User:Bikeadman/"One Less Car"

"One Less Car" is an expression used by bicycle advocates. It was created in 1981 or 1982 by a New York cyclist and ad writer who suffered the congestion, noise, and pollution of the city streets. He gave it to New York's preeminent (then) solely bicycle advocacy organization, Transportation Alternatives.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bikeadman/%22One_Less_Car%22 (TA has since added the plaints of pedestrians to its portfolio.) The expression found its way to the West Coast where it was used in a pro-bike demonstration in Davis, California. It has since been spread worldwide, in translation, by Carbusters.org, an international bicycle and sustainable transportation advocacy group headquartered in Prague.

Specialized, the bicycle/components/apparel manufacturer expropriated the expession for its own commercial use on a T-shirt. When told the expression had been given to a non-profit, bike advocacy organization, and it was suggested Specialized make some contribution to TA for it even though TA did not legally protect it, they contributed $25. A year or two later Pearl Izumi, a bicycle apparel manufacturer, used it on a T-shirt they sold. When asked to make a contribution to TA in consideration of their use of it for commercial gain, they declined to do so.

Baltimore's pro-bike organization (http://onelesscar.org/page.php?id=1) San Francisco's bicycle coalition, and a city initiative in Seattle (http://www.cityofseattle.net/waytogo/onelesscar.htm) and one at the University of Florida (http://www.sustainable.ufl.edu/onelesscar/) use the expression. It has appeared on a number of T-shirts by bike advocate organizations, an early one of which was a statewide one located in Jackson Hole, WY. There are companies in Chicago and London (http://1lesscarnews.blogspot.com/) that use the name. It can be seen in this anti-car video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQNluT7jWY0