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urban green travellers unite

In the past month, with the weather improving, I've had a good 'green' undertaking - and I challenge anyone to 1) take this as a personal goal 2) pose it as a challenge to friends and family. All travel (work or leisure) within 5 km is either done on foot or by bicycle. It takes roughly 20 minutes to walk 2 km and for the unfit like me, 20 minutes to cycle 5 km.

Where to start: We urban South Africans are very lucky in that most of our convenience shops are located within 5 km from home. Apart form the safety concerns, there really is not excuse for us to embark on greener travel to these destinations. My experiments over the past month has proven that (for me in any case) a walk or a cycle ride hardly takes longer than a car ride. Once you've taken into consideration the amount of time it takes to start your car, reverse out of the driveway / parking garage, wait at traffic lights, pay for parking etc, you'll be surprised how long it takes to drive 5 km in the city.

There are of course draw-backs to walking / cycling. You can't for example impulse shop, as you'll have to cart everything home via man-power. So plan better. Make a list. Also, for the fearful like me, cycling in the road is not an option, as taxis, cars and busses driving badly freaks me out. So I hop onto the pavement with my mountain bike - after all, they can handle that! Here are some of the difficulties I encountered en-route from Emmarentia via Greenside to Rosebank:

• Wheel chair ramps are often only installed on one pavement at a crossing, so you can easily go down one to cross the road, but you can't easily get up again
• There are numerous poles and bus shelters installed in the middle of the pavement, so you have to carefully navigate yourself around it. In same cases, this is impossible, so you have to go in the road.
• There are lots of dongas, which tends to break your teeth if you go into them too fast
• In some places, the pavement disappears.
• Cars park on the pavement, not next to them.
• People think you're a bit weird for cycling on the pavement (so, at least I am cycling and not driving my car like you weirdo abck at you!).

I might also add that I have two young children who have been pushed up and down these same pavements for the past 3 years in their of-roader pram. Ha! Never a dull (or easy) moment.

So, when are our municipalities planning to come to the party to encourage greener short-distance travel? And are we going to wait, or are we going to tale the initiaves ourselves?