seaway at sunset

img_8316.jpgimg_8325.jpg 

another cycling-friendly candidate for Lt. Governor, Dan Besse

After profiling Hampton Dellinger, a candidate for Lieutenant Governor, as a Bull City Biker, several readers encouraged me to contact Dan Besse. Besse is also a candidate for the second-in-command position, and he has a good reputation in certain bicycling circles for the work he’s done to extend Winston-Salem’s greenway system.

Dan BesseI offered to profile him as an honorary Bull City Biker — honorary because Besse, 53, prefers Triads to Triangles and running shoes to clipless shoes.

Bike(s) you own and ride regularly: I’m mainly a runner–but at any given time I try to have an old used “clunker” on hand.  Ironically, I don’t mind pedaling harder so that I don’t have to take the trouble to deal with multiple gears.

What’s your primary flavor of riding? Exercise and short trips.  Mostly on the street.

What’s the length and frequency of your average ride?  Highly irregular.  My biking goes up when my knee is acting up, and my running mileage perforce comes down.

Why did you start riding and why do you still ride? As a kid I walked or biked everywhere for fun and independence.  Now, it’s great exercise.

What’s the most unusual thing you’ve seen while out for a ride? Well, there was the day when I rode out of town about 30 miles only to realize that my smooth swift ride was with benefit of a stiff tailwind.  On the way back, I saw 30 miles expand to about 300–or so it seemed.

How would your world be different if you wake up tomorrow and there are no more cars? It would be time to buy a better tire pump.

What’s one thing Durham could do to become more bike friendly?  Marked bike lanes on more roads.

What will you do as Lt. Governor to make bicycling a more viable transportation option in North Carolina? I’ll be happy to help push the state legislature and DOT to boost funding for bicyling projects.  I’ll also press them to follow through on the policy of including pedestrian and bicycling features on every project where practical.  A more aggressive state program to link cities and towns via greenways with multi-purpose paths is needed as well.  (Expanding our greenway system has been a particular project of mine for years.)

As a Winston-Salem City Council member and a leader in regional transportation efforts, I am seeing increasing attention to alternative transit efforts–and I am doing my best to continue this trend.  We should increase cooperation between local and state levels in implementing biking-friendly programs and development planning.  Planning and policies which include walkable/bikable communities and transit-oriented development should be linked to state transportation funding.

Tailwinds to both Dan Besse and Hampton Dellinger’s campaigns.

It’s refreshing to have candidates running who recognize that a bicycle is more than a child’s toy. Given the rising price of gas, a state known for sprawl, and a relentless war fought over oil, it’s perhaps not surprising that cycling (as a transportation alternative to single-occupant driving) is a political issue. Nonetheless, NC DOT still behaves as an extension of the automotive industry, and putting some progressive leadership in the Governor’s and Lieutenant Governor’s offices will provide some needed redirection in setting transportation priorities.

Early voting started this morning and runs through May 3rd. If you’re not registered to vote, you can register and vote (through early voting only) all at once — Durham County calls it One-Stop Voting. Early voting/One-Stop Voting locations in Durham are:

Durham County Board of Elections
706 West Corporation Street
Monday to Saturday, 9AM to 5:30PM.

North Carolina Central University
Parish Center Meeting Room, formerly Holy Cross Catholic Church,
1400 South Alston Road
Monday to Saturday, 9AM to 5:30PM.

North Regional Library
221 Milton Road
Monday to Saturday, 9AM to 5:30PM.

And the primary is May 6th.

Asheville’s bike racks

Below are two photos of Asheville’s city-wide bike rack design. The racks range in size (width) from supporting six bikes to two, each with an “ordinary” on top. While these are not the most functional design for bike racks, they are beautiful, well-used (it was rare to see one without a bike locked to it), and complement the sense of history and community that downtown Asheville imbues.img_7938.png
outside the Battery Park Hotel

img_7945.png
outside the Orange Peel

Dale McKeel, Durham’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Coordinator, says that installation of Durham’s city-wide bike racks begins tomorrow, April 8th. Read more about Durham’s City Racks program here.

Asheville’s Citizen-Times Editorial: Greenway benefits surely outweigh the costs

Editorial, Asheville Citizen-Times
published March 4, 2008

Buncombe County’s plans for a series of greenways promises benefits to residents and visitors that will more than outweigh the costs.

