From the NYT 7-4-2009

Bike Among The Ruins

ONE night a little over a year ago, crossing Woodward Avenue, I crashed my bicycle. As I flew head over heels across Detroit’s main boulevard, I thought, well, in any other town, I’d be hitting a car right about now. But this being the Motor City, the street was deserted, completely motor-free.

While bike enthusiasts in most urban areas continue to have to fight for their place on the streets, Detroit has the potential to become a new bicycle utopia. It’s a town just waiting to be taken. With well less than half its peak population, and free of anything resembling a hill, the city and its miles and miles of streets lie open and empty, beckoning. And lately, whether it’s because of the economy or the price of gas or just because it’s a nice thing to do, there are a lot more bikers out riding.

This budding culture brings some commerce with it. Down on the waterfront, and just three hundred yards or so from the headquarters of General Motors, my friends Kelli and Karen are in their second year running the Wheelhouse bike shop. One might think, given the economy, that starting a business in the D makes as much sense as stepping on a nail, but Kelli and Karen’s shop is thriving; their profits in May were double what they were a year ago.

Granted, right now neither Kelli nor Karen take a salary from the business. They’ve each kept working their other jobs, Kelli as a bartender and Karen at a local community organization. Neither of them intends for the Wheelhouse to be a volunteer effort forever, but like many entrepreneurs, they believe investing in the business’s growth right now is the prudent thing to do.

Meanwhile, up in the Cass Corridor neighborhood, another bike shop has opened up. Manned by some of the most die-hard, gear-headed gentlemen you’ll ever meet, the Hub comes with a storeroom of piled-up old bikes that they’ll refurbish for you — and a greater social mission. Their Back Alley Bikes training program, which predates the shop, teaches youths about mechanical repairs and customer service. The Hub is technically a nonprofit, but their business is also doing pretty well.

Biking in the D is the transportation equivalent of the Slow Food movement, offering a perspective that’s completely lost to those zooming in on the Lodge Freeway and I-75, those great superhighways that, once upon a time in the name of progress, were sliced deep into the heart of the city only to bleed it dry.

A bike gives you the chance to soak up what’s left, hidden neighborhoods like Indian Village with its dappled lanes and old eclectic mansions. Out near the fabled Eight Mile Road you can cruise past an almost forgotten but now happily restored Frank Lloyd Wright house. Downtown, you can circle the ruins of the old Michigan Central Depot.

Our abandoned landscape suggests an opportunity that alternative-transportation proponents should consider: instead of raging against their cities’ internal combustion machines, they might consider a tactical retreat to the city that cars have pretty much abandoned.

Despite the press, survival here isn’t so hard. Businesses like the Wheelhouse and the Hub have already shown how well Detroit can work as a new business hothouse. With the legendarily affordable real estate and without needing to pay for car payments, gas or insurance, bicyclists could rebuild Detroit into a model of a two-wheeled economy. They could pass laws promoting bikes over cars and designate entire avenues motor-free zones, which, given the state of many of them now, wouldn’t be so much of a stretch.

Maybe it sounds far-fetched, but then again maybe it’s just destiny. Look at a map and you’ll see that Detroit is designed in the shape of a wheel, with streets emanating like spokes from the downtown hub. It looks like a premonition, a city uniquely designed to alter transportation forever.

So, who knows, maybe the bike will follow the car. After all, it’s happened before. In 1896, when Charles B. King steered Detroit’s first automobile across its cobbled streets, following King’s progress with a keen and intelligent interest was Henry Ford, riding on a bicycle.

Toby Barlow is the author of “Sharp Teeth.”

The Toast Not Heard ‘Round the World
By Sheldon Cooperman

Ladies and Gentleman, family and friends,

Welcome to the wedding,
where Edie and my brother Marty are living proof
that it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

I haven’t heard much about the honeymoon,
but this is what I envision:
A technical climb up Mt. McKinley
followed by a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon…
After lunch, a through hike of the Appalachian Trail followed by a bike trip across the Rocky Mountains
on a fixed gear tandem…
Then a delicious freeze dried vegetarian dinner
and capped off by a relaxing evening power walking
from Cleveland Heights to that bakery in Brooklyn, NY with the really good loaves of rye bread,
unsliced, of course.

