The New York Times ran an article over the weekend on New York DOT's plan to road diet Ninth Avenue. A road diet is when transportation officials redesign an existing street by shrinking the number of auto lanes, making room for bicycle and other alt-transit lanes. The idea is that officials can insert new bike lanes without needing to widen a road -- a practice useful in areas where roads cannot be widened.
Locally, Durham used the road diet technique on Duke University Dr. to create its new bike lane. (seen at right)
What's unusual about in this New York example is that it's what you might call an extreme road diet. From a 70ft-wide street, 18ft are being repurposed. 10ft adjacent to the sidewalk will become a new, broad bike lane. Then, an 8ft buffer zone with planters and bollards will separate the bike lane from a 10ft parking lane. The result is that cyclists will enjoy complete separation from the swift current of automobile traffic flowing down Ninth Ave.
How bikes will negotiate intersections is my only question, but I am assuming that the bike lane will be signaled just as the auto-traffic lanes. It's an interesting idea and one that works in Europe. We'll see how well it works in NYC. While we don't really have streets in Durham wide enough to justify this kind of intervention, I am eager to see how New Yorkers (particularly the folks from Transportation Alternatives) respond to the new lane design.
A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: September 23, 2007
Cyclists and pedestrians never quite imagined it this way, but maybe there is a use for all those cars after all. The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future.
Join fellow Duke students, faculty and staff for the grand opening of the new Duke Bikes program this Thursday, August 30th, 4pm on the West Campus Plaza. Snacks, free Duke Bikes t-shirts and other prizes will be given away to the first 100 visitors.
Duke Bikes is a new bike-loan program for Duke undergraduate, graduate and professional students. This collaborate effort provides students with no-cost options for exercise, adventure and campus commuting. It is a tangible example of several of Duke's efforts to enhance the student experience and promote sustainability.
Duke Bikes works much like checking out a library book. All you need is your DukeCard. The loan period is up to five days, and the bike fleet includes 1-speed and 3-speed Trek Cruisers, equipped with locks, lights, flashers and baskets. Helmets are available, too.
Tavey McDaniel Capps
Environmental Sustainability Coordinator
Office of the Executive Vice President
Duke University tavey.mcdaniel@duke.edu
919-660-1434
Carolina
Blue Urban Bikes (from the SURGE website) Thursday, 05 April 2007
Blue Urban Bikes is a community bike-loan project serving the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro community and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The mission of Blue Urban Bikes is to provide a reliable, clean, and affordable mode of transportation for our community amidst rising gas prices and growing concerns over global warming.
Background
Blue Urban Bikes ( or “BUB”), a community bicycle loan program, was created through a partnership of the ReCYCLEry and SURGE – Students United for a Responsible Global Environment – after several meetings with local community leaders in 2005 gave rise to the idea. This program is designed to provide a reliable source of clean and affordable sustainable transportation to Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents and visitors, as well as offer a healthy travel alternative and allow citizens to take an active role in lessening the environmental footprint of our community. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are renowned for their bicycle-friendly status, and bicycling proves to be an ideal form of transportation for many community members. Considering the time it often takes to find a parking space, riding a bike simply takes less time and leaves the rider feeling strong, able and healthy. Potential BUB users include Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents, UNC students and staff, commuters, transit and park & ride users, area tourists and visitors, recreational weekend users, and potential new bicycle commuters.