Whether used for recreation or to get to work, school, shopping or some other destination, outdoor pathways for walking, jogging and riding bicycles give people the opportunity to enjoy the natural beauty of the county’s mountain vistas while garnering the benefits of healthy exercise.

The need for parks and greenways increases as the county’s population grows and previously open spaces are gobbled up for development. Ironically, as the demand is increasing, so is the cost to buy land to create such facilities.

But, as we have noted previously, it’s not too much of a stretch to argue that money spent on parks is money saved in health care and law enforcement costs.

Health benefits

Studies have found that in a greener environment (more parks and opportunities for recreational activities) people report fewer health complaints and more often rate themselves as being in good health and as having good mental health. With 57 percent of Buncombe County residents overweight or obese, the need for places to participate in healthy physical exercise is undeniable.

Studies also have produced evidence that young people who live in communities rich in recreational opportunities experience less risk of anti-social behavior and higher rates of positive development.

Greenways, like parks, help build strong communities. Residents living near public green spaces report being more familiar with their nearby neighbors, socializing with them more and feeling safer than residents with no nearby green areas.

Devoting tax dollars to greenways not only improves residents’ lives, it may well save them money and grief in the long run.

Time is now

The county manages a number of parks, but doesn’t maintain any greenways. Fortunately, commissioners appear to recognize that it’s time to remedy that.

Commissioner David Young said parks and greenways spur economic growth.

“Companies are looking at what quality of life you have and how healthy your citizens are,” Young said. “It makes our community a more livable place for our citizens and those who want to come here.”

With the constantly rising cost of health insurance, it’s easy to understand why companies might look at whether a community’s residents are generally healthier than average before deciding to locate there.

Exercise access

Lower obesity rates correlate with “having things within walking or biking distance and having safe and direct ways to get there,” Kelly Evenson, who teaches epidemiology at UNC Chapel Hill and specializes in the effects of physical activity, told a Citizen-Times reporter recently.

“The one consistent voice I’ve heard from the community is that people want more parks, greenways and trails, and I think as leaders we have to find ways to make that happen,” Commissioner David Gantt said.

Planning for a system of county greenways is still in the early stages, so no cost estimates for the purchase of easements have been created.

Gantt said he’d like to see the county hire someone to seek grant funding and partnerships for greenway development. Doing so could move the process of developing a plan, acquiring easements and constructing the greenways forward more quickly.

As with the City of Asheville’s greenway plans, timing is critical.

Development in the region continues to move at a brisk pace. As more land is developed and prices rise, there will be less and less opportunity to create greenways and contiguous trails at an affordable cost.

We commend commissioners for recognizing the need for greenways and the benefits they would bring. We urge them to move forward with all due haste.

The Outspokin’ Cyclist: Durham man to pedal for peace across Israel

Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun

When Martin Luther King said that true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice, he had in mind the idea that lasting, real peace is possible only when we actively take responsibility for it.

Marv Axelrod is tired of hearing promises of peace in the Middle East only to be later disappointed by the dissolution of dialogue. He’s tired of all the news coming out of Israel being about conflict.

Axelrod is not someone who complains about something he is not willing to help solve. “I want to do something rather than just sit around and wait for someone else to fix it,” says the seventy-two year old.

This May, he is planning to pedal a bicycle three hundred miles across the Negev Desert in Israel to promote peace. While he has never ridden a bike in desert conditions before, Axelrod is a busy man by anyone’s standards.

When he retired from the New York City board of education fourteen years ago, a friend told Axelrod that the key to growing older would be to remain active.

The high school English teacher moved to Durham and quickly got involved in his new community. In the time he’s lived here, Axelrod has taught ESL courses through Durham Tech and Duke’s Continuing Education program, has made presentations for the Durham Arts Council, he has taught English in Latin America, he performs for retirement homes with the Village Players, and writes articles for the Menorah, the monthly newspaper of the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation.

“I also do programs for the Carolina Health And Humor Association (HAHA),” says Axelrod. “It’s Jewish humor. It’s stand up comedy; but sometimes I get tired and sit down.”

axelrod.jpgFrank Ferrell of Ninth Street Bakery thinks he first met Axelrod the way he meets many people: when Axelrod came in to Ferrell’s shop as a customer. “We have a similar sense of humor,” says Ferrell, “and he’s raising money for a good cause.” Ferrell has pitched in to help Axelrod meet his fundraising goal of $3600.

