COPENHAGEN!

We've all been hearing a lot lately about the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen but here's a short, informative video about Copenhagen's bike culture:



My favorite parts are the cyclist counter with weather info (how handy would that be?!) and LED lights for right-turn zones. Oh yes, and taking "another lane away from the cars" to add more bike lanes!

Some hope for my fellow Americans-- a bill was introduced in the House last week to create an Office of Livability in the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, which would focus on (among other things) increasing the "number of transportation options, including bicycling and walking, to improve access to housing, jobs, businesses, services, and social activities, particularly for low-income individuals and populations without access to a motor vehicle." Track this legislation here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-4287.

Complete Streets

It's always nice when you find out there's a name to go along with an idea you may have floated around in your head. You can support a name, slap a bumper sticker on your car, post support to the digital social networking outlet of your choice.

Complete Streets policies and initiatives seek to ensure that future road projects "consistently take into account the needs of all users of all ages and abilities, particularly pedestrians and bicyclists" (check out this 11/09 TRB report Dangerous by Design). I recently wrote about sharrows, which attempt to serve as a visual representation of the "share the road" idea. Complete Streets programs advocate for a more holistic thinking when designing new streets or retrofitting old ones. In the 20th century, we have seen a shift from Main Street to multi-lane state highways with large shopping centers, parking lots, and drive through food chains. While potentially more convenient, this environment is more hostile to the pedestrian.

The most common pedestrians are children and the elderly, given these two age-groups are most likely to be out of a car and on the street or sidewalk. Even new housing developments are designed with wide roads and narrow sidewalks. Check out Cedar Park, TX neighborhood I took a photo of for a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) course I took last year.

Growing up, I lived in a cul-de-sac of a pretty secure, quiet neighborhood in South Florida. I inherited my brother's 1985 Honda Prelude when I was just 16, which was a good thing considering the nearest bus stop to our house was about two miles away. This being the case, I am not surprised to see headlines like this one "Florida is the most deadly state for pedestrians."

According to Dangerous by Design, 400 people are struck and killed by cars each month and 76,000 pedestrians have been killed since 1994.

Is it that one in three Americans is overweight? I'm not sure of the statistic but it's safe to say that as a nation, we could use a good, long walk.

DC Metropolitan Branch Trail Adventure

The picture above is of my friend, Emily, on the Metropolitan Branch Trail in DC. This trail is not done all the way is some places so you really have to pay attention to where you are, look for signs, and try not to get too far off track. The portion above is near the  Rhode Island station on the red line. You can see the train tracks off to the left and the Capitol very faintly straight ahead. Shortly after I took this photo, the trail ended and we had to ride through a shopping center. This is when the adventure really started, as Emily fell off her bike because we rode over a metal grate not meant for skinny tires, recovered, and realized her front tire was flat. Since we were late, we opted to get on the Metro and head to Union Station, where we got off and she dropped her bike off to get realligned and get a new inner-tube put it (her hand pump wasn't doing the trick and we were having a hard time getting the tire off the rim). The Union Station Bike Center (which you see in the big picture up top) is really convenient for this sort of thing, reasonably priced, and the staff has been friendly and helpful when I've gone in.


Does anyone know anything about the history of that bike route? When is it going to be completely done (ie: when can I take it to connect to 4th street to get to work in the Navy Yard)? You can find general info about the route here: MBT.

Bicycling as a Legitimate Form of Transportation... and Sharrows!

Several times times this week, after I was given driving directions to places, I mentioned casually that I do not own a car. One response was "oh but once you are working a little longer and can afford a car..." 

NO NO NO that's not the point! While money is a significant part of the reason I chose to sell my car, it's not the only reason. I believe that my bicycle, Metropass, and Zipcar membership are enough means to support my transportation needs. I choose to put my money (and my sweet transit benefits) into these resources as opposed to using the same or additional resources to pay for and maintain a personal vehicle. 

I would like to use this blog to chip away at this question:

How does bicycling as a legitimate form of transportation fit into federal priorities?

Here is a list of Department of Transportation agencies. I found mention of bicycling in the Livable Communities Initiative of the Federal Transit Authority. Within the Bureau of Transportation Research, there was a report from 2000 that reported on the availability of bicycling-related data and needs. Overall, federal leadership is/ was promoting the idea of a multimodal transportation network that is seamlessly connected. This is most apparent in the President's Vision for High Speed Rail (April, 2009) however this set of issues has dropped off the federal radar in recent months given more immediately pressing priorities (health care mostly).

I plan to keep checking back on this issue... please let me know your thoughts and where you see bicycling fitting into your government- at the local, state, federal levels. 

For some some timely inspiration/motivation here's an article about "sharrows" in Austin. No, they're not rare Texan birds. They're 3x2 feet images of men on bikes on car/bike shared lanes. Austin was one of six cities to be chosen for the pilot program to see if riders/drivers understand the image. The title says it all for me! Read more here: SHARROWS!. 


