Taking a car off the road would...

Okay, so these factoids aren't specific to the area I live in but they are useful nonetheless!

So ladies and gents did you know (drumroll pleaaaaasee)

That:

1. Under typical speeds on a local urban street, engines running cold produce 4-5 times the CO and twice the hydrocarbon emissions (a precursor to smog) per mile as engines running hot.
SOOO that trip to the corner market that you just HAD to get into your car for is producing waaaay more pollution that the one hour trip to see grandma on the weekend. So? Walk to the corner and save that gas to go see granny!

2. Nationwide, bicyclists forgoing auto travel save between 120 and 680 million gallons of gasoline per year, equivalent to 0.1%-0.6% of fuel consumed by passenger vehicles. This translates into significant savings of vehicle emissions: as much as 0.5% of NOx, 0.9% of hydrocarbons, and a 1.2% savings of CO.
(I told you!)

And 3: If every three bicyclists took one car off the road this is what we'd save per year...

* 5,800 tons of CO
* 320 tons of hydrocarbons
* 110 tons of NOx

Just some food for thought...


p.s. I got this information off of http://www.transalt.org/files/resources/blueprint/chapter18/chapter18d.html for those of you that would like to read more