Textiles and Bicycles

For all my New York City friends and those that may be visiting the city in August here is some great news from the Gotham Gazette:

Car-Free Summer Streets
On three Saturdays in August, the city will create a car-free zone stretching 6.9 miles from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72nd Street on the Upper East Side. Motor vehicles will be banned along much of Lafayette Street and Park Avenue from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on August 9, 16, and 23. Fitness classes, bike rental and repair, and outdoor meeting places will be set up along the route. Download a map of the route (in pdf format).

The idea of a car-free city used to be my dream…and then somewhere along the lines that idea got lost, maybe some cynical practicality seeped in. But recently the idea returned to where it belonged, at the forefront of my urban dreams. I was biking home, dodging cars and death, and it dawned on me: DC should just be car-free! Everyone can park in garages outside of the city and then take trains or buses in. The city could be one of pedestrians, cyclists, streetcars, and other short distance circulatory mass transit. I know this is unlikely to say the least, but steps could be taken to get us in that direction by cutting driving within the city. For instance, I’ve heard something about turning Bedford Ave in Brooklyn into a pedestrian street with some green space in the center. There may not be any truth to that but it’s definitely an attractive idea.

In any case the step that NYC is taking to promote car-free streets is fantastic, even if it’s just for a short time.

The knitted bicycle.

Or this crocheted bicycle that I found on flickr from user jackrabbit.etsy.com:

It’s seems to be the true intersection of textiles and bicycles I’ve been searching for.

Actually May is for bicycle. It’s National Bicycle Month.

The League of American Bicyclists has a great “50 ways to celebrate bike month” (pdf). My favorite is “wear spandex to your next board meeting”. I personally think board meetings should be like costume parties…but I guess the type As wouldn’t be so into that.

So with rising gas prices and a generally stagnating economy, bicycles have really been making it into the news lately and I thought I would share some of what I’ve been reading every once in a while.

The Chicago Sun Times has a great article about saving money with bicycles, highlighting one man that traded in the second car for a collection of old bikes that he’s fixed up — none of which were acquired for more than $10.

“My wife gets frustrated,” he said. “She’d rather have a second car. But the kids seamlessly just kind of bought into this lifestyle because that’s how we go to the park, to the Beverly Arts Center for classes like violin classes, to the local grocery store to pick up things. That’s how we go to the pool all summer, and so for them, it’s just a lifestyle that they kind of were just swept into.”

Raising your kids this way is possibly the best way to ensure we get that “lifestyle change” that is so essential to combat global warming. It may be hard to get to the baby boomers, but the new kids (including my own generation) are still malleable enough to convince of the responsibility and myriad benefits that come with a “low-carbon” lifestyle. Living without insane excess and prioritizing our health again — I hope this is the wave of the future.

Another comes from NECN.com, a New England news site, where the spotlight is also on those that are able to save money and reduce their carbon footprint by biking to work.

This one is rather interesting from Seattle, where a man actually was taken in for psychiatric evaluation after riding his bike down Interstate 5 in Seattle. I found this hilarious at first that we actually have started committing people for riding on highways, but it turns out he had other, more severe issues…

And a great one from the LA Times about the rising use of bicycles as a mode of transport in New York City, despite the often treacherous conditions (potholes, taxis, traffic). I actually never biked in New York except for fun because I felt like it was too stressful. But the article offers a lot of promise:

The number of bicyclists has grown by 75% during the last seven years, according to the city’s count. Soon an ambitious city plan will make it possible for riders to traverse Manhattan via dedicated bike lanes and circumnavigate the island along the waterfront. Sheltered bicycle parking and thousands of new public bike racks are already in place.

New York is, afterall, the greenest city in America. It’s great to see it getting better every day. I heard one city official once say that every new person that New York gains as a resident is a win for sustainability. I plan to be one of them again someday.

In my own news, I’ve decided it’s time to really connect green craft with bicycle. So there’s a project in the works that I’ll share soon…if it makes that transition from my brain to my hands. And doesn’t suck.

Ride it like you know you should. (shout-out to my shameless Khia fans)

I found this on the Gristmill blog, but in case you’re not a loyal Grist reader…this is amazing.

It’s a Hungarian ad…clearly in favor of biking. Apparently they build bikes differently out there. Vibrating seats perhaps.

The Grist post has some great comments mentioning some upcoming bicycle events that I encourage you all to take part in, like May 16th’s Bike to Work Day. I’m not sure if this is nationwide, the commenter mentions the one in San Francisco, but there will definitely be one in DC, courtesy of WABA and co-sponsored by the organization I work for. I will definitely be participating and hope that all of you can join in wherever you are. If you’re not a regular bike-to-worker it’s a great way to introduce yourself to it–and see how doable it can be even once in a while. If we could all try and substitute just one car trip a week with a walk or bike trip it would make a significant positive impact on our physical fitness, air and water quality, and that always looming problem of climate change.