 

Civic Engagement and the Pursuit of Justice

I just watched a movie that's been in my Netflix queue for quite some time. The Garden reminded me of the power we, as citizens, have to exercise our right to pursue justice. The story there is a simple one. In the post-Rodney King nineties, the City of Los Angeles turned a piece of land originally acquired through eminent domain for $5 million for use as a trash incinerator site, into a 14-acre community garden. For over a decade over 400 families built up the soil and farmed the land. Then the City sold it back to the original owner for the price he was paid over a decade earlier. After over an hour of the film's ups and downs, I was hoping that $16 million the group raised, and the major celebrities/ media attracted to the site (Willie Nelson, Danny Glover, and Daryl Hannah) was enough to convince him to sell it back to the gardeners. Alas it was not and I wonder how that guy sleeps at night.

While those acres were taken away- the South Central Farmers live on... selling produce from their garden (outside of the City and much larger) at LA farmers' markets and through their CSA and continuing efforts to revive the still vacant plot to its former lush state. They were also given another plot in a different part of the City. All in all they got their message across loud and clear, were mostly peaceful, and through their struggle are probably united more firmly as a group. It's true - we can always plant again.

Here's an appropriate song that I like: mirah - the garden.

Stop Drinking Bottled Water and Learn to Love the Tap

I just read a good little blurb about why we should all stop buying bottled water on Food and Water Watch and it reminded me of a couple of movies I saw a while back on the same topic. Below are my top three reasons to stop drinking bottled water and learn to love the tap.

1. Economics: The EPA estimates that "the American household spends, on average, only $523 per year on water and wastewater charges, in contrast to an average of $707 per year on carbonated soft drinks and other noncarbonated refreshment beverages." We are already paying for what's coming out of the tap.
2. Environmental: Yes plastic bottles are recyclable in many communities, but how much energy does it take to recycle? How many times have you thrown a recyclable bottle in the trash because there wasn't a recycle bin around?And why recycle when you can buy a bottle, fill it up, wash it, and reuse it for years and years? The last bottle I had for about 6 months. It cost me $21 from REI and I refilled it multiple times daily. Refilling that bottle gave me an excuse to get out of my cubicle, stretch my legs, and chat with co-workers at the water fountain.
   
3. Community Justice: Yes, I said it! According to a May 2008 Huffington Post article, "in the state of Maine; in 2006, Nestlé sold $843 million worth of Maine's water under its Poland Springs label." The article questions whether such a massive drainage of municipal water supply leaves enough water to supply Maine residents. Further, as consumers, how do we feel paying a fee to drink some other city's tap water transported aross the country in plastic bottles? Personally, that makes me feel like a chump.

Movies I recommend on the subject: Flow and Liquid Assets. I believe we vote not only at the polls but also with our dollars. So vote for the tap - stop drinking bottled water!

Craziest Bike Story

Apparently the bike gods are looking down on me.

Today, as I was wrapping up all the odds and ends in Austin before I leave on Friday, I walked to the bus stop on 34th and Guadalupe to catch the #1 to South Congress to close my Austin CarShare account. After standing in the heat for a few minutes, I boarded the bus and looked at the bike loaded on the front rack. Out of my surprise I took a long look and decided it was my bike- same leopard-print seat, same rack, pouch, single sun-bleached bungy chord. He must have stolen it from my apartment a few blocks away and boarded at 35th, the stop before where I got on. I told the bus driver and she asked if I wanted to call the police. She did and we pulled over at 30th and waited with the back-door closed. As I was staring in disbelief, a man ran past us to the front-door and grabbed the bike. I jumped off and said "that's my bike!" to which he responded "no it's not" and rode off in a hurry (because it was my bike and he was stealing it). That was all it took and I took off running to catch him, screaming louder than I thought possible (and with more profanity than I thought I knew). Another guy, my new friend, ran to catch him and threw his water bottle at him but the bike-thief was going so fast.

My new friend and I walked back to the bus. A guy on a BMX bike stopped and asked what happened. He said he'd keep an eye out. A guy in a car pulled up and asked what happened. We made it back to the bus and everyone got off to catch the next one. One guy said to me "I have an extra bike if you need it." I told him I had another one I could use. My friend and another couple of guys stayed on the bus. The two other guys said they "wanted to see what happened." Finally everyone got off and the police came. The next part is the most shocking.

They caught him! Apparently we make quite the spectacle and other people called in and the police took off on foot to catch the guy on 38th and Lamar. In the span of just a few minutes this guy crossed a huge intersection and headed for the woods. The police drove me to where the bike was and I identified the bike-thief. We loaded the bike in the car and the police drove me home, where I safely stored it in my apartment.

What gets me about this story? I asked the police what would happen to him and he said because the bike was only worth $200 it would be a Class B misdemeanor but because he also ran away from them there would be another charge of a Class A misdemeanor. In addition, he was in violation of his parole for burglary so he would likely serve additional time for that. Clearly, this guy, who was very skinny and sun-burnt, has issues. Earlier in the day I gave a young woman a quarter at the bus stop for bus fare. I gave her a break, not knowing if she deserved it or not. Had this guy ever been given a break? What sort of environment is he a product of that he would be so brazen, make so many mistakes so many times? Would a little compassion do him any good or is he just a "bad" seed? I also question how everything aligned in such a way that these events transpired the way they did. I could have just as easily been in my apartment and would not have noticed for hours.

Lord, I don't know. But I have to think that this is a reminder to me that the world is not so warm and fuzzy as I sometimes like to think. I am moving to Washington DC and I will be buying a U-lock for both my bikes.