BUB Hub Locations
The BUB program goal is to site “BUB Hubs”, check-out stations for the Blue Urban Bikes, at local businesses throughout Carrboro and Chapel Hill and on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. Each BUB Hub will accommodate 5 bikes, or “BUBs.” Bike racks, provided through the BUB program, will be installed at hub locations to secure the BUBs when not in use (each locked to the rack with its own cable lock). The program goal is to locate BUB Hubs along the Franklin Street/Main Street corridor from East Chapel Hill to the western edge of Carrboro, as well as to place some north/south hub locations for member convenience. The Blue Urban Bikes program is seeking partnerships with local businesses for hub locations; the following sites have already been confirmed:
* Skylight Exchange – 405 ½ W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill
* 3Cups Coffeeshop – 431 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill
* Townsend & Bertram - 200 N Greensboro St, Carrboro (in Carr Mill Mall)
* Back Alley Bikes - 108 N Graham St, Chapel Hill (behind the Merch)
* Owens 501 Diner - 1500 N Fordham Blvd, Chapel Hill (near Eastgate Shopping Center)
Paris recently launched its own collective bikes program -- one of the most ambitious programs to date. More than 10,000 bikes became available in July, with more than 20,000 slated to be available by the end of the year. You can read more about it here or watch the video below to see some folks take the Parisian velos for a test ride.
In solidarity with the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, or APPO, I want to bring attention to their plight in Oaxaca. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this Guardian article is a decent place to start.
While I was there, it looked nothing like the scenes depicted in the above news photographs. It's a beautiful colonial town in the southern Sierra Madres. If the APPO is right, then the current government of the state of Oaxaca is out of touch with the needs of its citizens. The governor, Ulises Ruiz, is another example of a democratically elected leader (well, ostensibly elected) who, once in office, distances himself from the average person whom he is supposed to represent and instead snuggles up to business interests.
The current conflict all started this summer when Ruiz did not respond favorably to an annual teacher strike. Teachers demonstrated for a pay increase, Ruiz sent in the police to break up the protest, and word got around that Ruiz thought he could brush the teachers aside so easily. The Zocalo and Alameda de Leon, two adjacent central plazas in Oaxaca, have since been the center of Mexico's protest politics, where people are demanding a government accountable to the people.
Brad Will was killed on October 27, 2006, in Oaxaca, Mexico, while working as a journalist for the global Indymedia network. He was shot in the torso while documenting an armed, paramilitary assault on the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, a fusion of striking local teachers and other community organizations demanding democracy in Mexico.
All we want in compensation for his death is the only thing Brad ever wanted to see in this world: justice.
* We, along with all of Brad's friends, reject the use of further state-sponsored violence in Oaxaca.
* The New York City Independent Media Center supports the demand of Reporters Without Borders for a full and complete investigation by Mexican authorities into Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz's continued use of plain-clothed municipal police as a political paramilitary force. The arrest of his assailants is not enough.
* The NYC IMC also supports the call of Zapatista Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos "to compañeros and compañeras in other countries to unite and to demand justice for this dead compañero." Marcos issued this call "especially to all of the alternative media, and free media here in Mexico and in all the world."
(1) An end to the Federal Police invasion of Oaxaca. Express your support for the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).
(2) A full and complete investigation by Mexican authorities into Oaxaca State Governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz's continued use of plain-clothed municipal police as a political paramilitary force.
I'll share a few pics from a gorgeous spring weekend backpacking Linville Gorge. We went ahead with the planned trip despite a predicted 90% chance of rain, and we really couldn't have asked for better weather. Other than a brief (but intense) thunderstorm at 4AM Friday night and some drizzle on Saturday, the rain held off. The cold front that pushed the rain on by brought some colder temperatures for Saturday night and Sunday.
Hawksbill, as seen from Babel Towers.
Classic Linville Gorge -- the boulders below are bigger than Chevy Tahoes. And cooler too.
In 2000, Linville Gorge suffered a pretty extensive forest fire, the remainder of which is still obvious. Much of the steepest parts of the western rim were affected. Approximately 5,500 (of the Gorge's total 12,000) acres burned. The fire cleared out both the underbrush and many of the taller trees. As the affected plants' and trees' root systems died and loosened the soil, there's also been a lot of erosion.
My brother Andrew is spending this year in Argentina working as a Young Adult Volunteer with the Presbyterian Church. His placement is in a homeless shelter for boys, El Hogar La Casita, in greater Buenos Aires.
