While there is much to agree with in Sarah Crysl Akhtar’s Forum letter (“E-bikes are no kind of improvement,” Sept 23), it overlooks the main impetus behind the growing interest in electric bicycles. Pedal-assist e-bikes operate with a combination of human and electric power, so yes, they use more energy than manual bikes. But because many people adopt e-bikes to reduce car trips, the relevant energy comparison is between an e-bike and a car.
To illustrate, my typical trip from home to town covers 12 miles round-trip. This takes a bit under a half gallon of gas by car. My e-bike uses 0.14 kilowatts of electricity. Based on the EPA carbon calculator, the car trip contributes 9 pounds of CO2 emissions vs. 3 ounces for the e-bike. Not only is the e-bike much cleaner, consider the savings. Gas for the car trip is about $1. Electricity for the e-bike trip is 2 cents.
I also used to associate bikes with recreation and fitness until I visited Copenhagen and saw the prevalence of biking as everyday local transportation. For our hilly New England terrain, an e-bike opens up this option to many more people. And both kinds of bikes produce health and environmental benefits for riders and their communities.
I really like many points in Akhtar’s letter: improving infrastructure for bikes and walkers, valuing every expenditure of energy, the ideal of a welcoming and fully-accessible community. I hope she will give e-bikes and their riders another look as valuable allies for these worthy goals.
This summer, residents in four Upper Valley communities had the opportunity to test-ride e-bikes from the Upper Valley E-Bike Library. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The E-Bike Library was developed by a consortium of local energy committees and made possible by the Burlington nonprofit Local Motion (www.localmotion.org/travelingebikes). Hanover is the E-Bike Library’s final 2020 stop. Sustainable Hanover will host demo days and rentals beginning Sunday through the end of the month.
YOLANDA BAUMGARTNER
Hanover
The writer is co-chair of Sustainable Hanover.
Sullivan County has an outstanding leader in Rep. Linda Tanner. Tanner gives a strong voice to the people in the Sullivan 9 district towns of Cornish, Croydon, Grantham, Newport, Plainfield, Springfield, Sunapee and Unity.
While she serves as clerk on the House Education Committee, her legislation covers a variety of topics, from addressing issues in education and the opioid epidemic to the climate crisis. This session she has worked on and sponsored several bills to help hardworking Granite Staters, including the independent Commission to Study School Funding and the bill to provide young people with access to the mental heath services they deserve. Tanner has also been a strong voice within the Sullivan County delegation as a member of the Executive Finance Committee that has oversight of the county budget, working to help the people of Sullivan County.
I hope you will join me in voting to reelect Linda Tanner as state representative for the Sullivan 9 district on Nov. 3, or with an absentee ballot.
MARY CANTLIN
Grantham
As we enter another election season, I encourage Vermonters to take a hard look at the issues that affect our lives.
In 2015, Act 46 was passed with promises of efficiency, opportunity and, importantly, a decrease in property taxes. But just the opposite has occurred. This year, my property tax bill went up by $600, almost entirely for the education portion. For anyone working for a living or on a fixed income, such increases make financial survival here almost impossible.
When I ran for the Legislature in 2014 and 2016, I was deeply concerned about the release of millions of gallons of untreated human sewage into Vermont’s lakes and streams. Although our politicians claim to care about the environment, the release of these pollutants has continued. Vermont’s congressional delegation (Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch) has been bringing home the bacon from Washington for decades, but our wastewater management systems have seen little in the way of increase in capacity or modernization. Why there isn’t more of an outcry from all these self-proclaimed environmentalists in power is beyond comprehension.
Since 2014, Vermont’s unfunded liabilities, including teacher pension debt, have gone from $4.5 billion to $6.5 billion. This predicament has been ignored by the supermajority in Montpelier, which increased spending on ideologically driven projects. This approach is clearly unsustainable.
In Windsor County, we have a number of new candidates who share these concerns, including Alice Flanders of White River Junction, Wayne Townsend of Bethel, Mark Donka of Hartford, Wesley Raney of Hartland, Jacob Holmes of Hartland, Keith Stern of Springfield, Jack Williams of Weathersfield and Michael Jasinski of Springfield.
A one-party system never serves the average citizen. It would benefit every Vermonter if our legislators brought intellectual and philosophical diversity, along with a wide range of life experiences, to the table. Robust debate, new ideas and fair representation of the interests of all Vermonters form the backbone of a healthy state government.
Please join me in voting for these new candidates to revitalize our democracy. You can vote by mail or at the polls on Nov. 3.
STU LINDBERG
Cavendish, Vt.
I’m writing to encourage all to vote in state elections this fall, but particularly to urge you to support Carl Demrow, who is finishing his first two-year term representing the Orange 1 district towns of Williamstown, Chelsea, Vershire, Corinth, Washington and Orange.
To my mind, Demrow has exactly the right idea about what we want from an elected official –– to keep us informed about what’s going on in the Legislature, to listen to and respond to our questions, to help us navigate the bureaucracy, and to think of all of us, not just the members of one party, when he votes.
If you’ve been at a town meeting when he comes by, you already know how well-informed, honest and smart he is. We’d be nuts not to reelect him.
JOAN WALTERMIRE
Vershire
The recent news about President Donald Trump’s tax returns published by The New York Times, if true, offers an interesting win-win possibility for the nation.
Never mind the part about Trump barely paying any taxes or claiming that he is owed a refund of $72 million from the IRS. That may provide a modicum of titillation for the handful of Protestant ethicists left in America. But the juicier news is that Trump has more than $400 million in debt that comes due soon, even as his properties are losing money. What a perfect opportunity for this country’s billionaires. Let them make Trump a deal he can’t refuse. They could buy out his properties at inflated prices, wiping his debt clean on the condition that he not run for re-election.
In a perfect world, the consortium of billionaires would be led by George Soros, but I’d settle for Jeff Bezos, who has profited handsomely from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated by Trump’s malfeasance. For an extra 10%, the billionaires could sweeten the pot and negotiate a provision that Trump will nominate Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. You know Trump would take that deal and brag about it, leaving his base twisting in the wind and the rest of the country breathing a sigh of relief.
PHILIP GLOUCHEVITCH
Hanover
Here’s a suggestion for all future debates: Put the candidates in separate soundproof glass booths. They can have a speaker so that they can hear the moderator and the other candidate. The moderator will have two switches to silence the candidates’ microphones if necessary. Just a thought.
RICHARD ATKINSON
Plainfield
President Donald Trump’s attorney general has accused the Black Lives Matter protestors of sedition. In what way is what the president is doing, vis-à-vis the election, not sedition?
STEPHEN JORDAN
Sunapee
My vote is being solicited by those who promise to go to Washington, Concord or City Hall to fight for me. If elected, they will fight those who were elected to fight back.
I don’t want fighters to represent me. I want statesmen and stateswomen, compromisers, persuaders, negotiators, diplomats and thinkers. In soliciting my vote, pugilists need not apply.
GERALD R. KOZAK
Lebanon
October is the Hanover Lions Club’s food and toiletries drive month to benefit the Hanover Street Elementary School’s Friday Food Program, the Listen Center’s food pantry and others.
We invite members of the Upper Valley community to drop off donations of nonperishable food items and toiletries — safely — at 15 Buck Road in Hanover. Look for the tent at the driveway entrance. Just put your donation in one of the bins and it will be delivered to our beneficiaries on a regular basis. Thank you.
WILLIAM “STAR” JOHNSON
Hanover
The writer is president of the Hanover Lions Club.