Another event coming up on May 21st is the Ride of Silence, which is a silent, slow-paced ride in honor of those that have been injured or killed while riding on public roads. This is something I feel strongly about, because even with a fair amount of bike lanes in DC, car drivers (and pedestrians) are often oblivious to bikers. The 2 ton bubble that a car provides seems to give drivers a sufficiently dangerous air of invincibility. And they forget that those of us using that bubble-less form of transportation with infinite gas mileage are anything but invincible.

And lastly, on a happier note, if you’re in DC on May 23rd, head over to the Black Cat for…wait for it….

The Bike Prom!

So I know that I should expect nothing from car commercials.  I know that they always depict cars as super fun and liberating by having someone drive really fast on a magical open road where no other cars seem to be.  Never mind the fact that congestion is rising insanely fast around the nation making a car more of a prison than some fantasical freedom device.  I heard an interesting statistic that in the London center the average speed is 3 mph (!!!).  In 1890 it was also 3mph.  Hooray for progress.

But this Dodge video really gets me.  In this stupid commercial the car somehow is supposed to get you this lifestyle that ironically is wholly dependent on there being no cars to run you over while you play with your friends in the street.  

Maybe it’s because it’s in an urban setting, making it even more unrealistic.  But it promotes this fun, spontaneous lifestyle, where you can play with your friends and neighbors, all of whom are around in big crowds in an expanse of central public open space.  You can do this by driving to the magic place (otherwise known as a city) with your big SUV, but keep in mind this fantasy is only possible if you’re the only one on earth allowed to drive your car.  So good luck with that. 

An art form I truly appreciate and partake in more and more is cartography.  Like everything else, the romantic old methods have been replaced with digital tools, but this has allowed us to do such interesting things.  I deemed myself a cartographer in graduate school (when I basically got a masters in New York City), but now turn my cartographic attention to my current and childhood home of DC (now the city, before the SUBurbs).

One thing that has really irked me since I moved back is the DC metro map:

It’s a graphic disguised as a map.  The lines are obviously stylized to read easier, which makes sense when used as a simple guide to use the system-which I believe is its primary intended purpose.

The problem I have with maps that stress form over function (as a traditional, accurate representation of actual space) is that they produce judgments that are equally as skewed as the maps.

Here is a map I made using the actual locations of the lines and stations:

My first point here is that the stations are not as evenly spaced in some locations as the stylized map shows. For instance on the west (Vienna) side of the orange line, you see 4 stations spread apart and 5 bunched together.  The 5 bunched together create the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, which is hailed as a great walkable area and a national example of transit-oriented development.  It’s because when the stations are closer together, your chances of being within walking distance of one is far better than when they’re miles apart.  The rest of the system seems to still serve primarily as a commuter rail for suburbanites to get into DC.  More stations please! 

It’s so unfortunate that DC metro planners (and DC residents in general) have been and continue to be so active against using New York as a model (where you can walk from station to station).  I feel like it’s the sour grapes, second-best complex that keeps DC from taking even the good ideas from New York.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard about the “second best subway system”, with an undertone of “well, first doesn’t matter because its New York, which isn’t even America.”  A few months ago, I was reading a post on a DC blog about how Five Guys (a DC better-than-fast-food chain) opened up a restaurant in Manhattan that actually had lines out the door when it first opened.  There was a sense of vindication in that post…like Five Guys made DC better than NYC for a second.  

The second thing that irks me far more than the first is that the official map makes it look like DC is pretty evenly covered by metro.  It’s not.  You can see in my map that there are some pretty big chunks of space in the city that are not close to metro and that the downtown area, where a ton of stations converge is actually a smaller area than shown officially.

This one points out the areas that are within a 1/2 mile of the stations, which is often considered the upper limit of what people would be willing to walk.  I just hate how the official map makes Northeast DC (an area of the city in dire need of more investment) or really the entire north of the city look like it has service, when it doesn’t.  

Actually, I’m not even sure people in DC realize that there are neighborhoods pretty far north and pretty far east because they’re not so easy to get to.  But then again DC has a persistent condition of having transient folks that don’t know much about the city at all…they all seem to be confined to the Northwest quadrant and don’t seem to be aware of much beyond.  It’s strange coming from New York, where I felt like there was a pride in knowing as much as possible about the city: its history, its mysteries, its underground, its thousands of offerings and its many individual neighborhoods.  DC in itself is a fascinating place with quite a history and LOCAL political atmosphere…it’s unfortunate that doesn’t pulsate through all of the people.

That devolved into a rant about DC.  The point is DC has a lot of potential and maps are cool, even when they’re all skewy.

That is a direct quote from Amtrak.

May 10th is the first ever National Train Day!!

Support sustainable transportation!

If you’re planning on traveling that day consider the train as your mode of choice, whether it’s a local or long-distance trip.  If you’re going long distance, definitely take the train instead of flying if you live in the Northeast corridor. If you live in other places where train service was bullied out of existence then use your voice, your wallet, or whatever you’ve got to push for increased intercity passenger rail.