Riding his bike this summer is a way to keep moving, too, to remind others that age is not a barrier to staying active, Axelrod says.

He’s been a cyclist since he got his first bike, his uncle’s heavy Schwinn with a horn on the handlebars, when he was Bar Mitzvahed at thirteen. As he grew older, he developed a taste for longer rides. After retiring in New York and moving to North Carolina, he completed both the MS150 and the Ride Across NC in the late 90s.

He’s no stranger to riding a bike in a foreign land — he and his wife have biked around Holland, Spain, and Nicaragua — but he’s never had to raise so much money nor felt so committed to the cause.

The 2008 Israel Ride is a fully supported benefit ride, raising money for the Arava Institute. Arava is an academic, environmental studies and leadership institute situated in the Negev Desert. The institute welcomes Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and other Arab students and researchers to study regional environmental issues. “If peace is possible in the Middle East, then we have to work together,” says Axelrod. “If people can come together, survive in the desert, learn how to get the desert to bloom and desalinate water, then there can be peace.”

For more information

Israel Ride
http://www.israelride.org

Arava Institute
http://www.arava.org/

To support Axelrod, you can donate through the Israel Ride website (choose Sponsor a Rider and search Marv Axelrod’s name) or send a check payable to the Arava Institute to:

Marv Axelrod
116 Brook Lane
DURHAM, 27712

bad ass bike rack

bike-rack.jpg

Bike rack in a shopping plaza parking lot, Columbia, SC.

snow

Twelve hours of snowfall in Ontario.
January 1st, 2008

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS: Durham Parks and Rec plans trip for bikers

Durham Parks and Rec is organizing a road trip for cyclists. See details below.

Come spend a leisurely fall day riding the Virginia Creeper Trail with Durham Parks and Rec Adventure Programs staff. Appropriate for participants ages 10 and up (minors must be accompanied by parent/guardian) this wide, smooth reclaimed rail bed trail offers a scenic tour of Southwest Virginia. After the ride, we’ll take our well-earned appetites to one of the affordable, eclectic restaurants in town and get some rest that night, cross-country cyclist style, in an adventure traveler’s hostel. The next morning we’ll cook a hearty breakfast and spend some time exploring one of the many legendary trails that are in walking distance from our hostel. This is a great opportunity to see Blue Ridge fall colors and stay in “Trail City, USA”.

Program Dates: Saturday-Sunday, October 27-28 (depart on Saturday at 8 a.m. and return on Sunday afternoon). Cost: $130.00 and includes the bike rental, tour, lodging and all meals except Saturday dinner.

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS

  • Ride the Virginia Creeper Bike Trail
  • Stay in an adventure traveler’s hostel
  • See the fall colors in a unique way
  • No prior mountain biking experience is necessary!

Email: jordan.doctor@durhamnc.gov for information about signing up.

About Durham Parks and Recreation

Durham Parks and Recreation provides opportunities for the Durham community to “Play More.” The department strives to help citizens discover, explore and enjoy life through creative and challenging recreational choices that contribute to their physical, emotional and social health. To learn more about Parks and Recreation, visit http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/parks.

NYTimes: A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes

The New York Times ran an article over the weekend on New York DOT’s plan to road diet Ninth Avenue. A road diet is when transportation officials redesign an existing street by shrinking the number of auto lanes, making room for bicycle and other alt-transit lanes. The idea is that officials can insert new bike lanes without needing to widen a road — a practice useful in areas where roads cannot be widened.

Locally, Durham used the road diet technique on Duke University Dr. to create its new bike lane. (seen at right)

What’s unusual about in this New York example is that it’s what you might call an extreme road diet. From a 70ft-wide street, 18ft are being repurposed. 10ft adjacent to the sidewalk will become a new, broad bike lane. Then, an 8ft buffer zone with planters and bollards will separate the bike lane from a 10ft parking lane. The result is that cyclists will enjoy complete separation from the swift current of automobile traffic flowing down Ninth Ave.

How bikes will negotiate intersections is my only question, but I am assuming that the bike lane will be signaled just as the auto-traffic lanes. It’s an interesting idea and one that works in Europe. We’ll see how well it works in NYC. While we don’t really have streets in Durham wide enough to justify this kind of intervention, I am eager to see how New Yorkers (particularly the folks from Transportation Alternatives) respond to the new lane design.