Edie, welcome to the Coopermans!--- Good luck!
Please raise your water bottles
and join me in toasting
Edie and Marty on their special day!
Congratulations!

Rainy Thanksgiving Day Ride, Cleveland, Ohio 2003

I spent Weds. night quite comfortably in Paula's spare room.

We were up at 5am drinking tea and watching the weather report on the tv. It had started raining in earnest in the wee hours and the driveway was wet and slick in the lingering blackness of the night.

At 5:45, Colleen knocked at Paula's back door. Colleen is the new wife of Paula's ex-brother-in-law. Paula met her at a birthday party a week or so ago, and when she mentioned the Turkey day ride, Colleeen asked if she could join us. And there she was, standing in the dripping doorway in her rain gear, ready.

We drove to the towpath, starting somewhere near Grant Avenue off I-77. It was still dark and the shapes of bridges and pipelines from steel mills flanking the park took on monumental and mythic proportions.
We rode.

I rode ahead of Paula and Colleen for a while in the pre-daylight hush. The silence was ripped open for a moment when a ghostly six-point buck roared up out of the woods on my right, exhaling panic and steam and odors, and crossed the bike path with one powerful arcing leap. He landed with a grunt and without hesitation in the dirt below the path on my left and disappeared into the brush beyond.

We rode through the puddles in the crushed limestone path barely noticing in the darkness the skim of fine gray spray that now covered our feet and bikes and jackets and ankles and socks and backs...
We saw a blue heron crouched on a tree limb.
Then another.
We saw a black squirrel race away from the noise of our bikes with a mouse clenched in his mouth.
We saw the warning flickers of the white tails of deer in the leafless glens.
We saw a few other people walking and talking quietly, no doubt, about turkey roasting temperatures and pie fillings.

When we stopped to turn back, Paula demonstrated, in the cold gravel, a tricky and impressive-looking yoga pose that involved a handstand with her knees balanced on her upturned elbows and a variation of the same that put her hips cantilevered off to one side.

We rode carward, now we saw the scum of damp stonedust on ourselves and our bikes. We noticed that the wet rain had soaked through our shoes and socks and our feet were numb from the cold. We were glad that there was no wind.

I thought about the nap I would undoubtedly succumb to later that afternoon, with my belly full of broccoli and mashed potatoes and, yes, even a bit of poultry... and apple pie.

I rode home from Paula's house in a more persistent rain. It was easier to wear my new fake fur leopard coat than to squash it compact enough to carry, so wear it I did. By the time I got home, the fur was a sad sight, clumped and matted. It was not quite the fashion statement I thought that it would be! Glory be to synthetic fibers; it was fluffy and pristine in no time thanks to the wonders of Maytag.

Thanksgiving dinner was nice. Lots of food, my plain old steamed broccoli was a big hit and there was none left for leftovers.

My little niece commanded, "An Tedie, PWAY with me!" We played with a neat collection of dolls that belonged to my cousin's daughter that had detachable fashion footwear and glittery halter tops and cell phones and baggy multi-pocketed trousers and a fishing raft(!)

I did not get my nap.

cycling haiku

A slow spitting rain
does not slow my journey home.
It does not help though!

Please, Eighteen Wheeler!
Could you respect my right-of-way?
You brushed my elbow.

Wet tires on brick
mean the start of my workday.
Hello Murray Hill.

Stream of consciousness
thoughts flow like a woodland stream.
Did I lock the door?

Hurry! Pedal fast!
A fierce adrenaline rush!
That pit bull can run!

Big Man in Big Truck!
I'm no match for your power:
Beep your little horn!

The fall leaves rush by:
a day-glo frenzy of flame.
A plein air bike ride.

Road wash-out ahead!
But no matter, we go on.
Bikes go anywhere.

Framing Our Discussion

This is the blog entry of another; one Jeff Schuler. We had an especially nice time chitchatting in my shop one beautiful summer evening. Enjoy what he wrote; I sure did.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



I walked out of Art Etc. feeling full, connected, buoyant: way more than I paid for.

The look of the frame is called distressed, and that was probably the look on my face, too, when I saw it. That splotching wasn't there in the frame sample I'd chosen last month, though the previous attendant had spent quite awhile helping me select just the right match for the photo. Edie cheerfully offered to do it over. That would've required more time and another cross-town trip, though, and I explained I'm not so mobile with such parcels on bicycle. (I didn't tell her Jenita's Christmas present was already 7 months late.)

