Bull City Biker: Mike Halligan
When Mike Halligan isn’t skating across frozen bridges, he’s reclaiming thrown away objects for recycling. Just last week, the Warehouse Manager at Morgan Imports rescued a Schwinn Suburban from a downtown dumpster after spotting it from a Lull forklift.
He’s also an avid paddler, guiding canoe and kayak trips with Frog Hollow Outdoors. Distressed by the amount of trash in local waterways, he started collecting some of it in his down time. And from some of the photos he has shared with me, I’m speechless at the amount of debris he’s hauled out of our rivers and streams. Among the flotsam, he noticed “an awful lot of bottles floating around in our waterways.” Combining a steady supply of free materials with a creative streak, he formed the idea to turn this trash into art.
Halligan, 35, uses the reclaimed bottles in unique, colorful art pieces. To raise awareness for clean rivers and to share his creations, he created River Bottle Blues.
Bike(s) you own and ride regularly: Sears and Roebuck 3 speed, Novara Safari, soon to be Schwinn Suburban
What’s your primary flavor of riding? My usual type of riding is commuting, get around town riding (i.e. groceries, bar-hopping, going to playground)
What’s the length and frequency of your average ride? I ride between 5-10 miles a day sometimes longer with the family on weekends
Why did you start riding and why do you still ride? I started riding when I was 5 or so and rode daily until I was 16. After getting my drivers license I didn’t get back on a bicycle until I was 30. Biggest mistake of my life. Riding today is like what it was when I was a kid, FUN.
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen while out for a ride? I’m not sure if this was unusual or not but on a ride into work one morning a rabbit ran along side of me for about 50 yards or so. That was pretty cool.
How would your world be different if you wake up tomorrow and there are no more cars? My life wouldn’t change that much except I would have to build a trailer for my canoe so my bike could pull it to the water.
What’s one thing Durham could do to become more bike friendly? The one thing I think Durham could do to become more bike friendly is to increase motorist awareness of bicycles rights to the road through public service announcements.
Word is that he made his kid walk home while the Schwinn rode in the trailer.
Apex St. bridge coming down, new ATT access ramp going in
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Durham’s tearing down the controversial Apex Street bridge over the American Tobacco Trail, the (existing) pedestrian connection between the St. Theresa neighborhood and Forest Hills.
Beginning September 2, the City is tearing down the bridge, installing a new access ramp, and rerouting ATT traffic for three weeks.
A few years ago, nowhere else in Durham was the difference between which “side of the tracks” you’re on more visually distinct than along the former railroad corridor that divides the St. Theresa neighborhood from Forest Hills. The houses on the east side are no longer fronted with boarded up windows, and the image from the American Tobacco Trail is much improved. The Apex St. bridge, a crumbling bridge that was closed to vehicle traffic over safety, later became the centerpiece of a community debate over access to Forest Hills park. See a clip from Carol Thomson’s documentary project on the American Tobacco Trail, Bridging Rails to Trails (clip embedded below), for more about the story.
If you’re into that kind of thing, you can read Parsons Brinckerhoff’s structural evaluation of the bridge (pdf), indicating some of the reasons that it closed and needs to be renovated or torn down.
Beginning September 2, and lasting for a projected three weeks (so you know it will be longer than that), the City of Durham will be tearing down the Apex St bridge and installing a new ATT access ramp on the east side of the trail. The access ramp on the west side of the trail was installed in 2004 (right? someone else correct me on this).
Bike commuters, listen up — this portion of the American Tobacco Trail will be closed and rerouted by the City for those three weeks.
Durham Detours Portion of American Tobacco Trail for New Ramp Construction
Detour Begins September 2 and Will Last Approximately Three Weeks
Durham, N.C. – The City of Durham’s Department of Public Works is beginning the first step in a new trail connection from the Southside/St. Theresa neighborhood to the American Tobacco Trail.
A new ramp is to be constructed connecting the American Tobacco Trail to Apex Street. The demolition of the Apex Street Bridge is the second component of this project and will take place following completion of the ramp construction.
Due to this planned construction, a detour of the American Tobacco Trail is required between West Enterprise Street and Apex Street and will begin Tuesday, September 2, 2008. The detour will remain in place for approximately three weeks. According to the department, this detour is necessary for the relocation of an existing gas line associated with the Apex Street Bridge demolition.
Users of the American Tobacco Trail are asked to note that the trail will not be passable from West Enterprise Street north to Apex Street during this period and they will be required to use the detour. Signage providing directions to the detour will be posted on the trail.
This closure is the first of two scheduled closures of the American Tobacco Trail in this area. The second closure will be for the actual demolition of the Apex Street Bridge. Details regarding this second closure will be provided at a later date.
For additional information regarding this project, including a map of this scheduled detour, visit the City’s Web site at www.durhamnc.gov/departments/works/project_apex_bridge.cfm or contact Kyle Butler, civil engineer with the City’s Department of Public Works, at (919) 560-4326, extension 245 or via e-mail at kyle.butler@durhamnc.gov.
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from Bridging Rails to Trails, Carol Thomson
Brutal Bob and Dangerous Dave
Whack’em with the club, and aim for the mole hills. Personal best, 795.8m 1237.0m
First seen over at Urban Velo.
“Bike-u” journal chronicles local rider’s Trans-Am ride
While out filming this weekend I ran into Judy Martell, who this summer completed her Trans-America bike adventure. From Oregon to Colorado, she rode her locally-built recumbent for 31 continuous days to complete the final stage of a journey she began seven years ago. I last mentioned Martell in these pages in an Outspokin’ Cyclist column from 2005. Martell chronicles her Lewis and Clark-ian ride over at crazyguyonabike with a haiku and photo for every day of the ride.
