Speaker:
Jeff Mapes, senior political reporter for
The OregonianTopic:
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American CitiesDate:
June 5, 2009
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
“A growing number of Americans, mounted on their bicycles like some new kind of urban cowboy, are mixing it up with swift, two-ton motor vehicles as they create a new society on the streets. They’re finding physical fitness, low-cost transportation, environmental purity—and, still all too often, Wild West risks of sudden death or injury.” —from the Introduction
In a world of increasing traffic congestion, a grassroots movement is carving out a niche for bicycles on city streets.
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities explores the growing bike culture that is changing the look and feel of cities, suburbs, and small towns across North America.
From traffic-dodging bike messengers to tattooed teenagers on battered bikes, from riders in spandex to well-dressed executives, ordinary citizens are becoming transportation revolutionaries. Jeff Mapes traces the growth of bicycle advocacy and explores the environmental, safety, and health aspects of bicycling. He rides with bicycle advocates who are taming the streets of New York City, joins the street circus that is Critical Mass in San Francisco, and gets inspired by the everyday folk pedaling in Amsterdam, the nirvana of American bike activists. Chapters focused on big cities, college towns, and America’s most successful bike city, Portland, show how cyclists, with the encouragement of local officials, are claiming a share of the valuable streetscape.
“Writing from Portland, the hub of the American cycling renaissance, Jeff Mapes, brimming with passion, humor and salutary insight, makes an admirably clearheaded, convincing and, ultimately, humane argument for making more room for the two-wheeler, in our lives and on our roads.” –Tom Vanderbilt, author of
Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)"Finally, the bicycling movement gets the serious examination that it deserves.” – Jane Holtz Kay, author of
Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back
On October 7, 2009 STEP hosted a happy hour for transportation students and faculty at the beginning of the new fall term. Over 30 students and faculty from different departments at PSU, including Urban Studies and Planning and Civil Engineering attended this social event and enjoyed chating with each other and having free food and drinks. STEP also presented the upcoming events for the year 2009-10. We look forward to a great busy year!
The summer is going to end pretty soon and again it's the time to come back to school and work. Most of the ITS Lab students were working in the lab during the summer, some part-time and some full-time. Helene went to France. Wei, Huan, and Chengyu went back home to China for a short visit and they all are back. Also Sirisha went back to India for a few weeks and she is back as well. American students also had some time off to go back to their hometown and visit family and friends. I think it was a good summer for everybody. Now we all are back to start a new term as strong as before, with more energy and enthusiasm. Next week the fall term starts. Some new students are coming too. I'll post about them in next couple of days. Hello school!
Portland State University students traffic bowl team. This time their questions were not very good. Most of the teams got many negative points. The less aggressive a team was, the less negative points they had. So it wasn't really a fair game. I think our team did a good job!
If you are in transportation profession, I'm sure you've heard about Denver Pedestrian Mall. Here it is. A wonderful place for walking and biking and taking free buses.
Sometimes we were like this. The weather was hot there during the day but it wasn't that hot to stop us visiting around.
Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities
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