Monday, June 02, 2008
Berlin - where proximity fits bicycle culture
Imagine calling a friend in a city of 5 million people and they say, "I am at work and have bicycle. I will meet you for dinner in your neighborhood."
Everywhere you go bicycle lanes are filled with people of ages and all kinds of bicycles traveling at a broad range of speed, everyone less than 20mph. Shops and gathering spots for food & drink are no more than a few 100 meters apart
That's the capital of Germany. When I ran across this post quoting Paul Krugman (NYT) on the Carfree USA Blog comparing Atlanta and Berlin, I was reminded of the great people friendly qualities of this large German capital. As the Krugman quote says,
Cars are like cancer once they move into the vital arteries of a city, take over and kill its ability to serve the needs of the organisms that it was designed to serve in the first place. The big difference is Berlin is a modern city and Atlanta is well, hooked on phony logic, just like most US cities who were deluded into believing "cheap oil meant community doesn't matter."
Think about that, 5M people, going to work on a bicycle. That implies a great deal about how a city manages its people moving responsibilities. I don't know what Atlanta might be doing but the Twin Cites of Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota have made some great strides in the past few years. The Transit for Liveable Communities is the kind of comprehensive set of alternatives to driving that is needed to counteract the diabolical ills of an automobile culture: 3 acre lots, McMansions, SUVs. entertainment news, obesity, strip malls, 2 hour commutes, need we go on?
We visited many carfree areas in European cities and as we traveled through rural Germany by train, everywhere we looked there were people on bicycles riding down country lanes or stopped at places along the trails and paths to enjoy the outdoors.
What a reminder of how so many of us have lost the capacity to enjoy what we have in our own local areas. In a word, proximity.
Proximity is what makes where you live special. What is it that you don't yet know about your place? When we value where we live, we make it better. The slower we go the better it gets. The better it gets, the more we want to make it a better place to live and discover new ways to enjoy what it has to offer.
That is how we discovered birds. Click here and look at the posts below to see what I mean.
Everywhere you go bicycle lanes are filled with people of ages and all kinds of bicycles traveling at a broad range of speed, everyone less than 20mph. Shops and gathering spots for food & drink are no more than a few 100 meters apart
That's the capital of Germany. When I ran across this post quoting Paul Krugman (NYT) on the Carfree USA Blog comparing Atlanta and Berlin, I was reminded of the great people friendly qualities of this large German capital. As the Krugman quote says,
Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.
Cars are like cancer once they move into the vital arteries of a city, take over and kill its ability to serve the needs of the organisms that it was designed to serve in the first place. The big difference is Berlin is a modern city and Atlanta is well, hooked on phony logic, just like most US cities who were deluded into believing "cheap oil meant community doesn't matter."
Think about that, 5M people, going to work on a bicycle. That implies a great deal about how a city manages its people moving responsibilities. I don't know what Atlanta might be doing but the Twin Cites of Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota have made some great strides in the past few years. The Transit for Liveable Communities is the kind of comprehensive set of alternatives to driving that is needed to counteract the diabolical ills of an automobile culture: 3 acre lots, McMansions, SUVs. entertainment news, obesity, strip malls, 2 hour commutes, need we go on?
We visited many carfree areas in European cities and as we traveled through rural Germany by train, everywhere we looked there were people on bicycles riding down country lanes or stopped at places along the trails and paths to enjoy the outdoors.
What a reminder of how so many of us have lost the capacity to enjoy what we have in our own local areas. In a word, proximity.
Proximity is what makes where you live special. What is it that you don't yet know about your place? When we value where we live, we make it better. The slower we go the better it gets. The better it gets, the more we want to make it a better place to live and discover new ways to enjoy what it has to offer.
That is how we discovered birds. Click here and look at the posts below to see what I mean.
Labels: alternatives, bicycle, birds, travel
Friday, May 23, 2008
A Life Worth Living
My travel goes beyond business & pleasure
Oh sure I do both when I am in Europe. I am a poet and direct experience is the key to authentic expression, but partaking in the street scenes of the European city is a real part my life. I don't go there to get away from the prairie but to compliment the rich experience of this North American rural setting. European cities are much more to my liking than the sprawling megalopolises that US cities have become.
Use a bike to get around Chicago. Great idea if you are already on Lake Shore Drive but the buses, trams and trains hardly offer the kind of mobility that Berlin does, and Chicago is an exception at that. Davis CA? Hardly a large city. Portland? I love it, but most people still find cars essential for everyday life.
Restuarants that have people sitting outside when it's 52 degrees and slowly sipping a 3oz coffee while watching life in the street and chatting with me in their 3rd language (English) after it is obvious my pidgin is not up to the task. At 21:00 (9:00 pm) in downtown USA, wherever, forget it.
One example of the street life is checking people riding Velib bicycles that are found all over the city of Paris, not just Paris they are in many of the cities. They ride for free or a nominal cost and drop off at some other station near their destination. Let's see it took 20 minutes to go from Shakespeare's Bookstore right across from Notre Dame Cathedral to the Eiffel Tower. What a nice complement to watching migrating shore birds in a flooded soybean field in the Big Sioux River Valley that less than 2 miles on a bicycle from my front door.
It makes me want to push harder for Safe Routes to School so my grandchildren can do it here in he USA without the carbon emissions of international air travel.
