Bicycling at Hains Point, 1942:  Hey, take Back the Streets!

Periodically, DCist runs a short piece that in some way advocates cycling as a means of commuting, along with a modest plea for some mutual respect between cyclists, motorists, and pedestrians.  Usually, this results in an unbelievable amount of vile hatred spewed at cyclists.  It’s like Lou Dobbs and immigrants – blame ‘em for all ills, and demonize those who disagree.  The only thing missing (a la Lou Dobbs, and frankly, most local politics in DC) is a little injection of race (clearly, they’re not trying hard enough!).

Today’s installation is, thus far, modest by comparison.  But it does have this beaut:

“In my time here I've found cyclists to be more annoying and deadly than cabs, buses or even muggers. They are a people with no laws, no rules and no sense.”

Hey, we are “a people”!  Cool!  Maybe we can have a homeland given to us too!

If you want to waste your time and get your blood pumping a little (like I did), you can find more crap here (and, to be honest, I find the original article not really worthwhile – some good thoughts are contained therein, but they’re certainly not comprehensive, balanced, or even with any particular sense of priority):

http://www.dcist.com/archives/2007/02/02/dcists_rules_of.php#comments

-- posted by Chris

Some great women have Texas roots.  Barbara Jordan.  Ann Richards.  Sadly, neither of these great politicians are with us today.  Now, another one of my favorite Texans has been lost to us.  I was so saddened to see in the obits this morning that Molly Ivins has died from breast cancer.  A few quotes to remember her by:

"Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful."

"The first rule of holes:  when you're in one, stop digging."

-posted by Chris

there was good feedback to yesterday's post, so before you know it, it comes back with a second helping.  however, this course is a bit spicier than the first.  angela davis is another person whom i look upon with great admiration.  she is like francis perkins in many ways: she rejected the idea that the status quo was something to be accepted and insisted on questioning it, she led by example and didn't just talk about how things should be different, she lived during a time when she needed to struggle for acceptance of her beliefs, and she was a fiery advocate for her point of view.

some will undoubtedly feel that she went too far in her advocacy, and that she does not represent a proper role model for today's little lenins.  i disagree.  she built a career rather than resting on her laurels.  she continued to "play consistently", studying and teaching and advocating the things she felt strongly about.  she met criticism head on with factual counter-arguments.  she will be remembered by many as someone who never stopped struggling to bring justice to the people.

not much time for a post today so I'm going back to the mail bin and the chance to provide a shout out to someone who was a hero of a previous revolution.  the unholy roleur sends me a lot of very interesting and provocative pieces of mail.  all of them inspire thought and are interesting, though i secretly think some of them are trolls, the email equivalent of poking someone with a sharp stick.  i suspect the latter in this particular case:

Conservative wonk ponders whether feminism did in revolutionary socialism:
 
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJiYzE2YTM2Y2NhZDFjNGQ4NDE5YjViNmRhYmJjNTg

 
Conservative commenter seems to think so: 
 
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmU3N2NhZDM0YWRmNjAwN2VkYmZlNmU3ZjRhMGY3ZTU
 
Me?  I think it was the plastic shoes.  How can you have a world-wide revolution wearing shoes that catch fire when inadvertantly stepping in some cigar ashes dropped by some deranged capitalist plutocrat will catch your shoes on fire?

But didn't socialism change with the introduction of feminism? It became more touchy-feely, more holistic, more Mommy Party and less concerned with Soviet-style posters of muscle-men with jackhammers

since a goodly number of you academic, latte drinking, suv driving types will be spending a fer bit of time in siberia after the revolution anyway, you might want to give this a good close look...

http://www.rctc.ru/gring.html

the revolution is it's own reward.

this very moving documentary of class struggle is an approved piece of racing union thought.  and even though it's oscar season, you won't see the establishment showing these guys any love.  down with the haters.

http://www.mouthrevolution.com/index.html

-sg

on wednesday, i got to do a little bit of outreach with bruce from fairfax advocates for better bicycling.  we headed out to george mason university and talked with students, faculty and staff about commuting on bikes.

the most common questions we got concerned safe routes for riding.  we gave away a lot of maps and highlighted preferred routes.  most people had bikes and wanted to ride, they just were not sure what the safest way to go was.  we plotted routes from as far away as reston, alexandria, seven corners, and fair oaks with a lot of people also coming from the burke/wakefield area.  while these distances aren't notable, we're not talking about hard core cyclists here, we're talking about recreational riders on hybrids who want to give it a shot.  and it looks promising.