Andrew has more than a big heart... he also has a talent for writing. A few of his thoughts on where he is -- After dinner tonight, I went with the older boys to collect old bread from the local bread shops. They lumber down the street as only teenage boys lumber, like a graceful stumble that says, I'm too cool to look like I'm actually trying to walk. The boys whistle at girls. Por favor, [expletive deleted]. They bum cigarettes from the people on the main drag. One picks through the trash looking for anything of use. One leans close to my ear and says, After tonight, you won't eat the bread at the Hogar. Some bread shops give us a lot, one gives us none. We finish and I head home for the night.
You can read more of his insights (and find information on how to support him) on his website, AndrewinArgentina.blogspot.com.
Andrew's being there is a good reason to visit Argentina. So, over his January summer vacation, my folks and I flew down to visit.
From Atlanta to Buenos Aires is a 10 hour, overnight flight. Jack Daniels and Miles Davis help the night go by faster. Three hours into the flight, I could see the lights of Cuba below. It's puzzling to think that 35,000 ft above the ground may be as close as I'll ever get to Cuba. For most of the flight, we flew at 37,000ft (a Boeing 767) with 39,000ft the highest point of the trip -- over Paraguay. At that altitude, the temperature outside the cabin was -68 degrees Fahrenheit. I thought skiing in Quebec was cold.
We crossed the Equator (to no fanfare or even notice) sometime between 2 and 3AM Argentina time. The sun rose while we were over Bolivia.
Buenos Aires, the Paris of the southern hemisphere, is a cosmopolitan city like I never knew existed in South America. Truly defined by its eclectic European influences, life in the porteo city is a beautiful collection of French architecture and wide boulevards, Italian street caf culture, German beer, and the Spanish language.
And as usual, traveling gave me the opportunity to take pictures of (and ride) some bicycles.
La Bicicleta Naranja, a bike rental place in barrio San Telmo, provides great bicycle maps of Buenos Aires. They rent bikes for 6 pesos (about 2 dollars) an hour.
La ciclista, by Oscar Manuel Domnguez. A painting in el Museo Bellas Artes.
I will be writing more about Buenos Aires later, but for now, enjoy the rest of the pictures.
New Year's weekend in St. Adele, Quebec is cold. Just plain old cold. The slopes at Ski Chantecler were covered in a fine ice unlike anything I've skied on before.
At night, the temperature at the bottom of the slopes was 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The windchill at the top was in the negative teens. First your face burns from the cold; then your finger tips throb, then you realize you can't feel your toes. And if you haven't gone inside yet, you get to a point where you know you're not going to get any colder or any more numb. The days weren't a whole lot warmer.
It took two days for feeling to fully return to my toes.
I hear Mt. Tremblant (a half-hour's drive northwest of St. Adele) has some great mountain biking in the summer. I thought about biking, but without skis to attached to the wheels or studded tires there wouldn't be any point. I couldn't come up with either.
One of the things I love about bicycles is their near universal use in transportation. Bikes are available in just about every country, they are used by people of all income levels, and they take on a variety of shapes, designs, and purposes.
Sure, there are some brand names of bikes and components that are sold here in the U.S. and are not readily available in other places. And when I've traveled to other countries, I've come across brand names I don't recognize. But the bicycle itself is a constant around the world.
(Oxford, England -- My mom studied at Oxford last summer. Just outside her college was this endless line of bikes leaning against the wall.)
(Puerto Escondido, Mexico -- Vendors use these three-wheeled pedal-carts to sell everything from snacks to souvenirs, from ice to fresh fish, from T-shirts to jewelry.)
(Durham, North Carolina -- A 1970s Fuji leans against the mural outside the historic Durham Bulls ballpark.)
(Cape Coast, Ghana -- Mark, pictured here in his school uniform, shares my love of bicycles. He insisted that I take his picture while he was pedaling.)
I don't very often have consecutive days of absolutely no obligations, so months ago I committed to spend four days in July on some classic Southeastern singletrack. My plan was to drop off a friend in Atlanta, then meander my way back to Durham.