Labels: bicycle, Paris, prairie, SLOW_bicycling, travel
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Encouraging Bicycling - Transportation
Sierra Club
Encouraging Bicycling - Transportation - Sierra Club: "Stop Sprawl En espa�ol
Encouraging Bicycling
John Pucher, Charles Komanoff, and Paul Schimek, in their article, 'Bicycling Renaissance in North America: Recent Trends and Alternative Policies to Promote Bicycling,' (Transportation Research A, Vol. 33, Nos. 7/8, September/November 1999, pp. 625-654) provide a great review of bicycle use, safety, roadway design, the influence of ISTEA and TEA21, and through case studies of six U.S. and one Canadian city, factors affecting cycling and provide steps to encourage cycling."
Active Transportation
This section is designed to provide tips, link to resources and recommend helpful gear for enjoying your active trip, no matter what the conditions. Many of these "barriers" are really easy to accommodate and just require a little planning ahead.
Federal Highway Administration University Course
on Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation
Encouraging Bicycling - Transportation - Sierra Club: "Stop Sprawl En espa�ol
Encouraging Bicycling
John Pucher, Charles Komanoff, and Paul Schimek, in their article, 'Bicycling Renaissance in North America: Recent Trends and Alternative Policies to Promote Bicycling,' (Transportation Research A, Vol. 33, Nos. 7/8, September/November 1999, pp. 625-654) provide a great review of bicycle use, safety, roadway design, the influence of ISTEA and TEA21, and through case studies of six U.S. and one Canadian city, factors affecting cycling and provide steps to encourage cycling."
Active Transportation
This section is designed to provide tips, link to resources and recommend helpful gear for enjoying your active trip, no matter what the conditions. Many of these "barriers" are really easy to accommodate and just require a little planning ahead.
Federal Highway Administration University Course
on Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation
Labels: bicycle, SLOW_bicycling, transportation, travel
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
El Paso Times - Professor explores 'Latino-ization' on bicycle
El Paso Times - Professor explores 'Latino-ization' on bicycle:
"Louis Mendoza, the chair of the department of Chicano studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, set out for a bicycle tour of the country in July, starting out of Santa Cruz, Calif., and going clockwise. He arrived in El Paso on Thanksgiving and left this morning. His goal is to gauge people's perspectives on what he calls the 'Latino-ization' of the United States. Just a month short of the end of his trip, Mendoza said that what struck him was th"
"Louis Mendoza, the chair of the department of Chicano studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, set out for a bicycle tour of the country in July, starting out of Santa Cruz, Calif., and going clockwise. He arrived in El Paso on Thanksgiving and left this morning. His goal is to gauge people's perspectives on what he calls the 'Latino-ization' of the United States. Just a month short of the end of his trip, Mendoza said that what struck him was th"
Labels: bicycle, El Paso, travel, Twin Cities
Friday, November 09, 2007
Biking: become intimate with a city
"Biking is a great way to become intimate with a city and get excercise at the same time. There are many amazing cities for biking throughout the world - these gems allow you to explore the city at ease and safely. The 11 most accessible and bike friendly cities are listed below, but these are merely a sampling of the bike friendly paradises that exist throughout the world. (Please scroll to the end of the article for a look at the factors that went into determining this list.)"
Labels: bicycle, Bicycle Tourist Loop, RIDE SLOWLY, travel
Friday, November 02, 2007
Responsible Travel, Tourism, Cultural Programs, Improving International Understanding
Responsible Travel, Tourism, Cultural Programs, Improving International Understanding:
"'The triple bottom line of responsible tourism is 3 E’s: environmental sustainability, engaging in the local economic, and enriching your life from the culture. Actually, it is about the same for all life.' David Mozer"
From Tourism, Eco-Tourism And Bicycle Tourism
"Activists who are interesting in changing tourism must first work to reshape the values -- from quantitative to qualitative -- that people use to measure their holidays.
"'The triple bottom line of responsible tourism is 3 E’s: environmental sustainability, engaging in the local economic, and enriching your life from the culture. Actually, it is about the same for all life.' David Mozer"
From Tourism, Eco-Tourism And Bicycle Tourism
"Activists who are interesting in changing tourism must first work to reshape the values -- from quantitative to qualitative -- that people use to measure their holidays.
Labels: bicycle, RIDE SLOWLY, sustainability, travel
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Escape from High-impact Travel
Carbusters Magazine - Magazine Issue 30:
"You are a traveler; those other schmucks are tourists. You and I know the difference. But guess what, all that travel has its costs. How do we reconcile our higher ideals with the reality that one airline trip equals a year of driving? It's a tough question and one which we address in this issue."
Labels: bicycle, carbon, change, climate, travel
Monday, October 22, 2007
Minneapolis Videos on Trip advisor
Minneapolis Minneapolis Bicycling
Gives a bit of an idea of the isolation from traffic.
Uptown Minneapolis
Pretty good videography. I got a kick at how the young people are so full of themselves. Oh to be young and naive again!
Minneapolis Parks and Falls - great spots to visit on a bicycle any time of year.
Labels: arts, bicycle, Bicycle Tourist Loop, travel, Twin Cities
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Bed and Breakfast Inns Press Releases from BedandBreakast.com
Bed and Breakfast Inns Press Releases from BedandBreakast.com: "PLANES, TRAINS BUT NO AUTOMOBILES - CAR-FREE MEANS CAREFREE
BedandBreakfast.com says don't be careless, go car-less this summer"
SLOW - not just for food anymore!
BedandBreakfast.com says don't be careless, go car-less this summer"
Labels: bicycle, slow movement, travel