She said she carries framed photos on her bike all the time, but offered we experiment with the frame a bit -- and brought it into the studio. Steel wool and solvent to tone down the high-contrast speckles. Evened it down and odded it up ~ til I was happy.

She asked about my least favorite routes to ride.

Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.

-- W.E.B. DuBois

Commiseration / Bridging: the Lorain-Carnegie puncture lane, fishtailing after rain on Columbus's slippery steel grating. Charging up Cedar, freedom on Hough, the highway that is Chester. Roads and roads.

She and her husband ride the winter too. Wool, neoprene, gore-tex. Balaklavas, breathe-ability. Boots in 40-or-below to avoid losing feet heat through clipless cleats. Racks, fenders, panniers. They have 18 bicycles in the garage: cargo bikes, winter bikes, touring bikes, a tandem...

Cars beget rage. The people inside, cagers. ("private metal pods with blackened windows".) Her cager friends ask just how to say "Hi." Two short beeps means hello. Anyone that lays on the horn is obviously saying something else.

She packaged and wrapped it when the paste had dried. I sat down and we continued talking. The world of cars, our house of cards. The future, if people don't wise up. The fun of slowing down. (If only they knew!) And one's freedoms at another's peril. Interdependence. The brick roads underneath the asphalt will resurface.

The gift of the multiple crises we face is that in order to address them successfully, we will have to fundamentally change who we are. Some say people don't change, but they do when they have to. And part of that change is the capacity to listen, to put aside those things that separate us as unimportant, and honor the core values that unite us.

-- Paul Hawken, on Blessed Unrest and Deep Economics, (interview by Jon Lebkowsky, Worldchanging.com)

We're wary but hopeful. She calls it skeptimism.

She's sure that we'll see each other out riding soon.
I'm sure that I'll suggest Art Etc. to anyone that wants a really great custom frame, and to find out what Etc. can mean for them.

So how about this? How about we plan our communities to be social and business hubs that people can walk to and from--cars unrequired--and participate in in meaningful way? How about we attach these hubs by public transportation? How about we build our communities in ways that both help people feel less alienated and let them lead less resource intensive lives?

-- Colin Beavan, (aka No Impact Man,) More on community versus consumption--smart growth

New York Times bicycling article

A Bicycle Evangelist With the Wind Now at His Back


By CORNELIA DEAN
Published: January 12, 2009

PORTLAND, Ore. — For years, Earl Blumenauer has been on a mission, and now his work is paying off. He can tell by the way some things are deteriorating around here.

“People are flying through stop signs on bikes,” Mr. Blumenauer said. “We are seeing in Portland bike congestion. You’ll see people biking across the river on a pedestrian bridge. They are just chock-a-block.”

Mr. Blumenauer, a passionate advocate of cycling as a remedy for everything from climate change to obesity, represents most of Portland in Congress, where he is the founder and proprietor of the 180 (plus or minus)-member Congressional Bicycle Caucus. Long regarded in some quarters as quixotic, the caucus has come into its own as hard times, climate concerns, gyrating gas prices and worries about fitness turn people away from their cars and toward their bikes.

“We have been flogging this bicycle thing for 20 years,” said Mr. Blumenauer, a Democrat. “All of a sudden it’s hot.”

But Mr. Blumenauer’s goals are larger than putting Americans on two wheels. He seeks to create what he calls a more sustainable society, including wiser use of energy, farming that improves the land rather than degrades it, an end to taxpayer subsidies for unwise development — and a transportation infrastructure that looks beyond the car.

For him, the global financial collapse is “perhaps the best opportunity we will ever see” to build environmental sustainability into the nation’s infrastructure, with urban streetcar systems, bike and pedestrian paths, more efficient energy transmission and conversion of the federal government’s 600,000-vehicle fleet to use alternate fuels.

“These are things that three years ago were unimaginable,” he said. “And if they were imaginable, we could not afford them. Well, now when all the experts agree that we will be lucky if we stabilize the economy in a couple of years, when there is great concern about the consequences of the collapse of the domestic auto producers, gee, these are things that are actually reasonable and affordable.”