people had a variety of other concerns as well.  are there enough bike racks?  where can i shower once i get to campus?  are the bike racks safe and will my bike get stolen?  I'm now more convinced that ever that what is needed is an ambassador program: volunteers who will go to people's houses in the morning, meet up with them and accompany them to where they need to go.  either that or a bike to work day type approach where you designate a few satellites away from campus and then gather a few people and ride in together as a group.  people have bikes and they have a desire to ride them.  what they seem to lack is a knowledge of safe routes and the confidence to just try it out.

another benefit of this event was that we got a chance to talk to some of the facility gurus from gmu.  they are currently planning on putting in more bike racks.  we also discussed with them the idea of adding bike routes to the current cue bus map for the city of fairfax and putting out a guide to commuting by bike or just simply a GMU bike route map for people who were interested.  they were more receptive than I thought they would be which is a positive sign as well.

- - - posted by scott

This guy built a generator powered by a homemade recumbent bike.  It seems to be a mixture of proof-of-concept relating to alternative energy, and a fun way to use up old junk parts.   He manages to get a peak electrical output of 203 Watts @ 550RPM at the generator (my wild-ass guess is the generator is about 40-50% efficient) and decides that 6 or 7 cents per KW/H from the power company is a "fantastic value." 

--posted by roy

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-123treed,0,7408048.story?coll=sfla-news-broward

one part self-loathing, one part insane aggression, three parts selfish indulgence.  mix well with high test. 

incidentally, i didn't get much good advice growing up but one gem was to not write checks with your mouth or actions that your ass can't cash.  you better not be bluffing when you get out of your car to "wrassle" with someone after an accident.  oh and carjacking someone who has stopped, ostensibly to help you: bad form.

- - - posted by scott

from waba but not up on their web site yet:

Act Now: Support HB 1826 for Bicycle Commuting Tax Credits

The Washigton Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) and the Virginia Bicycling Federation (VBF) urge all Virginia cyclists to support HB 1826 which is now before the Virginia General Assembly.  HB 1826 would promote bicycle commuting by encouraging employers to provide bicycle commuting accommodations at the workplace and by offering a modest income tax credit of $15/month for employees who commute by bicycle on 10 or more days per month.

HB 1826 proposes two different types of income tax credit for expenditures related to bicycle commuting

1. an employer tax credit up to $5,000 for expenditures to provide employee bicycle parking racks and/or showers at the worksite and
2. an employee tax credit of $15 per month for commuting by bicycle at least ten days in any given month. 

WABA and VBF strongly support both proposed tax credits, but we have suggested expanding the employer credit to include rented as well as purchased facilities, to include all types of suitable bicycle parking facilities (not just racks), and to include employee clothes changing and storage facilities as well as employee showers.

The bill has been referred to the House of Delegates Finance Committee and will reportedly be heard by Finance Subcommittee #3 on Wednesday, Jan. 24 and by the full Finance Committee as early as Monday, Jan. 29.  A favorable fiscal impact statement has already been issued by the Virginia Department of Taxation.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1) Ask your Virginia delegate to co-patron HB 1826 before the bill is heard by the full House Finance Committee.  You can identify and contact your delegate from:

http://conview.state.va.us/whosmy.nsf/main?openform

2) Ask your delegate to vote for HB 1826 at every opportunity.  If your delegate (or a nearby delegate) is on the House Finance Committee

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+com+H10

and/or on Finance Subcommittee #3 http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+sub+H10003, ask them NOW to vote for HB 1826 when it comes before Subcommittee #1 (on Jan. 24) and the full House Finance Committee (possibly on Jan. 29).

LINKS TO MORE INFORMATION:

HB 1826 bill history:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+sum+HB1826

HB 1826 text as introduced:
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+ful+HB1826

 

 

this just in from kevin:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070122_technov_nasa_bike.html

this may be an engineering marvel, but it's completely divorced from reality.  this might play on the salt flats somewhere, but seriously, where could you use this thing?  the wheels are 1.62 meters ** apart at their base.  given that most travel lanes of roads are around 3 meters wide, you'll be taking up more than half the lane.  and can you imagine something like this on the capital crescent or wo&d?  it may be a neat idea, but where would one use something like this.  oh, forget it, let's just assume you had a place to use it that was ideal.  where will you store it?  yee gods, this is impractical...

- - - sg

** the union prefers systeme internationale!

damn, bryan finds the best links....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QdzzZCgFbU&mode=related&search