Also this week: digital product passports, the next innovation for a greener economy; and the charm of Dick's drive-in restaurants, a Seattle original.
New York is trying to figure out why so many electric bikes are involved in accidents
As municipalities around the world gather data to improve their bike lane systems, they are grappling with questions revolving around safety. The increasing popularity of battery-operated vehicles, from e-bikes to electric scooters to unicycles, is adding complexity on city streets and creating new challenges for riders, pedestrians and vehicles.
This is especially the case in large metropolitan areas.
Last week the New York Times reported that 2023 was the worst year for cycling fatalities in New York City since 1999. 30 cyclists died on city streets last year. Of these, 23 were riding e-bikes.
The newspaper posted this graphic on its X (Twitter) feed, showing the recent increase in e-bike fatalities.
According to preliminary reports, the majority of the cycling deaths occurred in areas without biking infrastructure, rather than along dedicated bike lanes. Predictably, most of the cyclists who died, whether on traditional bicycles or e-bikes, were involved in collisions with trucks or cars. But 7 of the 23 people who died while riding electric bikes did so without striking a vehicle or a pedestrian.
The Times article explained:
The rise in electric bike deaths does not appear to be the result of an increase in e-bike ridership, at least not entirely, according to the Department of Transportation. And although the most visible e-bike users in New York may be delivery workers and Citi Bike riders, the majority of people who died on e-bikes last year were neither. Only one delivery worker died from an e-bike crash, according to the department, and four people died using electric Citi Bikes, according to Lyft, which owns the bike share program.
There was one factor that contributed to last year’s spike in e-bike deaths that may suggest a shifting dynamic on the road: nearly a third of the e-bike riders who died crashed or fell without any apparent interference from a vehicle or pedestrian.
- New York Times, March 5, 2024
Investigators are examining various circumstances that may have contributed to these falls: speed, lack of rider experience, obstructions on the roadway (like potholes) and possible rider distractions, to name a few.
Injuries were also up in New York last year: 395 cyclists were severely injured in 2023, an increase of about 12.6%.
Photo by Joe Ciciarelli on Unsplash
Meanwhile, The Irish Times reported on Tuesday that authorities in Amsterdam, a city with high volumes of bicycle traffic, plan to introduce an electronic system to remotely limit the speed of electric bikes in areas like school zones and where road construction is underway. The speed capability and additional weight of e-bikes have increased concerns about safety.
Milan, Athens and Munich are also considering limiting bicycle speeds in a similar way.
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Digital product passports to accelerate the shift to a greener economy
Photo by Marielle Ursua on Unsplash
The push towards sustainability is gaining momentum. The European Union (EU) is preparing a new way to track materials in all kinds of products. It will be done via tags called digital product passports (DPPs). They are part of a comprehensive effort to reduce the environmental impact of consumer goods, encourage recycling and introduce more accountability in the economy.
Digital product passports are QR codes that capture all kinds of data about products, including how they are made, environmental impact and history. The information is designed for transparency, so that anyone can access it. In addition, RFID tags, essentially smart barcodes that don't wear away, will be affixed to goods so that recyclers can access passport details at any time during the life of the product.
The first items required by the EU to have DPPs will be industrial and vehicle batteries by 2027.
The circular economy
Many other manufacturers are beginning to use DPPs voluntarily, as the benefits are quickly accruing. The basic idea behind a circular economy is the creation of a system in which materials never become waste and nature is regenerated. The concept is attractive to many politicians, environmentalists and planet-conscious consumers. In a circular economy products are designed from the conceptual stage with a clear plan of what will be done with them at the end of their life.
"80% of environmental impact is determined at the design stage,” Dr. Natacha Tréhan, an expert in procurement and the circular economy, recently told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
Digital product passports will impact just about everything that emerges from a factory: from mattresses to clothing; cars to electronics. DDPs will be useful even in the construction industry. The BBC noted how the architects and engineers of a real estate development project in London have been asking suppliers for detailed information in order to compile materials passports. Mark Sutton, a senior associate with Fletcher Priest Architects, explained:
The precast elements on the façade have been designed with bolted connections, which allow them to be easily removed in one piece and reused in a different location, in a different configuration.
At the end of the building's life, the materials are documented in such a manner that it will allow reuse in component form for precast elements and also recycling. We expect that at that time there will be databases which are widespread and a marketplace for these materials and components.
As Sutton indicated, new businesses are now being created to manage those databases. One such startup is Circuland, also in Britain:
When we have materials in our buildings that we don't need any more, their passports will be sent to the marketplace for used products where you can see their history. When the element is bought and used in another building, the same passport will be used for the new development.
-Anastasia Stella, co-founder, Circuland.
Electronics for recycling. Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash
The value proposition
Circularise, a company founded in 2016 to help recyclers better understand what materials have been used in products, outlined the larger benefits of digital product passports:
Sustainable product production - enable the transition to circular economy and therefore boost material and energy efficiency, extend product lifetimes, and optimise product use.
Businesses to create value through circular business models - thanks to the improved access to data with digital product passports, more businesses can implement service and repair-based business models.
Consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions - once they are provided with information on the total impact of their buying behaviours.
Verify compliance with legal obligations - the digital product passport will also act as a record of the standards a product complies with and provides auditors with data to evaluate this.
-From the Circularise blog page.
Under a broader "Green Deal" policy initiative, the European Commission has embraced an action plan which promotes more ecodesign principles in every sector. This plan will be closely monitored by all parties and, if successful, undoubtedly will be emulated in other parts of the world
More information:
Commission welcomes provisional agreement for more sustainable, repairable and circular products (European Commission)
Could Product Passports Revolutionize the Way We Shop? (BBC.com)
Circuralise - company blog page on digital product passports
Previous Zanepost article on the circular economy
Regarding RFID: it stands for radio-frequency identification. RFID uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects.
Wikipedia article on RFID.
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A Seattle drive-in tradition
In sorting through a few of my photographs the other day, I ran across this one. It’s from a memorable drive to Seattle that Patti and I made at the end of October, 2022. After a day visiting Whidbey Island and West Seattle, we stopped here, at Dick’s, a timeless favourite in the Emerald City. It’s located in the Wallingford neighbourhood. Founded in 1954, when fast food was in its infancy, this restaurant with no seating area was the first of what would become a chain of nine Dick’s Drive-Ins in the Seattle area.
Dick Spady was only 29 years old when he and two other partners opened this eatery with the idea of serving “fresh, high-quality food at low prices with instant service.” The three owners kept the menu very simple, just the American classics: burgers, fries, soda drinks, sundaes and shakes, all at affordable prices. Not much has changed since then. Currently hamburgers are $3.20, fries are $2.80 and old-fashioned shakes are $3.50. Quality and speed are still the hallmarks of the restaurant.
In a short amount of time, the popularity of Dick’s restaurants grew as friendly, casual places to meet friends, stop for a late-night snack after a show, or just admire cars in the parking lot.
Dick Spady explained on the company website that the success of his local restaurants did not tempt the partners to build a national franchise. “My partners and I were family men,” he wrote, “not travelling types. We were in this for the long haul, that’s for sure, but not as a franchise. We wanted to keep our growth within the Seattle area.”
Spady was the last of the trio. He died in 2016.
If you visit Seattle, consider making time for a step back in time at Dick’s.
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In closing this week, another page from my sketchpad.
If you know anyone who might be interested in what I write about, please send them a link. Referrals by existing readers is one of the best ways.
Thanks for reading.
-Renato Zane