to Work Day!

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  10. Raamster Posted 7:09 pm
    19 May 2009

    It's a great start, and an appropriate occasion.  I would expect the details of whether he rode on his own or not to be difficult to ascertain.  But between doubles and security details, I would hope we would get reports of his continuing to ride to work more than once a year.  He needs to ride, and we need to hear about it. I know that I need to ride vigorously twice a week to maintain my fitness and more often to improve it. His schedule need not be regular, just often.  That should be 'cover' enough, along with a varied route and body doubles, to bring the risks involved with his cycling to work within an acceptable range.  Add some low key publicity and the Administation will begin to generate some serious 'mileage'.  And then, by enlisting the public in trying to protect this man and the mission he symbolizes,  a movement could begin.Show me the downside!  This has the makings of a PR coup!

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  11. 4152 Posted 12:50 pm
    20 May 2009

    "Right on, Raamster, re your tandem suggestion and your dissent from
    Protection-mania Americana. You have to wonder, if the U.K. opposition
    leader can cycle-commute (and have his bike swiped!), why can't a U.S. cabinet minister do the same"Leaders of other countries routinely walk about the streets without any body guards.  To suggest that high-government officials in the United States could do so is simply not a serious position.  

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  12. Raamster Posted 3:04 pm
    20 May 2009

    Mr 2, first you cite evidence against your own argument, and then you summarily deny mine without counter-argument.  I submit to you that a decision to let the Energy Secretary ride a bike to work is indeed a profound policy decision that should not be rejected out of hand due to over-inflated risk estimates, unmitigated by imaginative countermeasures, let alone accounting for the benefits that would accrue from such a move, including: * demonstrating that this Administration is willing to stand down the ultra-defensive posture of this nation; * setting an example of healthful living among this nation's leadership; * promoting a discussion about the value of healthful transportation options; * providing an example of how "we won't let the terrorists ruin our lives through fear".  In fact, the very act of commuting by bike demonstrates a willingness to reduce the burden of our economically and ecologically oppressive lifestyles upon the rest of the world, thereby reducing the terroristic incentive to strike back. In such a risk-benefit analysis, it seems clear to me that the potential benefits to all far outweigh the potential risks to one.  Let Chu Ride Too!

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