bikes & transportation for September 2006

October 2006 >> << August 2006

from the open publishing newswire...

featured stories from across the us...

Miami
Sep 15 2006
 Miami Critial Mass Rike Ride S9: Divided We Stand

In Miami, CM is embryonic. Its wheels are starting to turn with string of Green-tinged and rosy cheeked progressives from Emerge Miami, Sweat Records, and Wallflower Gallery at the pedals. In a time of great development, when the road is crunched and tucked and pulled like an aging Miami Beach club queen, a tribe of bikers, myself among them, is starting to form. We are gathering to send messages to zippy-assed drivers, unconscious consumers, developers, and policy makers around town. “There’s a different way to travel.” “You can sweat and survive.” “The automobile is sooo passé.” and “ Suck my Green Dick and Choke on Your Fumes, Asshole.” (my personal fave).
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Portland
Sep 16 2006
 Automotive Issues

We are in big trouble By Pedro Talavera

I am writing this article and sending it to all people concerned with our industry, hopefully l will reach the ones who really care. The article started as a single page commentary, it's bigger now.

I've been working in the business for about 28 years as an auto technician, and I finally decided it was time to write about this business of ours after experiencing a lot of different events in my professional life.

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IMC-US
Sep 21 2006
 Communities Celebrate A Day Without Cars

September 22 marks the seventh annual World Carfree Day -- an annual celebration of and demand for public life that is free from the noise, stress and pollution of cars.

Carbusters Magazine first called for a World Carfree Day on September 22, 2000. Today Sept. 22 is celebrated in 1,500 cities in 40 countries with carfree festivals, bicycle demonstrations, street closures and permanent changes to make cities more environmentally and socially sustainable.

This year, the World Carfree Network’s activities will specifically focus on street conversions. The network's member groups all over the world will be working with municipalities to convert streets, intersections and parking areas into spaces for people to use for recreation, commerce, social life and education. Space will be made for children’s games, neighborhood parties, street theater and outdoor cafes -- allowing people to see their cities the way they could be with fewer cars.

US events: Portland || Ashland || Santa Cruz

World Carfree Network
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Rochester
Sep 27 2006
 Are you being Taken for a Ride?

trolley On September 29th (This Friday!) at 7PM, Rochester Indymedia, in conjunction with TV Dinner, will be screening Taken for a Ride, which "reveals the tragic and little known story of an auto and oil industry campaign, led by General Motors, to buy and dismantle streetcar lines. Across the nation, tracks were torn up, sometimes overnight, and diesel buses placed on city streets."

"The highway lobby then pushed through Congress a vast network of urban freeways that doubled the cost of the Interstates, fueled suburban development, increased auto dependence, and elicited passionate opposition. Seventeen city freeways were stopped by citizens who would become the leading edge of a new environmental movement," states the website.

The film is 52 minutes long and was directed by Jim Klein. It will be showing after Critical Mass.

What: A screening of Taken for a Ride
When: September 29th at 7:00PM
Where: St. Joseph's House of Hospitality at 402 South Avenue
Why: After event for Critical Mass

What is Critical Mass?
"Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists' right to the road. The idea started in San Francisco in September 1992 and quickly spread to cities all over the world. Critical Mass has no leaders, and no central organization licenses rides. In every city that has a CM ride, some locals simply picked a date, time, and location for the ride and publicized it, and thus the ride was born. CM is an idea and an event, not an organization."
Find out more at about Rochester Critical Mass here.
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October 2006 >> << August 2006