All this might still be pie-in-the-sky were it not for one of Mr. Blumenauer’s fellow biking enthusiasts, Representative James L. Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat, avid cyclist and chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which has jurisdiction over surface transportation.

“He’s been wonderful,” Mr. Oberstar said of his Oregon colleague. And as support for cycling grows, he said, builders, the highway construction lobby and others have stopped regarding biking as a “nuisance” and started thinking about how they can do business.

With an eye on the potential stimulus package, cycling advocates “have compiled a list of $2 billion of projects that can be under construction in 90 days,” Mr. Oberstar said, adding that prospects are “bright.”

In addition, after many attempts, this fall Mr. Blumenauer saw Congress approve his proposal to extend the tax breaks offered for employee parking to employers who encourage biking. The measure, which Mr. Blumenauer called a matter of “bicycle parity,” was part of a bailout bill.

Mr. Blumenauer has spent a lot of time on another issue that ordinarily draws little attention: the federally subsidized flood insurance program. The program serves people who own property along coasts and rivers who otherwise would pay enormous premiums for private flood insurance, if they could obtain it at all.

The insurance “subsidized people to live in places where nature repeatedly showed they weren’t wanted,” he said. They might be better off if they did not live there, he said, but “it’s un-American to say, ‘Get out.’ ” Politicians who should confront the problem “are betting Nimto, not in my term of office,” he said. They hope that disasters will spare their districts or, if they strike, that the government will come to the rescue, Mr. Blumenauer said.

A Portland native, Mr. Blumenauer, 60, has spent his adult life in elective office. He graduated from Lewis and Clark College in 1970 (after organizing an unsuccessful 1969 campaign to lower the state’s voting age to 18) and worked until 1977 as assistant to the president of Portland State University. In 1972, he won a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives. He moved to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners in 1978, and from there, in 1986, he won election to the Portland City Council. Though he lost a mayoral election in 1992, he easily won election to the United States House in 1996 and has not faced serious opposition since.

Mr. Blumenauer entered Congress just after Newt Gingrich, the Republican speaker, killed a stopgap spending measure, shutting down much of the government, out of pique over his treatment on Air Force One. “Partisan tensions were very raw,” Mr. Blumenauer said. The bicycle caucus was “a way to bring people together.”

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Sherwood Boehlert, a Republican and fellow bicyclist who represented upstate New York in Congress until 2007, agreed. When “partisanship was at an all-time high and tolerance of another point of view was at a longtime low,” he wore the bike caucus’s plastic bicycle lapel pin. “Bicycling unites people regardless of party affiliation,” he said.

In addition to bicycles, Mr. Blumenauer is particularly interested in public broadcasting and the plight of pollinators like honeybees. He is a founder of a “livable communities task force” whose goal, he said, is to educate members of Congress and their staffs on the benefits of transportation alternatives, open space, sustainability, vibrant downtowns, affordable housing and transparency in government.

Initially, he said, these interests marked him as “kind of left coast.” Not anymore. “They are becoming very mainstream,” said Adam B. Schiff, a Democrat who represents in Congress the area around Pasadena, Calif., and who, with Mr. Blumenauer’s bicycle advice, now regularly rides to work from his home in Maryland. “He has been way out in front of the Congress,” Mr. Schiff said. “Now the rest of us are trying to catch up.”

When Mr. Blumenauer is in his Portland district, he usually gets around by bike, cycling about 20 miles in a typical day. He has three bikes in Washington and five here, and he cycles in all weather, even in the unusual snow Portland has had recently. “In falling snow you can get some traction,” he said.

But the surge of bicycling in Portland has not been free of incident. The Oregonian newspaper and bloggers have reported on “bike rage,” drunken biking, hit-and-run bicycle accidents and other problems. Drivers complain about bikers who ignore traffic rules or hog narrow roads, phenomena some irritated motorists attribute to feelings of entitlement or moral superiority.

Mr. Blumenauer brushes off this criticism. “They are burning calories, not fossil fuel, they are taking up much less space, they are seeing the world at 10 miles per hour instead of 20 or 30,” he said. “And even though there are occasionally cranky or rude cyclists, they are no greater a percentage than cranky or rude motorists.”

Plus, he added, “they have really fought for their place on the asphalt.”