In the days leading up to the trip, Hurricane Dennis was bearing down on the Gulf of Mexico. About the time I left Atlanta, Dennis hit the panhandle of Florida, heading due north. I knew I had to be flexible, so I was prepared to check out trails in northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina. I planned to outrun the rain and bike where I could.
Column: Cycling through Mexican streets is enjoyable
Phillip Barron The Herald Sun
August 11th, 2005
OAXACA, MEXICO -- After asking at a taller de bicicletas (a bike shop)
whether I could rent a bike, a mecanico leads me across the street to Pedro
Martinez. Sr. Martinez is a former Olympic mountain biker who rents bikes
and leads tours in Oaxaca, Mexico.
(Bicicletas Pedro Martinez)
His office is small, just big enough for a counter, ten
bikes to hang tightly against the wall, and shelves for helmets and cycling
shoes. A collection of cycling jerseys hangs overhead, and inside the glass
case that forms the counter are cassettes, pedals, hubs, and derailleurs.
What available wall space is left is covered in poster-sized photographs
of Martinez himself competing in races.
While Sr. Martinez is busy
arranging a hiking tour with customers, his nephew Roberto invites me
in. In the best Spanish I can muster, we joke about the pain of a long
climb, about reaching down to click into the next easiest gear only to
realize that you're already in it, and about the white-knuckles and big
eyes of a sketchy descent. He tells me there is a 50 mile endurance mountain
bike race on Sunday and invites me to race on a rented bike. I'm tempted
but decline in favor of a ride through the streets of Oaxaca.
Sunday
morning, I arrange to take a bike for two hours and ask about the local
mountain bike scene. Roberto charges me 50 pesos (about $5.00) for
a nice bike (a Giant Rincon), a pump and spare tube, tire levers, a
lock, and a helmet.
(Rincon in the Zócalo)
Leaving the shop, I ride down
la calle Aldama and turn south on JP Garcia. Although the sidewalks are
crowded, traffic flows swiftly in the streets. Oaxaca is, like most developed
areas, an auto-centric place. But bicycles fit right in with traffic
here, and I never feel threatened by the buses, trucks, and taxis swirling
around me. In fact, as I get more comfortable with the new traffic patterns,
I realize that drivers around me seem to be more aware and respectful
of bicyclists than I am used to.
(I snapped this one the day before)
I decide to ride the road
up Monte Alban, a tight, steep road that leads to Zapotec ruins dating
back to 100 AD. It's a grueling climb, but the views alone from the roadside
make it worthwhile. Halfway up the road, I can see all of Oaxaca to the
east. I snap a photograph in my mind and turn around.
Next I head
north, riding the narrow one-way streets up to Chapultepec Highway.
Although
I see a few cyclists riding traditional road bikes, because of numerous
speedbumps and the occasional cobblestone street, mountain bikes are
the steeds of choice.
(typical narrow street, facing north)
(Iglesia de Santo Domingo)
I
reach the northern end of the city passing la Iglesia de Santo Domingo,
a cathedral built
between 1570 and 1608. Santo Domingo sits squarely inside the art
district of
Oaxaca, and I pass several cafés catering to gallery patrons.
(art district, facing south)
My two hours
are coming to an end, so I turn back and begin riding southwest. On a
bike, it's easy to navigate a city laid out in perfect square blocks,
and I make my way to the Zócalo and the adjacent Alameda de León.
The Zócalo
and Alameda de León are wide, auto-free pedestrian plazas where
kids chase balloons, artists sell crafts, and musicians entertain day
and night. I ride slowly through the crowds and notice several other
cyclists also converging on the parks. These plazas are both the geographic
and cultural focus of the city, drawing people to it. I feel as though
I'm traveling against the natural flow of traffic as I leave the Zócalo
and head south again for Aldama.
(Zócalo and sculpture in the
background)
(creativity on the Alameda de León)
Roberto welcomes
me back into the shade of the office and asks where I've ridden. I
tell him that I now believe that a bicycle is the only way to see Oaxaca,
and he agrees.