I cross the threshold
that lies between when and now
and I begin to ride.
photo and haiku: Judy Martell Teton Range, Wyoming
Congrats Judy!
Powerbook screen problem
Anyone want to help me diagnose a computer problem?
The screen on my Apple Powerbook (15″, Aluminum) has recently started to flicker or scramble intermittently. Sometimes the flickering is preceded by patterned pixel discoloration — an odd “highlighting” of images with purple or green dots. Sometimes the flickering signals an imminent screen crash (although the computer stays up and running). All I can do when this happens is to put the laptop to sleep and put it aside for a few hours; then it may (or may not) wake up normal.
It looks like this…
Powerbook G4 screen problem from Phillip Barron on Vimeo.
I have feelers out in the Apple Support forum for Powerbook displays, but any other thoughts are appreciated.
the bus bike rack rap
I’ve gotten familiar with the bike rack on the front of TTA Triangle Transit buses over the last few years. Having bike racks on the front of all buses is a common sense move that many municipalities have made. In fact, when I travel somewhere and see that their city buses do not have bike racks (for many years, my hometown in SC was this way), I’m taken aback. Why not?
For a city, mounting bike racks on buses is one of the cheapest ways to expand multi-modal transportation options for residents. Bus-mounted bike racks invite people to ride to bus stops from distances greater than they will walk; it just makes bike commuting (and sometimes just taking that first step to start bike commuting) a little easier.
And for the Research Triangle Park — where the suburban landscape aesthetic meets Cold War-era privacy concerns in a sprawling, regional employment hub — Triangle Transit’s bike racks make it feasible to bus to work. Bikes help make busing more reasonable while buses with racks help make biking more reasonable — you might even say they work in tandem.
All local bus systems (Raleigh’s CAT, Chapel Hill Transit, and Durham’s DATA) also have bike racks. And they are of a style that most transit systems use. Easy to use and surprisingly secure (given how quickly you load and lock your bike), the racks allow you to bike even when, for reasons of health, time, etc, you can’t bike all the way.
But when I think back to my first attempt to load my bike on a bus (back on college), I remember it being a little awkward to figure out. I could have used a simple “how-to” before I pulled up and stared at the folded metal, wondering how to secure (at the time) my precious new mountain bike.
Looks like the Transit Authority of River City (TARC) of Louisville, KY had the same idea. Instead of merely demonstrating how easy it is to use (once you know where that release latch is), they’ve produced a video to teach you with style.
Mark Dessauer, Communications Director of Active Living by Design (seen here piloting the “bakfiet”), tells me that (TARC) is one of ALBD’s grantees. To encourage folks to try the bus system, TARC put together this instructional. “The project director (Mamma Jamma aka Nina Walfoort) wrote the lyrics, the rapper is a bus mechanic, and the dancers are bus drivers,” says Dessauer. “It was cheap to make and is a big hit locally.”
Enjoy.
Triangle Transit? DATA? Who’s next?
free tickets to Obama’s town hall meeting in Raleigh
Nancy and I have had two extra tickets to Tuesday’s Town Hall with Barack Obama. At the Exposition Center on the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, Obama will be speaking, in a town hall format, about the economy. Tickets are free, but had to be picked up ahead of time.
According to the tickets…
Tuesday, August 19th
Doors open at 4:30pm.
Program begins at 6:30pm.
Entry through gates 11 & 9.
Email me (and be prepared to pick up the tickets from me in RTP) if you’re interested. Contact information is on the About page. The tickets are spoken for; they went fast.
UPDATE: Photos
Duke trike
Find more videos like this on Duke Digital Initiative
Duke Engineering students Irene Tseng and Derek Juang recently won a student design contest sponsored by the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA). Their project was a shoulder-steered tricycle for a boy with TAR syndrome, which results in very short arm length.
Quake City Rumble
XLR8R TV, in conjunction with Revision3, has a new video of this year’s Fourth of July weekend Quake City Rumble. Using footage from the race, the video explores the phenomenon of alleycats generally. Highlights include an odd pedal-powered playground ride, kid-bike tandem race, and a demo on how to elude the police (hint, go slow). I had fun riding the hills of LA on my fixed gear bike, but I can’t imagine tackling San Francisco with one magic gear ratio.
Bike Emory: students encouraged to bike the campus
In the Autopia of the east coast, another university encourages students to adopt bikes as daily transportation.
Emory University, in suburban Atlanta, is launching Bike Emory — a program offering a full line of new Fuji bikes to students at discounted purchase prices. Unlike Duke and UNC’s bike-share programs, Bike Emory equips students with their own bike. And unlike Ripon College’s Velorution project, Emory students have to buy their own.
The partnership with Fuji, who in turn has developed something it calls Fuji University, bodes well for the future of bicycles in academia. Bicycles have historically been disproportionately represented as valid transportation options on US college campuses (compared to the post-college lifestyle). Now, if universities could find a way to encourage students to adopt life-long cycling habits.
Colleges peddle bikes to car-loving students
Associated Press - August 10, 2008 2:04 PM ET
ATLANTA (AP) - Emory University hopes to make a bicycle the must-have back-to-school accessory this fall.
Emory is selling discounted bicycles to students and faculty, adding bike lanes to campus roads and stocking bikes that can be borrowed for free.
The university in Atlanta is pushing its $250,000 “Bike Emory” initiative, launched a year ago, in hopes of convincing students and faculty that the eco-friendly bikes are a better alternative to gas-guzzling vehicles.
While students still prefer cars, cycling already has a foothold at many colleges, where hefty parking fees, sprawling campuses and limited roads make it tough to travel.
For more about Bike Emory or Fuji University, click here.
CHANGE
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