Target: United States Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg
Goal: Fund grants for electric bike programs across America
America’s reliance on gasoline transportation is clearly unsustainable. This has led to an increased focus on electric transportation, and in a car-centric country, this means electric cars. However, relying on this form of transportation poses some serious problems. Electric cars need expensive rare earth metals to run, which requires extensive and environmentally destructive mining that threatens instability and conflict in vulnerable countries. It also increases the burden on infrastructure and doesn’t solve the fundamental environmental problems posed by a car-centric society.
Instead of spending huge chunks of our climate change mitigation funds on electric cars, it would be more economical, sustainable, and equitable to invest in electric bicycles. Unlike cars, bikes are an accessible and affordable option to reduce the massive environmental impact of transportation. They are already outselling electric cars, while micro mobility bike sharing companies like Lime provide an innovative and flexible means of movement for tourists, commuters, and the urban poor in cities across the world.
Transportation can be shared and carbon-free. However, in order for electric bikes to truly interrupt car culture, they need investment. Under Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Department of Transportation is authorized to invest $200 million annually in active transport infrastructure. Sign this petition to demand money be invested towards the spread of e-bikes and micro mobility infrastructure across America.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Secretary Pete Buttigieg,
Thank you for your hard work in getting the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed and moving forward with the green transportation revolution. Through your leadership, our nation has an opportunity to retool much of our transportation culture and infrastructure to combat climate change. However, much of the investment in the bill focuses on electric cars, sustaining problems with our car culture and the negative impact cars have on our environment and world, even adding new geopolitical entanglements as companies must secure access to rare earth minerals like lithium.
Investing money in electric bikes on the other hand is an innovative way to dramatically reduce environmental impact at a cost that’s in reach of most Americans. Cities like Denver already have popular “micro mobility” bike sharing operations that provide accessible transportation to everyone from tourists to commuters to the urban poor. Electric bikes are simply a more cost-effective method of reducing environmental impact than private electric motor vehicles, and they deserve more attention. In order to truly revolutionize our transportation system and mitigate climate change from destroying our infrastructure, we must invest funds in innovative electric bike incentive and development programs.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo credit: Ted Eytan
179 Signatures