Out of curiosity, I ask whether he rents
any single-speed mountain bikes. He laughs at the idea of riding a
bike with only one gear in the mountains. I guess he needs to visit
North Carolina.
See the rest of my pictures from Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido here.
talleres de bicicletas de Oaxaca (bike shops of Oaxaca)
Bicimundo -- on calle Aladama, I bought some bright blue fixed-gear hubs here. The west end of calle Aldama seems to be the focus of the biking community.
Pedro Martinez -- Pedro, a mountain biker who once rode for the Mexican Olympic team, rents bikes and guides tours in the mountains around Oaxaca. His shop is tucked inside an alley off Aldama.
Bicirama -- a workshop across the street. When I asked inside whether I could rent a bike, a mechanic showed me the way down the alley to Pedro's.
Bicicletas de Zulemar -- in the Central de Abastos, a market on the west end of town.
Taller de Bicicletas "Cruz, Jr." -- behind the Hotel Rivera de Angel, where you can catch a bus to the ruins of an ancient Zapotec city.
(circa September 1997) The first time my plane touched the ground in Africa was in a city called
Kano. Kano is in the heart of Nigeria, and consistent with what I expected,
the military met the plane on the runway.
I wasn't prepared for the military to board the plane, however. "A routine
inspection," we were told. "We're just looking for anyone trying to enter
Nigeria illegally."
I silently wondered why anyone would want to enter Nigeria illegally.
Leave, I might understand, given the financial and ecological
devastation that General Sani Abacha had wreaked on the country.
The expressed concern over immigration was a ruse,
which became obvious once the soldiers began walking the aisles of
the plane. A business man who had traveled this route many times before
was sitting next to me. He told me to place anything of value out of sight
before the soldiers reached our row of seats. When the soldiers neared
our row, I learned why. I could overhear the soldiers asking unsuspecting
people, "is that for me?", referring to headphones, nice watches, and cameras.
For the most part, they seemed interested in electronic devices. Once each
had a "gift" from a traveler, they left the cabin, and the military told
the pilot that we could move on.
As the plane taxied to the end of the runway, we moved past
a graveyard... only this was a graveyard for broken and decaying planes.
There was one
that looked almost whole; it seemed to be missing only a front wheel. The
whole plane leaned forward, giving the discomforting look of a rough landing.When
you're preparing to take off, that's not exactly what you want to see.
At the end of the taxi lane, when making that sharp turn
to enter the runway, I could see from my window a man harvesting something.
I thought he might simply be cutting field grass, but the business man
sitting next to me told me that the man was actually farming. Since the
Kano International Airport is all that many people ever see of Nigeria,
the local government thought it would be a good idea to show travelers
the products of rich Nigerian soil... never mind the bath of jet fuels
leaching into the rows of wheat. I just hope that no one ever ingests whatever
crops are grown here.
Before I put my camera away once we were back in the air, I turned to
get one last look at Kano.
Storm in the mountains. It announces itself from miles away, rolling, incoming. Floats just over the mountain next to my camp, crashing into its bald rock face. I see the rain from here, see its thick screen turn everything behind it gray. It sounds like it's coming this way, dark clouds are overhead, and cool air is blowing, dropping the temperature rapidly. It begins to sprinkle. I quickly finish dinner, clean my bowl, hang the food bags, rinse the dinner pots, sprint for the tent, and am settled inside just as it begins to... sprinkle a little more. Then it stops. I wait a few minutes, open the tent, and return to my post on the crag. I see that the storm is already a mile or so away. It blew around my mountain. I see that the storm leaves behind pieces of itself smaller wisps of white clouds are left in the valleys. They're too young to climb the slopes, so they're left to fend for themselves in between the mountains. They too gradually blow away, but not over the mountain... into it I guess.
NYTimes: A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes
Locally, Durham used the road diet technique on Duke University Dr. to create its new bike lane. (seen at right)
More Info
BUB Hub Locations