Especially now that we know they don’t inspect those planes we’re all accustomed to flying in. Yikes!

Hey–and you can even take your knitting on the train no problem, which often is not the case on a plane.  I knitted up my rochefort chapeau nice and easy on the train from DC to New York while listening to my ipod, which I plugged into the outlet next to me.  And I stretched my legs out…boy did I stretch my legs out.

One more thing.  A huge criticism of Amtrak is the cost of the tickets.  The train is very expensive, but I want to point out their rewards program and the Amtrak credit card.  I don’t use the latter too much, but when I use it to buy train tickets, the points are multiplied and it doesn’t take too much to get a free ticket.  I have a few free train tickets along the NE corridor banked–even after using 2 to give me a free trip to NYC a couple of weekends ago.  For me it beats the hell out of driving, which is $$$$ and definitely the bus, which is always a trying experience–it once took me 8 hours to get from NYC to DC on the bus during a strange time when the NJ Turnpike was closed because of flooding.  Needless to say, I took the train back up that weekend.

It’s also another story of how those prices could go down if there was more supply and demand in more places.  Anyway–please consider the train.

Or go to: TfL

I don’t want to ruin it, but it plays off of an earlier post…

Did you pass the test?

(I didn’t.)

I’ll come back to this in a few days when I think people have had the chance to see the video…

EDIT:

I found out from a coworker that TfL ripped this idea off of a psychological test.  The creator was never contacted about the use of the ad and thus never gave them permission to use it. He’s been cool about it though, making one public comment and then never making a stink again…the blog linked makes the argument that this isn’t really stealing…I’m not sure–I think the creator should have been consulted.  But his alternative idea of having a cyclist that you don’t see sounds so boring.  So maybe it’s good they stole it.  It’s effective and it’s in the public interest…it’s hard to hate.  Had it been a faceless money-grubbing corporation I would feel differently.  The eternal battle.

I bike to work everyday. I’m not one of those hard core bikers…I do bike most places, but it’s mainly because in DC I think it’s the fastest way to get around and DC is also pretty good with bike lanes. My transportation choices for getting to work are a <10 minute bike ride, a 20-30 minute bus ride (including waiting for the bus, since it doesn’t always come on time), or a 30 minute walk. The bike ride is clearly the best choice.

The problem is that while there are bike lanes for most of the ride, someone in a big fat car tries to kill me almost everyday. People on their phones. People talking. People numb and oblivious to traffic laws because DC police don’t bother enforcing them. People trying to get to the red light up ahead faster than anyone else. People who don’t think bikes belong on the road–when it’s written in law (in DC at least) that bikes do in fact belong on the roads and NOT the sidewalks. And people who just don’t notice bikes or think to look out for them…even when or especially when there’s a bike lane.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has made a right turn through a bike lane without bothering to look and see that I was right there…luckily I’ve gotten pretty defensive in my riding and can sometimes tell when this will happen. I’ve also developed cat-like reflexes. Or my favorite is 9th street (I think) going through Chinatown…there’s a full-size lane dedicated to buses and bikes. It says it huge right on the lane. Over and over again. Buses Only (with a picture of a bike as well). Yet it’s the most dangerous place to bike. Because people get all frustrated with their traffic (which I have no sympathy for since there are plenty of transit choices for getting into and around the city) and suddenly swerve into that lane, bikers (and I guess buses) be damned.  I end up riding down the lane yelling the mantra: Buses-and-Bikes-ONLY while I angrily point to the painted words on the road.  I’m that crazy woman.

The worst is when people honk at me just for being on the road or when cars run red lights or stop signs and then yell at me for almost being hit by them.  Now I know bikers can bike dangerously sometimes–I’m guilty of this sometimes.  But I think there’s more responsibility with operating a car.  It’s not likely I would kill a pedestrian or another biker just with my bike.  It’s the motor vehicle that does that.

Anyway.  The point is–being almost killed regularly has made me an angry biker.  I yell obscenities at people when they try and kill me now.  The other day someone ran a red light while looking me right in the face as he almost hit me.  I sped up to his car later with my middle finger blazing and the F yous flying.  He actually tried to flirt with me and when I got even more pissed he started yelling back:  “I’d kick your ass if you were a man.”

That actually made me laugh…which overall made me feel better.

But this kind of exchange happens like once a week…with less involved confrontations happening more often.

Sometimes I hate people.  Sorry, but it’s true.

For the most part I enjoy biking to work, or anywhere…but the stress seeps in sometimes, which has to diminish the health benefits of riding.

Actually, one thing I was wondering about is whether my urban biking is actually bad for me in balance.  While I’m getting exercise and staying healthy and fit, I’m breathing in lots of fumes, carcinogenic ones no less.

Is it a wash? Am I healthier for it or am I getting cancer for sure?