I know it’s been insane and although I saw group of hard-core riders on Mass Street out for a ride on Sunday, today would be a lot harder without the streets plowed.  That’s where the Pugsley comes in.  It’s an all terrain bike that has pretty sweet floatation and traction afforded by large-volume, low-pressure tires can get you over and through otherwise unrideable terrain, such as sand, mud, wet rocks and roots, ice, and many kinds of snow like we’ve had here in Lawrence the this winter. Wide, low-pressure tires are easier than standard tires on whatever terrain you pass over because they don’t dig in as easily. The bonus: We think it’s named after a member of the Addams family.  See it it on the web at Surly Bikes Website.

Reprint from:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/11/firefly_workshops_pedal-powered_sno.html

We featured the meticulously-organized workshop that Milwaukeean Cindy Smith shares with her husband, Craig, back in March. Craig saw our recent human-powered lifting devices post and wrote in to share with us the custom snow-plow-tricycle he built for removing light snowfall from his driveway:

The custom 3-wheel bike with sidecar was made years ago, a replica of a bike my childhood friend had. Last winter I added a snow plow accessory. Up to 1 inch of snow doesn’t make it worthwhile to fire up my big 8HP snowthrower. And shoveling my 90′ long driveway by hand can be too much. So my bike plow makes it easy to make a few runs up and down the driveway to make 2 or 3 piles that can then be easily hand shoveled off to the side. A lever pulls up or lets down the plow with a rope and pulley. Pulling the lever all the way back cantilevers the rope and pivot point so it locks in place. The plow blade is hinged with a bungee cord, so hitting a discrepancy in the road allows the blade to flop and give like a real plow. The bike can turn on a dime so raising the plow and returning up the adjacent path is quick and easy. I can do ‘reverse’ by pushing down on the front wheel with my foot to roll it backwards.Totally useless with larger snow falls, but the light ones make snow removal fun. (yes, my neighbors do think I’m odd)

From  http://www.infrastructurist.com/2011/01/18/bike-lanes-create-twice-as-many-jobs-as-road-repair-work/

Bicycle advocates can point out many reasons to endorse the growing popularity of the transit mode, from environmental friendliness to the rise of walkable cities to efficiency during rush-hour traffic. Now they can add one more to the list: job creation.

Last week on the Department of Transportation’s FastLane blog, Secretary Ray LaHood called attention to a new report that compared the employment impact of various pedestrian, bicycle, and road projects. The case study (short pdf), published in December, was conducted in Baltimore by Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She found that for every million dollars the city spent on a road maintenance project, about seven jobs were created. That was the case for both basic resurfacing jobs as well as more elaborate repair work.

Now seven jobs is nothing to sneer at, especially considering the recent woes of the construction industry. But the figure pales in comparison to footway repair projects, which produce about 11 jobs for each $1 million spent, and it’s only half of the 14 jobs created by investing the same amount in bike lanes:

The reason for this difference, writes Garrett-Peltier, is that compared to road repair work, bike and pedestrian construction projects are more “labor-intensive,” meaning a greater share of the money goes toward human labor rather than toward materials. All infrastructure projects will create jobs, but when it comes to bang for your construction buck, cities might want to take a long look at bikes.

Image and Figure: “Estimating the Employment Impacts of Pedestrian, Bicycle, and Road Infrastructure”