If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.

Sometimes I feel like such an oddball biking to work and not going on Costco runs like my neighbors. I wonder if my fellow Americans (and neighbors) will ever change their ways to meet the crisis of the day.

It was encouraging yesterday to read this article in Sierra Magazine about the effort during WWII. I had heard of “victory gardens” before, but had never heard that people tore up their beloved front yard turf to grow veggies (just legalized in the City of Sacramento this year). The bicycle became the “Victory Bike” as people ditched their cars for the war effort and rationing.

The war also temporarily dethroned the automobile as the icon of the American standard of living. Detroit assembly lines were retooled to build Sherman tanks and B-24 Liberators. Gasoline was rationed and, following the Japanese conquest of Malaya, so was rubber. (The U.S. Office of the Rubber Director was charged with getting used tires to factories, where they became parts for tanks and trucks.) When shortages and congestion brought streetcar and bus systems across the country near the breaking point, it became critical to induce workers to share rides or adopt alternative means of transportation. While overcrowded defense hubs like Detroit, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., never achieved the national goal of 3.5 riders per car, they did double their average occupancy through extensive networks of neighborhood, factory, and office carpools. Car sharing was reinforced by gas-ration incentives, stiff fines for solo recreational driving, and stark slogans: “When you ride ALONE,” warned one poster, “you ride with Hitler!”

I love the idea of a national goal of 3.5 occupants per car and slogans like “When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler.” Now there is a sticker I could stick on my Victory Bike!

Steve