A Busy City Street Makes Room for Bikes
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
Published: September 23, 2007
Cyclists and pedestrians never quite imagined it this way, but maybe there is a use for all those cars after all. The city is planning to remake seven blocks of Ninth Avenue in Chelsea into what officials are billing enthusiastically, perhaps a bit hyperbolically, as the street of the future.

Read more.

Construction is not yet complete (neither planters nor structurally significant bollards are in place), but you can get a sense of the design here.

Analysis and diagrams at Streetsblog and Gothamist.

Duke, UNC both offer students collective bikes

Duke

Duke Bikes Grand Opening (from a press release)

Join fellow Duke students, faculty and staff for the grand opening of the new Duke Bikes program this Thursday, August 30th, 4pm on the West Campus Plaza. Snacks, free Duke Bikes t-shirts and other prizes will be given away to the first 100 visitors.

Duke Bikes is a new bike-loan program for Duke undergraduate, graduate and professional students. This collaborate effort provides students with no-cost options for exercise, adventure and campus commuting. It is a tangible example of several of Duke’s efforts to enhance the student experience and promote sustainability.

Duke Bikes works much like checking out a library book. All you need is your DukeCard. The loan period is up to five days, and the bike fleet includes 1-speed and 3-speed Trek Cruisers, equipped with locks, lights, flashers and baskets. Helmets are available, too.

More Info
http://transportation.duke.edu/bikes
(919) 724-6417

Tavey McDaniel Capps
Environmental Sustainability Coordinator
Office of the Executive Vice President
Duke University
tavey.mcdaniel@duke.edu
919-660-1434

Carolina

Blue Urban Bikes (from the SURGE website)
Thursday, 05 April 2007

Blue Urban Bikes is a community bike-loan project serving the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro community and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The mission of Blue Urban Bikes is to provide a reliable, clean, and affordable mode of transportation for our community amidst rising gas prices and growing concerns over global warming.

Background

Blue Urban Bikes ( or “BUB”), a community bicycle loan program, was created through a partnership of the ReCYCLEry and SURGE – Students United for a Responsible Global Environment – after several meetings with local community leaders in 2005 gave rise to the idea. This program is designed to provide a reliable source of clean and affordable sustainable transportation to Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents and visitors, as well as offer a healthy travel alternative and allow citizens to take an active role in lessening the environmental footprint of our community. Chapel Hill and Carrboro are renowned for their bicycle-friendly status, and bicycling proves to be an ideal form of transportation for many community members. Considering the time it often takes to find a parking space, riding a bike simply takes less time and leaves the rider feeling strong, able and healthy. Potential BUB users include Chapel Hill/Carrboro residents, UNC students and staff, commuters, transit and park & ride users, area tourists and visitors, recreational weekend users, and potential new bicycle commuters.

carolina_blue.jpgBUB Hub Locations

The BUB program goal is to site “BUB Hubs”, check-out stations for the Blue Urban Bikes, at local businesses throughout Carrboro and Chapel Hill and on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. Each BUB Hub will accommodate 5 bikes, or “BUBs.” Bike racks, provided through the BUB program, will be installed at hub locations to secure the BUBs when not in use (each locked to the rack with its own cable lock). The program goal is to locate BUB Hubs along the Franklin Street/Main Street corridor from East Chapel Hill to the western edge of Carrboro, as well as to place some north/south hub locations for member convenience. The Blue Urban Bikes program is seeking partnerships with local businesses for hub locations; the following sites have already been confirmed:

* Skylight Exchange – 405 ½ W Rosemary St, Chapel Hill
* 3Cups Coffeeshop – 431 W Franklin St, Chapel Hill
* Townsend & Bertram - 200 N Greensboro St, Carrboro (in Carr Mill Mall)
* Back Alley Bikes - 108 N Graham St, Chapel Hill (behind the Merch)
* Owens 501 Diner - 1500 N Fordham Blvd, Chapel Hill (near Eastgate Shopping Center)

Contacts

Alison Carpenter, SURGE: 919-960-6886 or alison@surgenetwork.org
Chris Richmond, ReCYCLEry: 919-932-1335 or chris@recyclery.info

More information is available online at www.recyclery.info/blue_urban_bikes

Paris

Paris recently launched its own collective bikes program — one of the most ambitious programs to date. More than 10,000 bikes became available in July, with more than 20,000 slated to be available by the end of the year. You can read more about it here or watch the video below to see some folks take the Parisian velos for a test ride.

Next Page →