“Got a problem. Fix a problem”
Anne Lusk has worked on bicycle facilities and related design elements for over 40 years
Anne Lusk, Ph.D., Instuctor, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Key words: Bike, Cycle Tracks, Race, Gender, Seniors, Health, Electric Cars, Trees, Safety, Home Sustainability, Vegetable Gardens, Climate Change
My Vision:
Citizens would not have to engage in unpaid hours lobbying and advocating for environmental changes to remedy climate change. Elected officials, government staff, state/city/town employees, and companies would have the will to follow evidence-based climate-responsive policies.
Citizens instead would address climate change through biking, walking, buying a second-hand electric car, having an electric car charging station at their home, purchasing or renting housing with bike parking inside each living unit, improving their lawns through soil remediation and not chemicals, and maintining vegetable gardens so they don’t drive and buy lettuce in a pod. Because the “greenest home is … one that is already built” (Carl Elefante, FIAI), citizens would restore homes since a solution to climate change is not a large new home that covers the lot. Even if a new building is 30 percent more efficient, it can take up to 80 years to overcome the negatives from new construction. (Preservation Green Lab 2011). Streets would have lit cycle tracks to accommodate cool night-time biking, front porch lights to light the sidewalk, and canopy trees in large sidewalk pits or front yards to address heat island.
The side of the road would not be for parking, recharging electric cars, or restaurant tables because the space would be for bus rapid transit, cycle tracks, or trees. Parking garages would be free to electric car owners but costly to combustion engine vehicle owners. Homeowners without garages but with driveways would hire certified electricians to install good looking outdoor electric car recharging stations on posts or on the side of the house and receive a high stimulus payment, not just a tax rebate, for the installation of the home charging stations. Homeowners would be allowed one free soil test per year to improve their soils, foster tree and lawn growth, produce healthy vegetables, and greatly reduce chemical fertilization.
My Story:
After starting the Stowe Recreation Path in 1981 in Stowe, Vermont, and successfully completing the multi-award winning path, I was a practioner and keynote for 16 years, helping communities in the US, Canada, and Europe get bike paths built. I rode 1,000 miles with a team of 9, including my then 13 year old daughter, to explore the route from Boston to Washington D.C. for the East Coast Greenway. In Vermont, I was invited to edit drafts of the Vermont Transportation Plan and often told by the engineers that they knew, and I didn’t know, what bicyclists needed. I returned to school to earn my Ph.D. in Architecture/Environment and Behavior with a minor in Urban Planning so I could conduct research to defend what I thought would improve transportation for everyone. After graduation, I was invited to be a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. I applied for and received 4 years of funding from the National Institutes of Health to be a Post Doctoral Fellow to conduct research, take classes in public health, and teach. Since then, I have been at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health conducting research and teaching.
In my first article in Archives of Internal Medicine (2010), co-authors and I suggested that, compared with slow walking, biking helped control weight. Knowing that the US engineering guidelines discouraged the creation of European cycle tracks (protected bike lanes), in the next article in Injury Prevention (2011), co-authors and I were the first to publish a peer reviewed journal article that showed the safety and preference of cycle tracks in North America. The cycle tracks in Montreal had a 28% lower injury rate and 2.5 times as many bicyclists compared with parallel roads that lacked bicycle provisions. In a subsequent article in the American Journal of Public Health (2013), co-authors and I were the first in the US to reveal that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) discouraged cycle tracks and that, since 1974, the AASHTO bike guideline authors cut and pasted the same negative language against cycle tracks in the subsequent bike guidelines until 2012. Now, based on the evidence, the engineering bike guidelines support the creation of cycle tracks.
Rather than only continue to demonstrate the safety of cycle tracks, I also focused on associated issues of health, gender, race, income, seniors, crime, economic development, trees, climate change, home sustainability, and trees to cool bicyclists and the planet. I studied electric vehicle recharging so electric cars are not recharging on the side of the road, which should be the location for cycle tracks. I achieved success by identifying the need for a new policy, determining the necessary research, obtaining funding, doing the research with colleagues, publishing the findings, working to get press, doing webinars, and giving keynotes. This pattern explains my motto of, “Got a problem. Fix a problem.”